Of Blogs and Truths and Other Things

When I read my messages this morning, someone had sent me an entertaining suggestion for the best route to the truth. They are of the opinion that the UNCG police department either doesn't have the guns I wrote about yesterday and/or that it is not so out of the ordinary if they do since we are post-Columbine, post-VA Tech. In either case, they suggested that my blog post wasn't accurate and that I had been lax because:

"You could have asked the department to get the (updated) facts. "

While I am deeply appreciative of their efforts to get me the facts, something I am always trying to have a handle on, they have hit on exactly the problem. Asking questions here does not get you answers. I have spent years asking questions and the difficult is that I NEVER get answers. There are so many incidences where simple facts could smooth out any number of apparently gordian knots and yet, information is guarded as if it is a dangerous commodity, not to be trusted in the hands of the little people. 

The person who wrote was a graduate of UNCG and, I have to admit, an excellent writer. They quote (from a source I could not identify) that the six weapons in question were M-16 rifles that were given to them for free as part of the Law Enforcement Support Services and that they don't have them anymore:

"The 'found that the surplus weapons did not meet' their 'needs because of their overall length and began phasing them out for more suitable ones. Those six weapons were transferred to another North Carolina law enforcement agency and are no longer in' their 'possession.'"

If that is a statement made by someone on the UNCG police to a concerned citizen, then they are certainly not using the same spokesperson as the rest of the university, because even the simplest question gets a resounding 'no comment' slapped on it here. 

However, I'm still confused because the rebuttal states that the weapons were free whereas the documents obtained by the Marshall Project show a cost of just under $3,000. 

I am glad to hear they don't have them any more...if that's actually the case. I don't know a lot about guns and the response references M-16 rifles while the information from the pentagon references a 5.56 millimeter rifle - those might be exactly the same thing for all I know since the M-16 shoots 5.56 mm ammunition and holds 30 rounds as in the pentagon description. 

The UNCG police department has administration and it has staff, just like any other organization. At its helm has been a chief perfectly willing to arrest UNCG employees for failing to be as sneaky as those they worked for. I don't think a little extra inspection of their other decisions and processes is unwarranted.

And for those of you still hung up on my failure to be a journalist, your corrections and information are always welcome, but remember: this is a blog. 

Feel free to start your own.

Arming UNCG Police

We've seen signs of the militarization of the campus atmosphere, no surprise since our egregious leader for the last seven years comes from a military background and has the paranoia of a central American dictator. There have been canine units at tunnel openings, uniformed officers at silent vigils, and obvious police presence at board of trustees and faculty senate meetings.

The UNCG police arrested three of our fellow employees after an investigation that made the LA police/Simpson case look positively subtle. The UNCG police drew guns and assaulted a student trying to hang a banner. The UNCG police have a history of racial disparity in their traffic stops.

But never fear: now we're heavily arming them.

Recently, our little university police department was the recipient of six 5.56 millimeter rifles as part of a pentagon surplus program.

Six.

UNCG Police purchased 6 of these
5.56 millimeter rifles

I'm having a hard time imagining any situation that could be improved by this kind of firepower in the hands of a university police department. Who do they think our population is? Students, staff, and faculty are not an invading army, we are the body of the university.

I find it interesting that I am accused of potentially inciting violence but no mention has been made nor alarm raised about the possession of semi-automatic weapons capable of holding a 30 round detachable magazine whose major bragging point is "lower recoil and better accuracy providing higher 2nd shot hit probability."

When did these become necessary items to have lying around a university police department?

I mean, sure, they were a bargain at $2,994 and it is hard to resist a sale, but isn't there ANYTHING better on which that money could be spent? You mean to tell me that we were willing to pay $3,000 on semi-automatic weapons but we couldn't scrape it together to offer another section of freshman English (and at a savings!)

Wait, we spent more money on high powered rifles than the UNCG3 allegedly stole.

Faculty in departments across campus are having the phone lines cut off in their offices...but we have this money to buy assault weapons?

Everybody on campus can imagine something that desperately needed fixing, upgrading, or purchase - and now everybody on campus can know that the decision was made, instead, to buy big guns for our little police department.

I know the new chancellor is getting a significant pay raise and some nicer digs, but I didn't realize that s/he was going to need this kind of protection from the unwashed masses.

Do you think it's too late to send these back for a refund?

Artists Make Lousy Slaves

Last week my Nanna died.

On her fridge, she had a magnet that said, "Artists make lousy slaves."

Nanna was an extraordinary artist. And she would have made a terrible slave.

She left the world more beauty than it had when she found it. There was so much of her that inspired me and more that inspires me still.

I say not in grief, "she is no more,"
but live in thankfulness that she was.

And the most fitting tribute I can imagine is unwork any ties created to hold our wings.

SuperChancellor and The Zink Take On: Timmy or Something (Episode 420,092b)

(crowd gathers and then begins pointing upwards and murmuring. Finally, a little boy yells out)

Look! Up in the sky!

It’s a bird!

It’s a plane!!

It’s a secret chancellor candidate!!!

(*cue theme music*)

I guess since it has been said that the faculty and staff at UNCG are looking for a superhero in the next chancellor that it only makes sense that they have a secret alter ego. Maybe they come to UNCG in the uniform of a groundskeeper but then, the call goes out, (alarm blaring: woooooohaaa woooooohaaaa)

Could groundskeeper Willie be our
next leader??

It’s an…emergency executive brunch!

Suddenly, the mild mannered, glasses wearing groundskeeper dashes into the handicapped stall and changes into:

The Chancellor (dynamic music).

Who is it? It could be anybody! Well, not really anybody. I mean, they probably won’t ever have been connected with UNCG before. And they will surely have done something magnificent to deserve the $100k raise over Brady’s pay. And they can fly.

But most importantly, they have courage! The courage to hide their identity …and…and…

Did I mention they can fly?

Never fear! Surely, by doing exactly the same thing that we did last time, we will have completely different results this time. I don’t see why we wouldn’t. Isn’t that one of the primary things that faculty have learned from doing research? Same method = different results. Or something like that, I wasn’t really paying attention the last time they explained it to me. It’s hard to listen when they keep going on and on and on about ‘transparency’ and ‘deep wounds to the UNCG community’. I mean, really.

Where was I?

Oh yes – With the speed of an interoffice memo requiring three levels of signatures for approval, The Secret Chancellor is on the scene. And little Timmy is rescued from the well.

Unfortunately, the budget was also cut by 4%...but Timmy, look! He’s out of the well.

Oh no.

Oops.

The Chancellor’s Sidekick “The Zink” has mistaken Timmy for an enemy because of his grubby face and ‘urban’ clothing and is pelting him with gift baskets.

Oh well. They tried and that’s what really counts right? Besides, Timmy was asking for it. And they didn’t do it. And it wasn’t their fault.

And so, another peaceful day on UNCG’s campus draws to a close as The Chancellor once again dons the uniform of an ordinary groundskeeper and The Zink wanders off, looking confused, to hand address envelopes.

All is quiet once again. Or is it?? (ominous music leading to credits)

Stay tuned folks, next week we’ll watch The Chancellor handle the thin line between technically correct and The Outright Lie!

(all resemblances to people living or dead is simply bizarre.)

Jan Zink Advances Backwards

I guess managing an extra five people turned out to be too much for dear Jan “Basket Queen” Zink. But her reign was not without accomplishments, of course. It’s just that I can’t think of any of them. I’m sure something will come to me.

[Note: accomplishments to be listed here just as soon as they become clear]

She managed, in her brief tenure, to drive away Lanita Goins further reducing the skeleton crew of university relations refugees. Rumor has it that even the birds stopped singing and several typefaces left the university in protest.

She’ll probably be sad to give up Betsi Robinson’s old office as I hear she had converted it into a humidor for her extensive collection of Cuban cigars. I could be wrong though.

Meanwhile, we’ve received James Thornton to egregiously chancellorate us through the next six months. He may be a lovely person, I have no idea, but I guess by comparison, how bad could he possibly be? And, after all, with his expertise in fundraising, he may just make Zink even more redundant than she already was.

And, at the very least, Thornton wins some sort of prize for the speed with which he updated his LinkedIn profile to reflect his new position. Elsewhere, LinkedIn is littered with the former connections of our least beloved who, despite continuing to be unemployed (and unemployable) have failed to remove their “Vice Chancellor of X” designations. Of course, I’m not sure “layabout” or “disgruntled claimant” really has the cache they were hoping for.

I hope Zink recognizes that this is the signal heralding closure of her time at UNCG. She’s not long in her old position either as the word ‘advancement’ couldn’t be used to describe anything she has conjured into being since arriving on our doorstep and since she has been here for slightly over two administrator years, that’s nearly a lifetime of employment in human years.

To put all of this into context, I turn to Joe “Golden Tongue” Gallehugh who, in an effort to capture the subtleties of the complex organism that is the university, said: “No comment.”

I propose a basket of ice as a parting gift and directions to Seth Cohen’s office should she find anything about her exit confusing.

UNCG's Big Bang

If what Edna Chun says is true, that she was pressured into revealing names that should have been kept confidential and that she was working in a hostile work environment, doesn’t that demonstrate that A. there are significant problems in HR with confidentiality and B. She doesn’t know how to address the very situations for which she was hired? So, she has admitted failure (revealing names) and incompetence (inability to address a hostile work environment). I wouldn’t think she’d need a lot more than that to explain why she was fired.

And what about Benita Peace in all of this? It would seem to me that since Chun has been sent packing, Peace should be pushing things into a suitcase too. If Chun has been fired for the reasons that the university would like to provide as legal reasons for non-renewal (as opposed to because she was Asian and 68). After all, the main difference between Chun and Peace then seems to be age (Peace is 59, Chun 68) and race (Peace is African-American, Chun is Asian-American).

In which case, Chun is correct, she was treated differently and is being dismissed as a result of race and age.

I’m sorry, I think I just opened up a wormhole in the universe.

Let me see if this still makes sense:

Either, Chun was fired because of failure and incompetence which means that Peace should be fired too.

Or, she was fired because of her race and age, which would be demonstrated by Peace having not been fired.

So…UNCG should either fire Peace or admit to racism and ageism…which sounds like a HR problem…and should definitely lead to some lost jobs for their supervisors as the very things for which they were ostensibly fired (failure and incompetence.) Which might mean that Charlie Maimone should be fired (and he’s white, so that would truly demonstrate that the firings weren’t about race…I haven’t the foggiest idea how old he is). If he isn’t fired, it must be because Chun is lying…a perfectly good reason to fire her.

Ouch, my head hurts.

Add to that, though, the fact that when Chun was fired from her position in HR at Broward, she filed a grievance claiming discrimination AND she was fired because of claims of discrimination.

This is a twisted mess.

I wouldn’t be surprised if even Stephen Hawking wouldn’t be able to explain UNCG’s Big Bang.

Hope Springs Eternal

We at UNCG have had very high hopes for our Provost (and current acting Chancellor) Dana Dunn and for Charlie Maimone, the Vice Chancellor of Business Affairs.

There have been a series of "unfortunate" events...

Other than Dunn’s spate of hysterics at the last faculty meeting in which she apparently mistook me for a character from Lemony Snicket, she generally seems to be much more reasonable than the cabal of cronies with which we have been burdened for the last seven years. People on campus still seem genuinely hopeful that she represents a kinder, gentler administration and I hope they are right.

The same sort of hopefulness was floating in the air in regards to Charlie Maimone (despite the unfortunate possibilities present when rhyming his name with “My Money”). His first strike was a vote for a totally closed search, in direct contrast to the hybrid model for which the faculty senate had unanimously voted. However, he quickly fell of the radar again amid the fireworks being set in the rest of the executive administration.

Only now, with Edna Chun’s summary dismissal and her complaint is his name rising to the surface again.

The jury is out. Chun says he created a hostile work environment and labels him as “instrumental” in the firings of Carpen, Wilson, & English (the UNCG3). Now, that’s a new twist in the plot, isn’t it?

Is this a woman desperately clawing at others as she falls from grace? Or is there something more here that needs attention?

Shockingly, Maimone has not responded to the allegations (probably he has received coaching from UNCG’s spokesperson extraordinaire Joe“no comment” Gallehugh.)

In the same allegations, Paul Mason continues to look like the bull in the china shop that everybody already knew he was, but now somebody has actually said it out loud (or in print, which is as loud as we need).  This is the first time that anybody in the upper administration at UNCG has admitted that there might have just been even the tiniest bit of wrongdoing on Mason’s part.

Those left standing in upper admin and on the board of trustees at UNCG have been repeatedly told that there needs to be some truthtelling in order for there to be reconciliation. Generally, the response has been to clamp down completely (for example, to date, the letter that faculty member Hannah Mendoza wrote to the BoT has gone unanswered).

It looks like the truth is going to come out no matter what. The only question remaining is: how badly do they want to be part of the reconciliation?

The first step to forgiveness is admitting that you have a problem.

We’re all ears.