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Originally posted by: USM Sympathizer
"If this is true, SFT can expect an even bigger national explosion than he got with the G/S firings.  In the present case it will be so obviously pure retaliation that faculty everywhere will be up in arms."

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TexasEagle:

Is this really on good authority? How inside are your sources and are they clearabout the difference between something being kicked around in conversation and a plan?

Are there names?

If this is true -- we need to prempt this action by getting the word out so they can't do it under the cloak of darkness.

 

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Originally posted by: Austin Eagle
" Is it possible to obtain the names of those professors who're targeted, and launch a pre-emptive strike in the media? Public exposure of this plan could serve the dual purpose of protecting those at risk, and further illustrating vindictive nature of the Thames administration."

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Absolutely.

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Originally posted by: texaseagle
"Guys, just heard what's cooking over in the dome.  There is a handful of faculty they want rid of now.  Their plan this time is to quietly fail to send out 3 or 4 contracts over the Summer when the hundreds of faculty contracts routinely go out.  This is a plan to quietly fire a few people, without media attention."

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I heard this sometime ago.  There is a deadline by which contracts have to be signed and returned.  In the past, I don't think this deadline has been strictly enforced, so faculty just sign their contracts when they return in August.  This year if you don't sign and return it on time, you are out. 

quote:

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Originally posted by: texaseagle
"Guys, just heard what's cooking over in the dome.  There is a handful of faculty they want rid of now.  Their plan this time is to quietly fail to send out 3 or 4 contracts over the Summer when the hundreds of faculty contracts routinely go out.  This is a plan to quietly fire a few people, without media attention."

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I have always wondered why USM felt it necessary to issue "annual" contracts to its tenured faculty members. After all, tenured faculty members are on "continuous" appointments. Tenured faculty members should be considered as employed for the forthcoming year unless they resign or receive a letter termination following appropriate termination proceedings. It Should not be necessary for a tenured faculty member to be issued a new "contract" each year. A tenured faculty member is not employed on a year-by-year basis. A tenured faculty member needs only to be informed of thier next year's salary.  Is there is something in IHL regulations regarding tenure that precludes handling this matter in the same manner as do other major universities across the country? I am, by the way, qualified to make these observations.

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Originally posted by: Invictus
" Truth, Calm down. Take an industrial strength chill pill. Not issuing contracts or suddenly becoming hard-line about the sign-by deadline is definitely a way to terminate personnel "under the radar." It's easy to advise from the sidelines, but my advice to all USM personnel is (a) if you don't receive the contract when others receive them, contact your supervisor immediately, and (b) sign the danged thing & send it back. Be sure to retain a photocopy & be sure to mail it certified return receipt requested. I'm not sure a contract issuance move like this would work for tenured faculty, but it sure would be a way to dump those who aren't tenured."

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I know, I know... I'm just tired of these "crash and burn" posts--"hey, didja know that AKL has pics of SFT in women's underwear?  The endgame is near." (note:  that is a JOKE for those of you who are joke-impaired).  And then we never hear from them again. 

I stick by my original (albiet somewhat strident) post...there's no way that ANYTHING will happen quietly on USM's campus when it comes to faculty/administration relations this summer.  Sure, SFT can "follow the letter of the law" all he wants and fail to issue as many contracts as he likes, but do you think that this will happen quietly????  Not likely.

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Originally posted by: Robert Campbell
"Invictus,
The "stealth" method of nonrenewal, if Thames is really planning to use it, rather closely resembles his "pocket veto" of tenure and promotion for Melissa Whiting--and is sure to bring more lawsuits as well as bad publicity if he goes through with it.
"

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More lawsuits & more bad publicity would be exactly what Thames' bosses at the IHL board want him to generate. In their minds, he is a disposable idot & anything he does in his short tenure as president to drag USM down is A GOOD THING™

Except that I hate to see anyone's job even remotely threatened, I almost wish SFT would try this.  It would just be the latest -- and perhaps the greatest -- in his long string of miscalculations.  Any attempt to do this would seem SO petty, SO vindictive, SO much against the grain of what is proper in higher education that it is hard not to believe that his whole house of cards would finally and fully come crashing down around him.  If he thinks people were outraged about his firings of G&S, let him try to fire someone like Noel Polk, whose only "sin" has been his courage in speaking out against tyranny.  Ditto Doug Chambers or Amy Young or Jameela Lares or any of the other truly heroic people USM has shown itself to be blessed with.  SFT has no idea how fantastically mad such a move would make people.  We are watching, Shelby, so BACK OFF!

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Originally posted by: Robert Campbell
" Lamont, My apologies for not reading your post before hitting the "send" button. OK...USM is the only research-oriented university I've ever heard of that does annual contracts for tenured faculty. If Thames "stealth fired" a tenured professor using nonreturn of the annual contract as his pretext, I doubt that he would fare well in court, which is where he would almost certainly end up." Robert Campbell"

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Robert,

Thanks for raising the law suit possibility; that is the only language people like SFT understand.  Yes, he would be sued big-time if he tried this, and I suspect there would be lots of amicus briefs on behalf of the professors, plus lots of contributions to the defense funds.  If SFT really wants to scotch any prospect of "healing," let him try this.

 

Obvious question: Who is on SFT's "hit list"...perhaps Polk, Chambers, Scarbourough (that would be a war in itself)?

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Originally posted by: take it back
"  Obvious question: Who is on SFT's "hit list"...perhaps Polk, Chambers, Scarbourough (that would be a war in itself)?"

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I wouldn't mess with Noel Polk if I were Shelby.  If NP weren't needed more at USM right now, I would lobby for his appointment as Director of Homeland Security. 

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Originally posted by: truth4usm/AH
"
hey, didja know that AKL has pics of SFT in women's underwear?"

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I don't think this is what's meant by "full disclosure." Please, tell me it's not what's meant by "full disclosure."

<RETCHING NOISES />

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Originally posted by: Invictus
" They also understand that it can take years for a lawsuit to come to court. Things get forgotten by the public & if you're not a spring chicken when the suit is filed, you may not have to worry about seeing it through anyway. How long has the Whiting case been in the system? "

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Invictus,

I think a difference may be that the Whiting case happened before any outsiders (including the local community) were paying much attention to events at USM.  Now, though, national academe is on alert, as are the folks on this board, as are people like Bobby Chain.  I don't think such firings would escape widespread attention.  Besides, isn't the Whiting case about to go to court very soon?

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Originally posted by: truth4usm/AH
"He will have NO TOES left to shoot off if he does something as stupid as what the now-AWOL poster TexasEagle describes above."

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Don't bet on it. And don't bet on SFT et al trying something like that to "clean house" of some recalcitrant professors who haven't gotten tenured. It's a no-lose situation for him. If the profs raise too much stink, the admin goes, "Oh dear, Sally Sue Glutch down in HR forgot to mail that contract. We're sending it out right away. Sally Sue has been given her severance pay." Or, "Well, Sally Sue Glutch in HR has the manifest showing that we mailed the contract. Professor Whiney didn't sign it by the deadline."

 

This whole thread illustrates the deep mistrust we have of our dear leader. 

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Originally posted by: texaseagle
"Guys, just heard what's cooking over in the dome.  There is a handful of faculty they want rid of now.  Their plan this time is to quietly fail to send out 3 or 4 contracts over the Summer when the hundreds of faculty contracts routinely go out.  This is a plan to quietly fire a few people, without media attention."

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I can assure you that the reaction won't be (shhhhh) QUIET.

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Originally posted by: acronym
""

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perhaps you should identify yourself if you are going to insert a knife in someone's career and slit it with rumor.

We are complicated people and vey few of us have unmixed motivations for anything we do. "wanting the limelight" is a very subjective judgement, frequently an accusation brought by those who also want the limelight but aren't getting it. Jealousy is a very powerful motivator of rumor . . . Perhaos you should question YOUR sources a bit more about motivations before bringing such statements to the Board.

"not well liked or respected"   by whom?

"doesn't teach much and gets paid a king's ransom." a smilar accusation was levelled at Gary Stringer. Unless you have the whole picture of a professor's work, you really don't know what you are talking about and neither does anyone else.

"taking advantages of his circumstances for his own advancement . . ."  and you cite the string in which he asks a questions about contracts and relates his own situation -- one of the very things that this Board is for.

Don't know if you are an educator but one of the great ways to force someone out in this game is to to assign said victim that duties are out of their expertise, less than pleasant or represent a distraction from the real work they do; or load them up with duties and extra work. Make them real unhappy and then they either quit or they get frustrated and make a false step you can get them for . . .

So I get real personally concerned when I hear Noel's story and I'm glad he is sharing it. One thing new administrators don't get is that the professors in their late fifties and early sixties have generally already put in their licks -- worked all of those overtime hours in their first twenty years of service. I'm not saying these people stop working  -- but the kind of work changes and so does the kind of service they offer the university. Frankly, when I was a junior faculty member I considered it part of my job to help the senior faculty members by lightening their load so they coukld serve in other ways, or to really spend time in the area they had spent a lifetime developing.   If you don't take those things into account and just assume everyone is cut from the same cloth when you (administrator)  make assignments then it isn't a good formula for a happy faculty.

Noel is doing nothing that any faculty member would not do under these circumstances and to use that to attack him on the basis of "back channel" rumor is pretty cruddy -- and incredibly irresponsible.

 

 

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Originally posted by: Rachel Quinlivan
"Acronym, I can assure you that your "back channel" sources are wrong about Noel Polk.  From those I know, both students and faculty, they all think very highly of him and have a great deal of respect for both him and his literary accomplishments. He has taught at USM for 27 years and mentioned his situation on another thread because Dean Pood told him that his work and his service to USM essentially were meaningless.  To share that experience provided yet another example of the strained relationship between faculty and administrators, not an effort to gain the limelight. He has been outspoken and effective and has done so for those faculty who can't.  I have gotten to know him over the course of this year and I have the utmost respect for him, and I know that he is speaking out not for his own gain but because he recognizes that USM is in a dire circumstance.  "

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way to go Rachel.

 

Hey -- looked for you at graduation but missed you. Besyt wishes for your new life on the left (er . . . West) coast!

 

Emma,

What Shelby did to Melissa Whiting is bone chilling.

There is a difference this summer, though: any USM faculty member who doesn't get a contract when he or is supposed to is going to be calling the Hattiesburg American.

Robert Campbell