Administrative Bloat: "The Coming Assault"

Over at National Review's "Phi Beta Cons" there is this short post (excerpt only) discussing Benjamin Ginsberg's The Fall of the Faculty: The Rise of the All-Administrative University:

"The raw numbers contained therein tell the story. “Forty years ago . . . the efforts of 446,830 professors were supported by 268,952 administrators and staffers. Over the past four decades, though, as the number of full-time professors increased slightly more than 50 percent . . . the number of administrators and administrative staffers employed by those schools increased by an astonishing 85 percent and 240 percent, respectively.”

"Although administration has burgeoned at both public and private institutions, the lion’s share of the growth has taken place in the latter."

Here is a critical review of the book (and its wider context) by NAS president Peter Wood (disclosure: I am an officer of the NAS).

HT: Glenn Ricketts

Climate Conspiracy: U.K., U.S. "ClimateGates" Call into Question Peer Review, Politics

My friends at NAS.org have posted on the “Climate Conspiracy” that broke when hackers revealed global warming scientists had apparently manipulated data, organized attacks on skeptics, and much more. Surprise, surprise.

The timing couldn’t be worse for those who would cripple economies with the plaintive cry: “Do as we say or we all die!” Worldwide there is growing skepticism about the benefits of micromanaging every aspect of daily life while measuring “carbon footprints.” The Wall Street Journal even contributed to this Nanny Project with a long piece measuring the carbon footprint of various common products. I was relieved to see that beer had the lowest carbon footprint.

How far have we gone when we decide whether or not it is “good for the planet” to drink beer? Now we must ask: Did German scientists manipulate the beer data to preserve their national beverage? (I'm kidding). It's a good cause(beer drinking) but who studies this stuff? And when is enough enough?

To read more, click here.

Big Brother and U, Part I: Is Your University Reading your Email?

For many years, I have fought restrictions on academic freedom. As President of the Illinois Association of Scholars, an affiliate of the National Association of Scholars (NAS), I deal with these issues across the state. As a historian I am researching the past record of civil liberties on college campuses.

In a word, I have lost my capacity to be shocked at what some will do to others within the Ivory Tower of higher education.

While the issues remain the same, the techniques used to restrict academic liberty change. It might be a new area of law (sexual harassment codes) or a new technology (should college libraries censor Internet content)?

This column deals with a new reality that shocks people when they find out that their university may be reading their email, watching their screen activity, or even punishing students, staff or faculty for what they write on Facebook.

Most people are shocked when they learn how vulnerable they are to electronic surveillance. Consider this a primer on learning the tactics of surveillance and how to avoid becoming a victim of it.

General advice: Assume that Big Brother is reading or watching everything you write on a campus computer or email account. Using a non-academic email account is wise (see next post) but does not provide 100% protection.

Case Studies:: here are some real examples of the problem:

*Campus email ends up as evidence in a recent lawsuit involving tenure and promotion. The email was up to TEN YEARS OLD. My campus, probably typical, archives all administrator email. The university policy toward non-administrator email is unknown (as IAS president, I will be sending out a questionnaire to all state universities asking this question, among others).

*Facebook censorship:: A student at Valdosta State criticized new student fees for the building of a parking garage on campus. He used his Facebook page to create a satirical collage criticizing the university administration's move to impose fees to build this garage. Result: The administration cited the Facebook page as evidence that the dissident student was a "clear and present danger" and banished him from campus. FIRE brought a lawsuit and immense publicity to bear on the university (including Youtube video, legislative lobbying, and a full-page ad in the U.S. News & World Report college rankings issue). The university finally admitted it was wrong, hired a new president, and apologized to the student.

*Michigan State retaliated against an undergraduate student leader for distributing a questionnaire via email to faculty asking for their responses to a new school calendar. The university had encouraged constituency input but did not like the student's criticism of the proposed calendar. By invoking the obscure campus networking policy, the university punished her for "spamming!" Her "crime" was distributing email to individuals without first asking their permission! If that is a crime, we are all guilty. Together with other groups, FIRE has taken her case. You can't make this stuff up.

*Rumors are flying on one Illinois campus that the general counsel is trying to track down "whistleblowers" who divulged information resulting in lawsuits that the university lost or settled. Institutions hate to be embarrassed and will (or might) take steps to spy on a P.I.T.A. (Pain in the Ass). Whether the rumors are founded or not, an ounce of knowledge is helpful to prevent "The Man" (or "The Woman") from coming down on you for electronic speech.

A cautionary word to college snoops: be careful becausee FIRE is not the only civil liberties group defending people from e-censorship; my friends at the Electronic Frontier Foundation are also diligent.

In cases like this, knowledge is power. Know what to do (or not do), and who to call if you need help against Big Brother.

The second part of this primer on electronic surveillance will educate readers as to how universities may read email and "log" (transmit) all of your keystrokes to their administrative office for review.

(To be continued)

SIU Speech Zone: What's Right? What's Wrong?

When students were away on break, SIU Chancellor Sam Goldman received a letter from F.I.R.E. challenging the university's "designated public forum areas" (labeled "Free Speech Facilities" in the handbook for Registered Student Organizations). ACLU-Southern Illinois, and the Illinois affiliate of the National Association of Scholars (NAS) cosigned the letter from FIRE.

As I noted at the time, this issue erupted in 2004 when an anti-war group protested outside the then-designated speech zone. The administration acted swiftly by forming a committee and then issuing a revised policy entitled "Demonstrations: Regulations and Procedures."

There is a lot of good in that demonstrations policy but one major flaw: the presence of special zones for speech. Here is my rundown of the good and bad:

POSITIVES:

1. The demonstrations policy approved by the Board of Trustees begins with a strong statement in support of academic freedom.

2. The section "Standards of Respect and Civility" offers common-sense guidelines for protests, demonstrations and other individual or group speech on campus. Don't block traffic, don't disrupt classes, don't break the law: Golden Rule 101.

3. The Designated Public Forum Areas are in high-traffic areas (but see below).

NEGATIVES:

1. "Events within Designated Public Forum Areas": designate implies that this is a special area set aside for "free expression." Only one group may be present at a time. There are two areas designated for demonstrations: adjoining the parking garage and parking lots near Anthony Hall; and in front of Morris Library. WHY is "free expression" given a "designated" area? What can one do outside those zones?

2. "Events Outside of Designated Public Forum Areas": The previous section setting aside "free expression" areas conflicts with the short section allowing events outside of designated areas. The natural question: why have a designated area at all? The "events outside" section ought to be applied to all the public plazas and walkways of the campus. Simply put, the "Standards of Respect and Civility" govern speech in these outside areas. So, once again, why have a designated area that leads students and others to think that there -- and only there -- they may protest or demonstrate?

3. The RSO Handbook (see pp. 25-26): RSO's are among the groups most likely to speak out on campus. That is why the handbook language is so troubling:

a. The Orwellian phrase "Free Speech Facilities" is substituted for Designated Public Forum Area.

b. The handbook lists only one of the two designated areas listed in the Board of Trustee policy.

c. "Other campus areas will not be used as open forums." This conflicts with the Board policy of allowing individuals or groups to assemble outside designated areas.

If all of this is clear as mud, you are right. But the simple question is "why have a forum at all?" Is SIU-C for or against "events outside" the designated areas?

RECOMMENDATION:

Abolish the zone and all will be well. The "Standards of Respect and Civility" are enough.

There is no need for a forum area, particularly since

a) SIU-C cannot make up its mind about speech outside that area; and

b) limiting demonstrations to a "zone" makes SIU vulnerable to a lawsuit.

SIU-C has a good policy -- if it abolishes the zone. Let's hope that this is resolved in good faith without the usual circus surrounding any challenge to standing policy. I believe the administration wants to do the right thing. But, if it does not, it will certainly face a challenge from FIRE.

FIRE Challenges SIU Speech Zone

The campus watchdog group F.I.R.E. (Foundation for Individual Rights in Education) offers a challenge -- and advice -- to SIUC on how to free up student speech on campus. Read here for the local news coverage and here for the full document (click Download and Open).

First step: Make free speech, leafleting, and the rest possible across campus. Currently, such speech is confined to a "zone." In the 1990s, colleges enacted speech codes and were swept back by groups like FIRE, ACLU, and the National Association of Scholars. (Disclosure: Together with ACLU Southern Illinois, the moderator, as president of the Illinois Association of Scholars, cosigned the FIRE letter to Chancellor Goldman).

Readers may recall that this was an issue in 2004 when a student protested outside the designated "speech zone," thus resulting in an outcry over free speech. That incident involved an antiwar protest but it could be almost any other kind of peaceful demonstration.

Champions of Freedom: NAS and FIRE meet at D.C. Conference

If there are two organizations responsible for keeping the torch of academic freedom alive, they are the National Association of Scholars and FIRE (Foundation for Individual Rights in Education). The leaders of FIRE will be among the speakers at the NAS conference in Washington, DC 9-11 January 2009. Click here for more information.

The NAS membership includes thousands of faculty committed to high standards and free inquiry. (Disclosure: I am president of the Illinois state affiliate and we have many members on the SIU campuses). NAS reports have analyzed General Education requirements (woeful decline) and the current state of various disciplines. The web site contains this information gratis. "Know your rights!"

FIRE is focused on civil liberties of all concerned with higher education, with primary focus on student freedom to speak, demonstrate, and learn from faculty who are not chained by the speech police. They have many projects, including: videos on Youtube, a fast-growing Campus Freedom Network, Traffic Signs rating schools on freedom (see SIU's to the right), and Guides on various topics (available in PDF on their web site).

If you can't be in Washington, D.C., then join either group. Students ought to join the Campus Freedom Network of FIRE (click here). Or volunteer for NAS's Argus Project.

Both groups have email listservs keeping you abreast of the fight against absurdity on campus. As they say down here, the NAS and FIRE folk are "good people."

Little Red Schoolhouse: Teacher Education at SIU; Or, Why Bill Ayers Would Love this Place

"Capitalist hegemony," "white privilege," "teaching for social justice," "critical pedagogy," "liberation," "oppression studies," and classroom "resistance" (students who refuse to buy into all of the above).

What do these buzz words have to do with Bill Ayers? He is part of the movement for "revolutionary" education--and his work, and that of like-minded activists, is assigned in required "School and Society" courses at SIU and other colleges.

I first encountered the unbalanced, far-Left reading some years ago. SIU required education majors to read the Mao and Castro-worshipping Pedagogy of the Oppressed, a "classic manifesto" that has sold nearly one million copies. (For a description of the pedagogy, click here). I was stunned at the time warp: surely, Education Schools are not offering warmed-over sixties radicalism as the only source on "School and Society?" There is nothing wrong with assigning works from a Marxist or "critical pedagogy" perspective but that was all that was offered in a class that future teachers must take. When I searched other schools, I found much the same thing. Apparently, "queering" the curriculum, assaulting capitalism, and denouncing "color-blind racism" is de rigueur.

Flash forward to 2008. The name of Bill Ayers is in the air. Former member of Weather Underground and still committed to revolution--through the education schools. Read his blog: http://billayers.wordpress.com/

The troubling thing about Bill Ayers isn't his connection with Barack Obama (I'll leave that up to readers) but the fact that his approach to education is the only thing taught in many "school and society" courses. Check the reading list at SIU and elsewhere. There may be exceptions but judging from Amazon.com and course assignments, "teaching for social justice" is rampant.

It got so bad that FIRE and NAS had to successfully fight accreditation requirements that future teachers have the right "dispositions" (see here and here). I suspect we haven't heard the last of this indoctrination requirement.

Balance, not bias, is the issue. We are all "biased" which is why the curriculum ought to include opposing viewpoints, particularly in courses required to enter a profession. The notion that the classroom is a play tool for revolutionaries, Left or Right, is pernicious and disrespectful of the individual dignity of students.

Professors with Pitchforks: Faculty "Hot" Over Harassment Code

Professors with pitchforks!

What a difference a month of education and agitation makes when the administration is trying, by all appearances, to rush through a sexual harassment code that is even worse than our old code. Update:

I attended the Faculty Senate meeting, where University Legal Counsel (Phyleccia Cole) presented her office's proposed sexual harassment code. Professor Mary Lamb (English) made a brief, sharp presentation assailing the code. Then the senators started to say how "atrocious" the code was and Lamb asked for a show of hands whether people were as "hot" as the speakers (herself included)--most hands went up (the administrators did not raise their hands. LOL). Lamb posted a questionnaire for professors and everyone else to make their feelings known.

The constituency heads were there and one said his constituency was "very strongly" against the code and they didn't realize how bad it was until now. The senator from the medical school cited the NAS Statement I ran in the Daily Egyptian and used it to criticize the code and propose common-sense guidelines.

Professors were a bit taken aback by the Powerpoint slide indicating that Legal Counsel would hand over documents to the accused IF A COURT ORDERED THEM TO DO SO. Otherwise, everything is secret. Look up "Star Chamber".

The feminist president of the Faculty Senate (Peggy Stockdale) pooh-poohed the "legal" and emphasized the "psychological" -- even a "sexist joke" was on the slippery slope to x, y, z, then sexual assualt. Lordie, bring us back to the 1950s when comic books were a gateway to drugs, deviancy, communism!! Shades of "Reefer Madness!" It starts with Seinfeld jokes and leads to the worst of all sexual crimes.

The president then went on to say that we had to make it "easy and unrisky" for victims to file complaints without having to reveal their identity or even the location of the "crime." The hazier the better.

In the end, President Stockdale had to stew as the senators challenged the assumptions of the code and the abuse of power. Many feared a real "chilling effect." After the show of hands, the Faculty Senate agreed to draft a resolution strongly opposing the code revisions, to be presented at the next meeting.

Professors with pitchforks!