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.

The Fight for a Living Wage

Across the country today, workers are joining the struggle for a living wage.

Why we seem so thoroughly convinced that universities shouldn’t get money from the state and yet seem perfectly content to let those same dollars subsidize the externalized costs of big companies is something tragic.

In any case, the reason I bring this up is because UNCG participates in this shameful low wage cabal. What I mean is that we aren’t all poor struggling to get by, UNCG just has some employees that it pays a pittance to and some who get fat raises at the same time.

For example, Tim Crews who has worked for UNCG for 19 years is employed full time for $10 an hour. If minimum wage had kept up with cost of living increases it would now be $18 an hour. So, we pay him only slightly more than half of what the absolute bare minimum pay should be.

After 25 years of loyal performance, Alice Courts only makes $23,762 a year. And she’s on the list of essential employees who must come to work at UNCG even when hazardous weather causes others to stay at home and the university to close.

Imogene Cathey, however, pulls in a handsome $85 an hour.

Jan Zink rakes in $137 per hour.

And they get to stay home.

UNCG has more than 200 full time employees earning less than $15/hour. Adjunct pay is shameful too.

Nancy Maree has been willingly teaching our students in the nursing program for 12 years and in return? She get $1,000. That’s all a class is worth? That’s all her expertise and insight are worth?

And, of course, the enormous raises given to those who already make more than they deserve continue to roll in. The execs get bigger salaries while the rest of us have to deal with nothing or fight among ourselves for scraps.

We are the workers.

We are the people.

We can do better.

Defining Data at UNCG or Looking for a Single Version of the Truth

First, I have to admit that the title is not mine. I have nicked it from a capstone project presentation created by Sherri MacCheyne (whose name may ring a bell).

You may remember Sherri for a variety of things, but the one relevant here is her selection to be a member of the 2015 class of the UNCG Leadership Institute. Setting aside the idea held by some that she should not have been included given her role in the UNCG3 scandal, the capstone project she created has been uploaded as a youtube video.

Ironically, the video (whose artistic merits I will not address here…as evidence of my compassionate character) begins by stating that a university has many versions of the truth, all of which are dependent upon a specific definition’s use. For example, asking the registrar’s office how many full time students are enrolled versus asking the financial aid office may yield different numbers. The narrator states:

“So you can see why it might be a little difficult to understand, to the outside world why these numbers are different and this could cause and this could cause the university to be viewed as either lying or not knowing what they are talking about. And this is a real problem.”

I heartily concur.

When the university is perceived by the public as either incompetent or deliberately misleading, we have a serious and profound problem on our hands, regardless of whether or not we believe those perceptions are accurate.

MacCheyne proposed as part of her project to make a list of these kinds of terms and create a single definition for them that could be used to communicate across the university so that we were all working with the same understanding.

Excellent!

So, for example:

My definition of a hostile work environment is one in which my boss deliberately attempts to intimidate me, yells at me, belittles me in front of others, makes me cry, and generally makes me feel worthless.

Edna Chun apparently defines a hostile work environment as only being one in which a white supervisor deliberately attempts to intimidate me, yells at me, belittles me in front of others, makes me cry, and generally makes me feel worthless only and specifically because of my minority status (ie not just because the supervisor is an asshole) AND I have filed an official complaint.

This might lead Edna Chun to answer the question: “Was there any evidence of a hostile work environment?” by saying, “No.” Whereas, I might have said, “Yes.” Thus leading people to believe two very different versions of the truth exist side by side. Sure a bit of clarification such as Chun stating that there were no “official complaints” or that the only ones who complained were white people and so it was not necessary to protect them might have made all the difference.

So you can see why working from a single definition might be extremely helpful both to those employed at the university and for those in whose eyes we hope to maintain a positive image.

You could almost say, “egregiously” so.

Almost.