As Adele Says: Rumor Has It

Word on the street is that Sherri MacCheyne is looking for a new job. She just graduated with some sort of degree, so maybe it’s time for her to move on. Or, maybe it’s just difficult for her to walk around a campus filled with people who know that she would sell them out sooner than look at them. I’ve always believed in the possibility of a fresh start. I’m sure there are any number of people who would be willing to give her a recommendation – I would hope after all she’s done for Paul Mason he at least has the dignity to serve as a reference.

It is going to have an impact on the shape of leadership at UNCG, however because Sherri was selected to participate in UNCG’s LeadershipInstitute, something others had wanted to have the benefit of but were told they couldn’t because of their SPA status, and now, she might not even be around to finish it. Sherri is an SPA employee as well, but, as we all know by now, she’s special.

Brady’s take on the Leadership Institute is that its purpose is, “to promote a culture of excellence and inclusion.” I think we can all get behind those values and I’d suggest that maybe Brady should consider going through the program during her year off with full pay. I don’t think she’ll be doing any more leading anytime soon, but it might help her to understand so much of what she has been experiencing over the last six years at UNCG. Her final project could be a letter of apology.

It’s not all bad news though, Brady has promised that there will be a letter indicating that no further property acquisition outside of the boundaries outlined in the 2010 Revised Vision Plan.

Although I know it can be a bit difficult to get excited about the promise of a forthcoming letter indicating that UNCG might not do any more damage than it already planned to do, but we have to consider how low the bar has been set. Brady also will most likely not kill or eat anybody prior to her retirement either. So, there’s that.

On another note, I sent my previous post regarding Funk’s contact with two hiring scandals on to his offices. Several hours later a comment appeared suggesting that I had mischaracterized the issue at FSU and that the piece I wrote did not constitute particularly stellar journalism. So as to not misrepresent what the commenter wrote, I reproduce it here in its entirety:

As far as the FSU search, a pretty gross mischaracterization. Funk emailed the board warning them they were conducting a "sham" search and urged them to vote yes or no on Thrasher without the façade of a search. And to compare the impact of a firm that just placed the President at Ohio State to that of Katrina..... Frankly it makes me curious to know whether your efforts are directed at riling up a faculty and poisoning the well or even anything close to a legitimate effort at journalism of any sort. Solid selective headline reading research, though! 
Hopefully this isn't representative of all your work.

I do respect the sarcasm (there’s everything but a smiley face emoticon at the end of the first paragraph!) A closer reading of my post would reveal that I had not compared the firm to Katrina but rather had suggested that vague language such as “enormous impact” does not necessarily indicated “positive impact.”

I also do have to admit that I did not read every single article ever written about both searches. Instead, I read many of them, found that after a while apparently different sources simply reprint verbatim what was written elsewhere, and so spoke directly to the people who I know at FSU and WVU about the circumstances and drew my conclusions. I have known about both of these issues, since they occurred and the only surprise to me when I first started investigating R. William Funk was that his was the firm that brought the universities these treasures.

Finally, I wanted to acknowledge that I am not a journalist. If I were, this would be a newspaper or some other form of news media. This is a blog and I am an advocate. I have a great deal of respect for journalists and do not want it to be thought that because I write a blog I fancy myself to be among them. That being said, I will issue one amendment to my previous post. I should have indicated that it was possible that Funk’s firm wasn’t guilty of back room dealings in bringing Thrasher to FSU, he might also have simply been a tool.

I’ll leave it up to him to decide which characterization he prefers and hope that he can prove himself to be neither in the search for UNCG’s new chancellor.

You Already Knew This, But...

I hate to be the bearer of bad news so early in 2015, but really it’s not new. Do you remember all those times that you kept working at UNCG even though you were told there was no money to give you a raise because you valued the community you belonged to and you knew we were all having to ‘tighten our belts’ to get through these ‘tough financial times’?

Well…It turns out there was plenty of money. There were a fair number of raises too. Some of them were really small – hardly enough to compensate for increases in health care co-pays. Some of them were pretty significant. The big raises went to those who needed them the least while the rest of us were left making less than we had the year before.

Laura Young, Associate Vice Chancellor for Business Affairs got a measly $2,500 raise. Of course, when you realize she was making $125,580 and went to $128,092 some of your sympathy might evaporate. During the same period, Jill Yesko, a public communication specialist also got a raise from $41,923 to $42,231 – doesn’t it seem like the $2,500 that Young got would have made a much bigger difference to someone like Yesko? Especially given that Yesko started only one year later than Young. After all, if we were all tightening our belts, why doesn’t the top have to tighten as much as the bottom?

Alan Boyette has seen his salary rise from $208,438 in 2008 to $221,486 in 2014. In other words his raise has been from ½ to 1/3 of the salary of many of the employees at UNCG.

Michael T. Byers, for being such a good friend and lackey during the first phase of the take over of Glenwood has moved from a comfortable $103,910 to $127,285 from 2008 – 2014. This was before deciding to jump ship as he watched the waters rise. Apparently, the work of Willie Brown, dedicated UNCG employee since 1999 wasn’t worth rewarding with more than a pittance in 2008 (less than $700) and yet Byers received a raise the size of Brown’s entire yearly salary.

Who is still here and working hard for UNCG? Willie Brown, of course. Byers leapt at an opportunity to get away before trouble started to rain down on his head for all the sleazy dealings in Glenwood. As Byers once said, “No matter how many showers I take, I just can’t get clean.” And that’s where we invested the university’s money. Why? Because that’s where the administration wanted to spend it.

We’ve been tightening our belts not because there isn’t any money but because this administration has decided that the people who do the work of UNCG, the ‘little people’ don’t deserve it. Instead they reserve it for lackeys and friends and as a way of buying the loyalty of those who are willing to sell it. This doesn’t mean that everyone who has gotten a raise has sold themselves. What it means is that every raise given is an attempt to buy that person. Some of that, I’ll have to address in a separate post when we look at who was cleared out by new managerial appointments under Brady (in other words…stay tuned.)

Of course, we’ve already seen the meteoric rise of Cheryl Callahan from the near starvation level salary of $140,000 per year to her current $188,181. It should come as no surprise then that she seems to have no idea either that students often have to take out loans in order to go to school at UNCG or how those loans might be structured. This is especially unfortunate given her position as Vice Chancellor of Student Affairs, but when asked at a meeting about student fees in regard to the new rec center, she was unable to offer even any embarrassment over her ignorance in that regard.

Now, the reason that I bring any of this up is because, as has been said by others before, education at UNCG is not under attack, it is up for sale. And if you are not willing or simply able to aide those who would sell it then you will not be treated kindly. The real ‘crime’ that the UNCG3, and the rest of those who suffered banishment from University Relations (as well as those cleared out of athletics and advancement), are being punished for is an inability to make villains appear to be heroes and an unwillingness to quietly submit to making a lie of all of the good that UNCG has been. Cheryl Callahan and Michael Byers had no such compunction.

The positions involuntarily vacated in University Relations are now being brought back into being, reclassified as EPA (Exempt from Personnel Act) which will make them that much easier to clear out should any new employees prove to have the same lack of moral flexibility that was demanded of those who previously held them.

Just as we are seeing struggles across the country by those working in minimum wage positions for reasonable pay and greater job security, those very basics are being cut out from under the feet of every employee at UNCG. And so, we lose those who are dedicated or we grind them into the dirt, while raising those who are willing to abandon their principles or unable to take the risk of refusing to participate.

This slide down must be addressed in order for it to be reversed. We can’t strike, but maybe we can slow down?

It’s just a thought.