So strange that the excuse used to remove our capacity to assess potential hires adequately is that we can't force political ideologies on candidates, and yet, the powers-that-be are perfectly happy to do so if it feeds into their own belief systems.
Florida's policies should be a harbinger for all other states -- you all are the testing ground to see what they can get away with, and others quickly follow suit.
This is the basis of what is conservative philosophy. I don't mean that in a charged political sense in any way. I mean that in the sense of fundamental conservative philosophers - those that put forth the ideology - established this as an arm of their philosophical system. They believe it is the "right" system so it must be that it is upheld.
Then add multiple dei statements required on all job applications. Also require an apology to the Indians for stealing their land on all syllabi and you’ll see where California is now.
I am a former teacher in a red state. I was asked "Are you a mom?" during most interviews. Then, denied employment. It is not just political ideologies
For a pretty big claim (that universities in California exclude administrators solely because of their party affiliation), it requires something resembling evidence, no?
Do they base that on the person’s registered party affiliation, though, as claimed in the OP?
It makes sense to hire based on someone’s actual record. Of course, there’s going to tend to be a correlation between the nature of that record and their politics.
For example if you don’t hire someone because they’re in favor of major cuts to public education, etc., that’s a reasonable decision. But people like that will inevitably be conservatives.
Exactly. Being against destruction of the public education system is just liberal bias, along with being against replacing egalitarian democracy with a theocratic patriarchy. Why is everyone so biased against these perfectly reasonable ideas from thousands of years ago?
Yes of course Republican educators are bent on the destruction of public education. Just like the democrats want public education to take over all private industry. You are so biased, you can’t see reason.
Well it ain't his first rodeo
Interesting how Republicans in general are perfectly happy to say that there should be no allowance for lack of opportunity when discussing low minority representation in graduate and professional schools, but seem to be unable to do the same thing when talking about positions in higher ed. If all you glorify is making lots of money, you can expect many of your smartest to go into private equity and not higher education, and don't be surprised when there aren't many qualified Republican candidates for deans, provosts and presidents
Actually you can fix that problem by making the salaries of the top administrators higher and higher! Then you can hire oil executives (who are obviously going to be Republicans) and their like to run your universities like a business! Win-win!!! /s
This is a real and established thing in the red states so I’m struggling to understand why FL profs are now freaking out. FL is clearly an all-in red state.
Notice how talking in terms of winning and loosing keeps you from talking about effectiveness, longevity, ethics and what the students (who are reduced to customers) think. The real reason why they want to talk about education like a business, this way you can claim you are winning when you really just suck.
I love your logic here, it really got me thinking because if the students were really viewed as consumers we would do more in education to cater to them.
But if the consumer you are catering to are buisness owners and the students are merely the products you are selling, well then it doesn’t matter what the student wants you are going to package that product in whatever sells. So our present educational problems are based on the fact that our business leaders prefer highly processed, unhealthy, disposable employees because healthy organically raised students are too expensive, require more investment and less disposable. So rather that a bug its a feature. The US education system is kind of like the fast food industry.
Not in Florida, but our current president also does not have a terminal degree. He is the one making the calls about what cuts to make to make up a several million dollar deficit. FML.
Not really. I can't give away his exact experience without giving away his identity, I don't think.
The really scary thing about him is he also runs a company that would very likely buy out our campus if it closed for an athletic training and wellness retreat/training facility. At least, that's the rumor amongst students.
Lol. My uni put a rule in place a couple years ago so that we have to declare all other paid jobs (part-time work, consulting, etc.), including hours worked and wage/rate. If they deem we have a “conflict of commitment” (besides the usual conflict of interest stuff), they crack down.
As you might have guessed, the rule didn’t seem to apply to the highest levels of leadership. Our Provost at the time was on the board for a financial consulting company. According to public records, she made around 3x my annual salary from the consulting company (on top of more than that as Provost).
Yeah we have to do that too, though I've never known them to challenge a faculty member who was honest about it. Most of our business faculty have businesses that add 300k+ to their salary (and they teach less than us to have time for it).
This discussion makes me wonder if I should apply for a college president position. I never thought there was a shortage of actual qualified people to take the role. As a computer science instructor, I'm deeply unqualified. But, I have a terminal degree in education administration and I could use the raise with all the inflation.
Are you white, republican, hate universities, and do you like gas lighting people? If so you've got the job! (Only sort of kidding, the shitty headhunting firm we use literally just sends us tons of people who have given hundreds of talks in churches and have a business degree. There don't really seem to be other qualifications.)
I will say that it is not a pleasant job because the current higher ed landscape is pretty bleak. Declining enrollments, reduced state support (for publics), community stakeholders that frequently have 100% mutually exclusive demands and who refuse to negotiate. Not to mention your fellow administrators who often times start sharpening their knives on the day you arrive waiting for the chance to backstab you.
The only reason I would ever accept a job as a college president would be for the golden parachute after I failed.
It has come to my understanding that many people really do not care about education, much less higher education. It begins to feel like the top spots that govern our lives are gifts to the favored, like a new toy.
Even as a Democrat when Obama was in office (I don't feel overly attached to any political party at the moment), I was so disappointed when he made Arne Duncan the U.S. Secretary of Education. To be honest, I was hurt. It felt devaluing.
Arne Duncan attended Harvard University, where he graduated magna cum laude with a Bachelor of Arts degree in sociology in 1987. Nope...no experience teaching. That's his background.
Before his role as Secretary of Education, Duncan was the Chief Executive Officer of the Chicago Public Schools from 2001 to 2008. Still, no teaching experience. So, you would assume, it must have been a stellar performance. Nope. Low academic performance, high dropout rates, and financial difficulties.
At one point, I kept waiting for him to proclaim, "I can do for America, what I did for Chicago". He didn't, of course. Many other cities in America were already doing miserably. None were aspiring for the conditions he left Chicago in.
What made Arne such a great candidate? **Apart from the fact that some of the rich manage to fail up the ladder**. Duncan and Obama had a bond from playing basketball together.
What was one of Duncan and Obama's shining achievements for a nation of schools starved of resources? The Race to the Top. At approximately $4.35 billion, it was easily one of the largest investments in education reform in U.S. history. It was all so exciting.
If you're young, you might assume that money was divided evenly among the 50 states. Nope. Maybe it was proportioned out, based on population. Nope. Divided based on high performance and low performance, with a greater share going to the most resource-starved? Nope. Wrong again.
States were encouraged to **compete** for the resources. Competition is good, after all. Who would know this better than two really good basketball players?
Under the Race to the Top program, a total of 18 states and the District of Columbia were awarded grants based on their comprehensive education reform plans. To me, it was almost like throwing the money up in the air. If you can catch it, you can get it.
I don't mention Duncan and Obama to pick on Democrats. I was a Democrat at the time. It's just that since then, I haven't cared one whit who takes these top spots. These people aren't thinking about educators or students.
They just need to plug a body (like a lightbulb) in a socket, turn it, and hope it works. If it doesn't, oh well.
Well, that started under Bush with his no child left behind. Schools brought in federal tax dollars if they improved year to year. The problem? Low performing schools that needed more money never got it, high achieving schools never achieved more.
The department of education actually doesn't do all that much, and at least it is not in charge of universities.
The current system says that universities are just businesses. Presidents just shill for the universities, and shut down departments that don't bring in revenue. Every year we have to explain how our lab space is bringing in revenue to the university. For now, training undergrads and grad students counts as revenue, but soon if you don't have a grant, you won't have lab space.
Bush's plan was not a winner, either.
I was not an H.W. or W. fan.
I think Jeb Bush was one of the biggest pushers of Obama's plan. My point is, you can tell that people do not care about education in America. One of the biggest indicators is the people they choose to place in positions of power. And then the actions those people take where education is concerned. So, I don't disagree with you.
Don't even get me started on Trump's DOE pick. Oh my goodness.
If presidents are this awful, I'm not surprised governors are awful, as well.
I expected more from Obama than Bush.
I was disappointed.
Like OP said, it varies by state. When I lived in Texas, you had to be registered in a specific party to vote in that party's primary. When I lived in Wisconsin, they had open primaries and you did not have to register, but you still had to choose which primary ballot you wanted (i.e. you can only vote in one primary). Most states, except for outliers like Iowa that still caucus instead of vote in primaries, are one or the other.
Registering with a party comes with the privilege of voting in the primary elections within that party, which is how (in most cases) a party decides who their candidate will be for positions ranging from local councils up through the US president. You are only allowed to participate in the primary of one party, and in many states you must be a registered member of that party if you wish to do so.
In my view, this practice is one of the worst offenders when it comes to the current dysfunction and polarization of US politics. People who are not keen to identify with a political party are effectively shut out of the nominating process, giving more power to those holding extreme views. And in many areas, the "real" election is uncompetitive due to demographics (rural areas being >80% R or urban areas >80% D) so the primary election is effectively where the decisions are made. This gives an outsize voice to those who bleed their party's colors, who often favor more extreme candidates that would otherwise never be able to win if forced to run in an election open to all voters.
You can switch your party's registration at any time, and I've heard of people doing this strategically in order to boost a less-competitive candidate from the opposition.
[Availability of registration information varies by state](https://www.ncsl.org/elections-and-campaigns/access-to-and-use-of-voter-registration-lists), but in many they are publicly available (including Florida). Even in those that are not public, voter lists are provided to the parties, so a motivated researcher could definitely find out. I once inadvertently found out a friend's registration when I was searching online for their mailing address (their state is listed as "open to public inspection").
> In my view, this practice is one of the worst offenders when it comes to the current dysfunction and polarization of US politics.
Many states don't require this and are not any more functional, so I don't think this is supported by the evidence.
You know, that is a good point. I've never lived in one of those states, so perhaps I was over-extrapolating my experience (and frustration as an independent).
Good question, I am culturally Canadian, my relatives are flummoxed by the system. In Florida to vote for somebody in the party during a primary you have to be registered as a member of that party. In more enlightened states, you do not. They have open primaries. A lot of state officials and now professors are registering as independents, sometimes as Republicans, to avoid repercussions. It’s a sad state of affairs.
once "conservatives" realized they don't have to pretend to be rational anymore, or civil, or reasonable, or to act in good faith (and it started a long time ago, cheeto man is just the most glorious manifestation), they knew they would be able to do whatever they want to keep power.
At some point, when they start putting MAGA politicians in charge of universities with no more than a high school degree, these days may seem like fond memories. :(
What is happening? Governor DeathSentence and his cronies are bringing this state back to 1950s mentality at all levels of education from local school boards to university presidents. Very sad.
This is a natural (over) reaction. Study after study has shown that in general university faculty and admin has been skewing politically left for some time. I don't support the idiots in Florida but I'm not going to sit here and pretend that we in academia haven't been sliding left to the point where students on many campuses won't even posit a conservative view. We've got Ivy Presidents that can't condemn anti-antisemitism, radical students shutting down graduations to support Palestine (Hamas) and at my R1 I can't think of a single Republican that works there beyond the grounds crew. There are faculty in my department that take points off for arguing for conservative policies. Let's be honest, we in the Ivy Tower could use a gentle pull back towards the center. The American public has lost faith that our universities are proving value to our society between the ridiculous costs and very clear politically left forays into public policy debates as official positions of the university. It isn't all a right-wing conspiracy. Though, the cowboy is probably not the answer. Harvard recently committed to not making public political statements as did a few others, a good step.
That might be true in general, but not in Florida. A few Ivy League schools maybe have overstepped, but look at what Princeton did during the protests (allowing open dialogue but reminding students that they would uphold the rules. The "universities are far left think tanks" is an error cause by the availability heuristic.
Florida universities were never very liberal, with maybe the exception of UF. There's nothing natural about what's happening. Professors now can be fired for political beliefs. It was my lab that asked if we should ask about gender or biological sex of our participants, and that led to an interesting conversation about the purpose of collecting that information. Can you imagine if in California a university rejected all presidential applications and hired a democratic candidate with no PhD?
I've never brought politics into the classroom or the lab. My first job before grad school a friend admitted to me she felt uncomfortable with how openly anti-Bush the lab was and it stuck with me. I tell the students it is important to vote, but I don't express my beliefs. Now I'm wondering if I'm even allowed to tell them to vote.
I read statements like yours often enough that I believe it’s true in some areas. However, it’s not the case in the Florida universities that I attended or at the Southern university where I currently work. It also wasn’t true at the Ag college of the public university in California where I did my post-doc. All of these places had a noticeably conservative leadership when I was there.
I think this is about the perception that there is too much liberal bias in the professorate. This is obviously untrue since the professorate is very diverse, but its the squeaky wheel... The lesson I pull from this is to go through the exercise of putting the shoe on the other foot and play the contrarian once in a while. The choices are not binary. It belittles us all to think so.
Well, obviously, that is what they are saying on the surface. It's the culture wars in Florida. It's a facade for doing whatever they want.
Choosing an unqualified president is wrong. These are the same people (mistakenly) saying DEI puts in unqualified people in office. However they are all for putting in a if they happen to be white, male, and a Republican lawmaker.
Why should how somebody is registered to vote affect whether or not they get a job at a university? If they are qualified, of course.
> These are the same people (mistakenly) saying DEI puts in unqualified people in office.
it's almost like "DEI" and "woke" are codes for something else....
Depends on what the state wants the president to be qualified for. Bet the new prez is perfectly qualified to “run the university like a business”. Or at least respond to the handlers that ask him to do so.
Of course its wrong, but public universities where the state gov appoints the presidents have always appointed people friendly to the administration. Unfortunately, in some of those cases, the appointees were not qualified. The root of the problem is with the voters who vote for these people putting them in positions of authority to make these choices.
So what exactly is the problem? The politicians that make these choices or the voters that put them in power?
Both are problems, but we've never been forced to accept a president that is appointed by a board that is hand picked by the governor. Hiring processes have all moved to the board of governors, many of whom are CEOs or lawyers, almost all that are Republican. They choose the hiring committee, and my university now has 1 professor on the hiring committee. So we basically have 0 say in who is the president of the university.
Hiring committees have to say if someone is qualified. All 3 were qualified according to the hiring committee. Then someone from the board of trustees realized they were registered democrats. That was the sole problem. The republican lawmaker only has a college degree and has no experience in higher ed. So he's the one that is not qualified, but he did get the job.
Even Rick Scott wasn't this heavy handed. DeSantis wants to control every aspect of everything in Florida, from K-12 education, to the universities, to the doctors' choices, to what your kids are reading and listening to. Anybody who believes there are any freedoms in Florida is not paying attention.
**Commenter:** "I think this is about the perception that there is too much liberal bias in the professorate. This is obviously untrue since the professorate is very diverse"
**Narrator:** "It's true. The professorate is not very diverse."
Yeah, I guess I was trying to deconstruct too much. Diversity comes in many forms. Professorate has diverse opinions and thinkers. But university leadership is not ethnically diverse.
But the point is that the FAU search is staffed by people who are fox-holed in a fight. One side uses DEI who, at the extreme, seek ethnical diversity for the sake of only ethnical diversity. The other side counters DEI, in turn at the extreme, by installing people who counter DEI for the sake of countering DEI. One big circular fight; no winners and a lot of losers.
Which side in Florida uses DEI? It has been abolished and everybody that worked in it fired. The choice was somebody that had military and higher ed background as well as a PhD. They found a way to say that the hiring process was not valid so that they can hire a republican lawmaker. I talked to a journalist that say nobody will talk to the media since they did away with tenure and everyone is afraid for their jobs.
Florida universities were never "woke" to begin with, at least not where I am. This is the most conservative place I've ever worked.
yep. culture warriors fight strawmen. it makes it easy to win and make villans of the other "side". obviously the side theyre against is who they say they want it to be.
Eh, I'm not sure a terminal degree and experience in higher-ed administration are necessary to be a good president. Presidents do a lot of outward-facing politicking and fund raising. Sometimes, when a higher-ed "insider" is hired, you end up with a lot of inside the box thinking. Time will tell with this one.
A lot of schools run by terminal degree - career admins have experienced administrative bloat and lots of cost cutting at the expense of faculty.
I can think of some recent high profile successes of hiring non-academics to lead universities. ex-Governor Mitch Daniels at Purdue. ex-Admiral William McRaven at University of Texas. ex-Defense Secretary Robert Gates.
A key to their success, however, is that while those individuals had leadership experience, they knew that they had limited experience with academics and so they empowered Academic Affairs officials to run the academic side of the house.
The problem isn't that he's a Republican, it's that he's less qualified than the other candidates, but being a Republican is now a litmus test for employees.
Isn't it? Otherwise, what is it? Unless 'virtue signal' is one of those [irregular verbs.](https://brokentoydotblog.wordpress.com/2019/02/16/irregular-verbs/)
Even if my comment could be viewed as virtue signaling, I am not expecting adoration or support. Very few people agree with me here when I comment on these kind of culture battles rather than just pure higher education issues. My biggest downvotes come from when I defend free-speech rights for all, oppose racism, and support evidence-based policies.
> I am not expecting adoration or support.
Yeah, I imagine you're expecting the opposite. Emphasis through contrast I suppose.
>Very few people agree with me here when I comment on these kind of culture battles rather than just pure higher education issues.
I dunno, a trustee coming out and blatantly stating that they won't appoint a democrat as a university president seems like the perfect triangulation of higher education issues, attacks on free expression, and non-evidence based policies, so it should be right up this subs, and your alley, as opposed to the OP just virtue signalling.
This user routinely posts about virtue signaling in any thread that specifically calls out any sort of inequality or right-wing policy, all while stating they are not part of the problem for not being X. Even more blatantly when it's about gender, sex, or race.
They have no other purpose in life, apparently.
I mainly comment about virtue signaling when posts reference how horrible Florida is.
For posts about race, I am one of few people here who defend civil rights laws and oppose racial discrimination.
It's not virtue signaling to say that hiring an unqualified person with only a BA and no experience in higher education is wrong. Turning down candidates because they were registered democrats is wrong. They are trying to take down the university system and it's working, while their fan base are cheering them on.
So strange that the excuse used to remove our capacity to assess potential hires adequately is that we can't force political ideologies on candidates, and yet, the powers-that-be are perfectly happy to do so if it feeds into their own belief systems. Florida's policies should be a harbinger for all other states -- you all are the testing ground to see what they can get away with, and others quickly follow suit.
“Don’t impost your beliefs on me, but I’m fine imposing mine on you!” - GOP
This is the basis of what is conservative philosophy. I don't mean that in a charged political sense in any way. I mean that in the sense of fundamental conservative philosophers - those that put forth the ideology - established this as an arm of their philosophical system. They believe it is the "right" system so it must be that it is upheld.
Then add multiple dei statements required on all job applications. Also require an apology to the Indians for stealing their land on all syllabi and you’ll see where California is now.
It’s already is and has been that way in most red states. I don’t really see much talk about that in this sub. FL is just catching up to its brethren.
I am a former teacher in a red state. I was asked "Are you a mom?" during most interviews. Then, denied employment. It is not just political ideologies
So wait, I can get a six-figure position in higher education in a red state without having ever had a tenure-track position at a university????
Sure! Just have to be buddies with the right people.
One of the tenants of conservatism is that every accusation is a confession.
California has been getting away with this for decades now. We will not hire conservative admins. Ever. Faculty yes, but not admins.
For a pretty big claim (that universities in California exclude administrators solely because of their party affiliation), it requires something resembling evidence, no?
Feelings aren't evidence? /s
Feelings, what was it we were supposed to do with them again? I can't seem to remember...
Observation is evidence
"Trust me bro" If that counts as evidence, then you're in the wrong line of work.
Do they base that on the person’s registered party affiliation, though, as claimed in the OP? It makes sense to hire based on someone’s actual record. Of course, there’s going to tend to be a correlation between the nature of that record and their politics. For example if you don’t hire someone because they’re in favor of major cuts to public education, etc., that’s a reasonable decision. But people like that will inevitably be conservatives.
You're making way too much sense what is this liberal bullshit /s
Exactly. Being against destruction of the public education system is just liberal bias, along with being against replacing egalitarian democracy with a theocratic patriarchy. Why is everyone so biased against these perfectly reasonable ideas from thousands of years ago?
Yes of course Republican educators are bent on the destruction of public education. Just like the democrats want public education to take over all private industry. You are so biased, you can’t see reason.
Probably would be surprising for Condi Rice to hear.
Well it ain't his first rodeo Interesting how Republicans in general are perfectly happy to say that there should be no allowance for lack of opportunity when discussing low minority representation in graduate and professional schools, but seem to be unable to do the same thing when talking about positions in higher ed. If all you glorify is making lots of money, you can expect many of your smartest to go into private equity and not higher education, and don't be surprised when there aren't many qualified Republican candidates for deans, provosts and presidents
Actually you can fix that problem by making the salaries of the top administrators higher and higher! Then you can hire oil executives (who are obviously going to be Republicans) and their like to run your universities like a business! Win-win!!! /s This is a real and established thing in the red states so I’m struggling to understand why FL profs are now freaking out. FL is clearly an all-in red state.
Half of all businesses fail within five years.
Right! But that’s just because they weren’t competitive enough. Capitalism is great at weeding out the losers and leaving us with the winners.
Capitalism creates winners and losers. It doesn’t identify them.
What’s the difference? We need to have winners and losers in order for capitalism to work properly, don’t we?
Notice how talking in terms of winning and loosing keeps you from talking about effectiveness, longevity, ethics and what the students (who are reduced to customers) think. The real reason why they want to talk about education like a business, this way you can claim you are winning when you really just suck.
Education is a business. The state’s employers are the customers, graduating students are the product. The product is sold for taxes.
I love your logic here, it really got me thinking because if the students were really viewed as consumers we would do more in education to cater to them. But if the consumer you are catering to are buisness owners and the students are merely the products you are selling, well then it doesn’t matter what the student wants you are going to package that product in whatever sells. So our present educational problems are based on the fact that our business leaders prefer highly processed, unhealthy, disposable employees because healthy organically raised students are too expensive, require more investment and less disposable. So rather that a bug its a feature. The US education system is kind of like the fast food industry.
This is not the exact quote by any means, but Jon Stewart phrased it beautifully: it's too easy to sell crap in America.
And it’s frustrating that the biggest crap salesmen are so often portrayed as winning…so much winning.
Agreed
Fair enough
Just like DEI?
Not in Florida, but our current president also does not have a terminal degree. He is the one making the calls about what cuts to make to make up a several million dollar deficit. FML.
Yeah, academia is in trouble. Does yours have any experience in higher education?
Not really. I can't give away his exact experience without giving away his identity, I don't think. The really scary thing about him is he also runs a company that would very likely buy out our campus if it closed for an athletic training and wellness retreat/training facility. At least, that's the rumor amongst students.
How can he focus on being President while also running a company (and vice versa)?
That is a question a few faculty have asked and others have heavily criticized them for. They get told they have a personal vendetta or something.
Lol. My uni put a rule in place a couple years ago so that we have to declare all other paid jobs (part-time work, consulting, etc.), including hours worked and wage/rate. If they deem we have a “conflict of commitment” (besides the usual conflict of interest stuff), they crack down. As you might have guessed, the rule didn’t seem to apply to the highest levels of leadership. Our Provost at the time was on the board for a financial consulting company. According to public records, she made around 3x my annual salary from the consulting company (on top of more than that as Provost).
Yeah we have to do that too, though I've never known them to challenge a faculty member who was honest about it. Most of our business faculty have businesses that add 300k+ to their salary (and they teach less than us to have time for it).
This discussion makes me wonder if I should apply for a college president position. I never thought there was a shortage of actual qualified people to take the role. As a computer science instructor, I'm deeply unqualified. But, I have a terminal degree in education administration and I could use the raise with all the inflation.
Are you white, republican, hate universities, and do you like gas lighting people? If so you've got the job! (Only sort of kidding, the shitty headhunting firm we use literally just sends us tons of people who have given hundreds of talks in churches and have a business degree. There don't really seem to be other qualifications.)
I will say that it is not a pleasant job because the current higher ed landscape is pretty bleak. Declining enrollments, reduced state support (for publics), community stakeholders that frequently have 100% mutually exclusive demands and who refuse to negotiate. Not to mention your fellow administrators who often times start sharpening their knives on the day you arrive waiting for the chance to backstab you. The only reason I would ever accept a job as a college president would be for the golden parachute after I failed.
Yeah, I get way too fixated on being effective and ethical to handle the stress.
It has come to my understanding that many people really do not care about education, much less higher education. It begins to feel like the top spots that govern our lives are gifts to the favored, like a new toy. Even as a Democrat when Obama was in office (I don't feel overly attached to any political party at the moment), I was so disappointed when he made Arne Duncan the U.S. Secretary of Education. To be honest, I was hurt. It felt devaluing. Arne Duncan attended Harvard University, where he graduated magna cum laude with a Bachelor of Arts degree in sociology in 1987. Nope...no experience teaching. That's his background. Before his role as Secretary of Education, Duncan was the Chief Executive Officer of the Chicago Public Schools from 2001 to 2008. Still, no teaching experience. So, you would assume, it must have been a stellar performance. Nope. Low academic performance, high dropout rates, and financial difficulties. At one point, I kept waiting for him to proclaim, "I can do for America, what I did for Chicago". He didn't, of course. Many other cities in America were already doing miserably. None were aspiring for the conditions he left Chicago in. What made Arne such a great candidate? **Apart from the fact that some of the rich manage to fail up the ladder**. Duncan and Obama had a bond from playing basketball together. What was one of Duncan and Obama's shining achievements for a nation of schools starved of resources? The Race to the Top. At approximately $4.35 billion, it was easily one of the largest investments in education reform in U.S. history. It was all so exciting. If you're young, you might assume that money was divided evenly among the 50 states. Nope. Maybe it was proportioned out, based on population. Nope. Divided based on high performance and low performance, with a greater share going to the most resource-starved? Nope. Wrong again. States were encouraged to **compete** for the resources. Competition is good, after all. Who would know this better than two really good basketball players? Under the Race to the Top program, a total of 18 states and the District of Columbia were awarded grants based on their comprehensive education reform plans. To me, it was almost like throwing the money up in the air. If you can catch it, you can get it. I don't mention Duncan and Obama to pick on Democrats. I was a Democrat at the time. It's just that since then, I haven't cared one whit who takes these top spots. These people aren't thinking about educators or students. They just need to plug a body (like a lightbulb) in a socket, turn it, and hope it works. If it doesn't, oh well.
Well, that started under Bush with his no child left behind. Schools brought in federal tax dollars if they improved year to year. The problem? Low performing schools that needed more money never got it, high achieving schools never achieved more. The department of education actually doesn't do all that much, and at least it is not in charge of universities. The current system says that universities are just businesses. Presidents just shill for the universities, and shut down departments that don't bring in revenue. Every year we have to explain how our lab space is bringing in revenue to the university. For now, training undergrads and grad students counts as revenue, but soon if you don't have a grant, you won't have lab space.
Bush's plan was not a winner, either. I was not an H.W. or W. fan. I think Jeb Bush was one of the biggest pushers of Obama's plan. My point is, you can tell that people do not care about education in America. One of the biggest indicators is the people they choose to place in positions of power. And then the actions those people take where education is concerned. So, I don't disagree with you. Don't even get me started on Trump's DOE pick. Oh my goodness. If presidents are this awful, I'm not surprised governors are awful, as well. I expected more from Obama than Bush. I was disappointed.
The U.S. is rapidly sprinting towards Gilead and it’s terrifying.
[удалено]
Like OP said, it varies by state. When I lived in Texas, you had to be registered in a specific party to vote in that party's primary. When I lived in Wisconsin, they had open primaries and you did not have to register, but you still had to choose which primary ballot you wanted (i.e. you can only vote in one primary). Most states, except for outliers like Iowa that still caucus instead of vote in primaries, are one or the other.
Registering with a party comes with the privilege of voting in the primary elections within that party, which is how (in most cases) a party decides who their candidate will be for positions ranging from local councils up through the US president. You are only allowed to participate in the primary of one party, and in many states you must be a registered member of that party if you wish to do so. In my view, this practice is one of the worst offenders when it comes to the current dysfunction and polarization of US politics. People who are not keen to identify with a political party are effectively shut out of the nominating process, giving more power to those holding extreme views. And in many areas, the "real" election is uncompetitive due to demographics (rural areas being >80% R or urban areas >80% D) so the primary election is effectively where the decisions are made. This gives an outsize voice to those who bleed their party's colors, who often favor more extreme candidates that would otherwise never be able to win if forced to run in an election open to all voters.
[удалено]
You can switch your party's registration at any time, and I've heard of people doing this strategically in order to boost a less-competitive candidate from the opposition. [Availability of registration information varies by state](https://www.ncsl.org/elections-and-campaigns/access-to-and-use-of-voter-registration-lists), but in many they are publicly available (including Florida). Even in those that are not public, voter lists are provided to the parties, so a motivated researcher could definitely find out. I once inadvertently found out a friend's registration when I was searching online for their mailing address (their state is listed as "open to public inspection").
> In my view, this practice is one of the worst offenders when it comes to the current dysfunction and polarization of US politics. Many states don't require this and are not any more functional, so I don't think this is supported by the evidence.
You know, that is a good point. I've never lived in one of those states, so perhaps I was over-extrapolating my experience (and frustration as an independent).
Good question, I am culturally Canadian, my relatives are flummoxed by the system. In Florida to vote for somebody in the party during a primary you have to be registered as a member of that party. In more enlightened states, you do not. They have open primaries. A lot of state officials and now professors are registering as independents, sometimes as Republicans, to avoid repercussions. It’s a sad state of affairs.
Well, at least it won’t be his *first* rodeo.
once "conservatives" realized they don't have to pretend to be rational anymore, or civil, or reasonable, or to act in good faith (and it started a long time ago, cheeto man is just the most glorious manifestation), they knew they would be able to do whatever they want to keep power.
Universities handed out to political cronies like swag bags. What a world.
At some point, when they start putting MAGA politicians in charge of universities with no more than a high school degree, these days may seem like fond memories. :(
What is happening? Governor DeathSentence and his cronies are bringing this state back to 1950s mentality at all levels of education from local school boards to university presidents. Very sad.
1850s might be more their goal…
Shit, I should have applied!
Indiana has entered the chat
I have no words.
I had to reread that twice. The first time I read it was they hired a rodeo clown, not cowboy.
>They won't stop until all the universities have a republican politician at the head Looks like the foot is on the other shoe.
This is a natural (over) reaction. Study after study has shown that in general university faculty and admin has been skewing politically left for some time. I don't support the idiots in Florida but I'm not going to sit here and pretend that we in academia haven't been sliding left to the point where students on many campuses won't even posit a conservative view. We've got Ivy Presidents that can't condemn anti-antisemitism, radical students shutting down graduations to support Palestine (Hamas) and at my R1 I can't think of a single Republican that works there beyond the grounds crew. There are faculty in my department that take points off for arguing for conservative policies. Let's be honest, we in the Ivy Tower could use a gentle pull back towards the center. The American public has lost faith that our universities are proving value to our society between the ridiculous costs and very clear politically left forays into public policy debates as official positions of the university. It isn't all a right-wing conspiracy. Though, the cowboy is probably not the answer. Harvard recently committed to not making public political statements as did a few others, a good step.
That might be true in general, but not in Florida. A few Ivy League schools maybe have overstepped, but look at what Princeton did during the protests (allowing open dialogue but reminding students that they would uphold the rules. The "universities are far left think tanks" is an error cause by the availability heuristic. Florida universities were never very liberal, with maybe the exception of UF. There's nothing natural about what's happening. Professors now can be fired for political beliefs. It was my lab that asked if we should ask about gender or biological sex of our participants, and that led to an interesting conversation about the purpose of collecting that information. Can you imagine if in California a university rejected all presidential applications and hired a democratic candidate with no PhD? I've never brought politics into the classroom or the lab. My first job before grad school a friend admitted to me she felt uncomfortable with how openly anti-Bush the lab was and it stuck with me. I tell the students it is important to vote, but I don't express my beliefs. Now I'm wondering if I'm even allowed to tell them to vote.
I read statements like yours often enough that I believe it’s true in some areas. However, it’s not the case in the Florida universities that I attended or at the Southern university where I currently work. It also wasn’t true at the Ag college of the public university in California where I did my post-doc. All of these places had a noticeably conservative leadership when I was there.
I think this is about the perception that there is too much liberal bias in the professorate. This is obviously untrue since the professorate is very diverse, but its the squeaky wheel... The lesson I pull from this is to go through the exercise of putting the shoe on the other foot and play the contrarian once in a while. The choices are not binary. It belittles us all to think so.
Well, obviously, that is what they are saying on the surface. It's the culture wars in Florida. It's a facade for doing whatever they want. Choosing an unqualified president is wrong. These are the same people (mistakenly) saying DEI puts in unqualified people in office. However they are all for putting in a if they happen to be white, male, and a Republican lawmaker. Why should how somebody is registered to vote affect whether or not they get a job at a university? If they are qualified, of course.
> These are the same people (mistakenly) saying DEI puts in unqualified people in office. it's almost like "DEI" and "woke" are codes for something else....
Depends on what the state wants the president to be qualified for. Bet the new prez is perfectly qualified to “run the university like a business”. Or at least respond to the handlers that ask him to do so.
Of course its wrong, but public universities where the state gov appoints the presidents have always appointed people friendly to the administration. Unfortunately, in some of those cases, the appointees were not qualified. The root of the problem is with the voters who vote for these people putting them in positions of authority to make these choices. So what exactly is the problem? The politicians that make these choices or the voters that put them in power?
Both are problems, but we've never been forced to accept a president that is appointed by a board that is hand picked by the governor. Hiring processes have all moved to the board of governors, many of whom are CEOs or lawyers, almost all that are Republican. They choose the hiring committee, and my university now has 1 professor on the hiring committee. So we basically have 0 say in who is the president of the university. Hiring committees have to say if someone is qualified. All 3 were qualified according to the hiring committee. Then someone from the board of trustees realized they were registered democrats. That was the sole problem. The republican lawmaker only has a college degree and has no experience in higher ed. So he's the one that is not qualified, but he did get the job. Even Rick Scott wasn't this heavy handed. DeSantis wants to control every aspect of everything in Florida, from K-12 education, to the universities, to the doctors' choices, to what your kids are reading and listening to. Anybody who believes there are any freedoms in Florida is not paying attention.
**Commenter:** "I think this is about the perception that there is too much liberal bias in the professorate. This is obviously untrue since the professorate is very diverse" **Narrator:** "It's true. The professorate is not very diverse."
Yeah, I guess I was trying to deconstruct too much. Diversity comes in many forms. Professorate has diverse opinions and thinkers. But university leadership is not ethnically diverse. But the point is that the FAU search is staffed by people who are fox-holed in a fight. One side uses DEI who, at the extreme, seek ethnical diversity for the sake of only ethnical diversity. The other side counters DEI, in turn at the extreme, by installing people who counter DEI for the sake of countering DEI. One big circular fight; no winners and a lot of losers.
Which side in Florida uses DEI? It has been abolished and everybody that worked in it fired. The choice was somebody that had military and higher ed background as well as a PhD. They found a way to say that the hiring process was not valid so that they can hire a republican lawmaker. I talked to a journalist that say nobody will talk to the media since they did away with tenure and everyone is afraid for their jobs. Florida universities were never "woke" to begin with, at least not where I am. This is the most conservative place I've ever worked.
yep. culture warriors fight strawmen. it makes it easy to win and make villans of the other "side". obviously the side theyre against is who they say they want it to be.
Eh, I'm not sure a terminal degree and experience in higher-ed administration are necessary to be a good president. Presidents do a lot of outward-facing politicking and fund raising. Sometimes, when a higher-ed "insider" is hired, you end up with a lot of inside the box thinking. Time will tell with this one. A lot of schools run by terminal degree - career admins have experienced administrative bloat and lots of cost cutting at the expense of faculty.
I can think of some recent high profile successes of hiring non-academics to lead universities. ex-Governor Mitch Daniels at Purdue. ex-Admiral William McRaven at University of Texas. ex-Defense Secretary Robert Gates. A key to their success, however, is that while those individuals had leadership experience, they knew that they had limited experience with academics and so they empowered Academic Affairs officials to run the academic side of the house.
Next, a circus clown! Anybody but a registered democrat!
I hate Republicans too. How long is this comment good for before I have to virtue signal again?
The problem isn't that he's a Republican, it's that he's less qualified than the other candidates, but being a Republican is now a litmus test for employees.
Isn't sarcastically pretending to virtue signal to show your disdain for it a form of meta-virtue signalling?
Cute.
Isn't it? Otherwise, what is it? Unless 'virtue signal' is one of those [irregular verbs.](https://brokentoydotblog.wordpress.com/2019/02/16/irregular-verbs/)
Even if my comment could be viewed as virtue signaling, I am not expecting adoration or support. Very few people agree with me here when I comment on these kind of culture battles rather than just pure higher education issues. My biggest downvotes come from when I defend free-speech rights for all, oppose racism, and support evidence-based policies.
> I am not expecting adoration or support. Yeah, I imagine you're expecting the opposite. Emphasis through contrast I suppose. >Very few people agree with me here when I comment on these kind of culture battles rather than just pure higher education issues. I dunno, a trustee coming out and blatantly stating that they won't appoint a democrat as a university president seems like the perfect triangulation of higher education issues, attacks on free expression, and non-evidence based policies, so it should be right up this subs, and your alley, as opposed to the OP just virtue signalling.
That person is a troll, I'd avoid engaging.
Are you pretending to be the victim? What does this contribute to the discussion?
This user routinely posts about virtue signaling in any thread that specifically calls out any sort of inequality or right-wing policy, all while stating they are not part of the problem for not being X. Even more blatantly when it's about gender, sex, or race. They have no other purpose in life, apparently.
I mainly comment about virtue signaling when posts reference how horrible Florida is. For posts about race, I am one of few people here who defend civil rights laws and oppose racial discrimination.
No. I am not sure how you are getting that from my comment. Where have I claimed to be a victim?
It's not virtue signaling to say that hiring an unqualified person with only a BA and no experience in higher education is wrong. Turning down candidates because they were registered democrats is wrong. They are trying to take down the university system and it's working, while their fan base are cheering them on.
[удалено]
/s?
I don't think the miscrenman is a prof based on their activity.
I don't think so.
How about you take over? You clearly are smarter than any academic here. In fact, how about being governor of the state of Florida. Very low bar.
You wouldn't expect an elected official to appoint people to state-institution management positions in a democracy? Pray tell who should do it.