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UVA Computer Science professor resigns over incompetence of board

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Re: UVA Computer Science professor resigns over incompetence of board

#81

Post by rayiner »

herdrick wrote: post #75
rayiner wrote: post #48

Additional backstory: the revolt of the faculty is due to the Board wanting to close marginal academic departments at the University. Further backstory: the expenditures of the academic division at UVA have increased about 80% since 2001. Enrollment has only increased 9%. In-state tuition has increased about 275%. I'm not a UVA alum, but I grew up in Virginia, so I care about what happens at UVA. UVA's faculty can wa…

OK, what departments did she want to cut? Honestly, I've never hard a harder time trying to figure out what an HN story was all about.

Certain programs in the classics and germanic studies.

Re: UVA Computer Science professor resigns over incompetence of board

#82

Post by rayiner »

_delirium wrote: post #70
rayiner wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If those faculty aren't bringing in increased grant funding to cover their salaries, then let them go. Grant funding made up only 1/4 of university revenue, and in the face of only a 60% increase as overall expenditures have grown 80%, has actually dropped from just over 1/4 in 2001 to significantly under 1/4 in 2012. At the end of the day, the growth in expenses has not been funded by grants, etc. The biggest compon…

How about the significant decrease in per-student state funding? In any case, I don't see anyone on either side in this standoff making that tough proposal. Instead, we have the (now-fired) incrementalist looking for across-the-board savings, and the apparently-incompetent Goldman Sachs schemers looking to cut the faculty who don't even account for the past decade's salary increases (humanities, etc.). If someone is…

> How about the significant decrease in per-student state funding?

One of my beefs with the "decreased state funding" argument is that it presupposes that state funding should keep up with dramatic expansions in University expenditures.

Now, to be fair, state funding has dropped from $166m in 2001 to $140m today. Had it kept pace with enrollment and inflation, it should be about $233m today. State funding keeping pace would have allowed tuition to merely double instead of triple as it has.

On the other hand, all of the cuts have been since 2007. I.e. the greatest recession since the 1930's. During this time, faculty salary expenditures have continued to grow. In an economic environment where nearly everyone's salaries have stagnated or been cut. What should have happened instead is layoffs and salary cuts, as happened in nearly every other field.

Re: UVA Computer Science professor resigns over incompetence of board

#83

Post by aptwebapps »

kmfrk wrote: post #29
tomasien wrote: post #5

Brief description of what's happening: a bit over 2 years ago, Teressa Sullivan was appointed the first woman president in the history of UVa, a school that was all male until the 70's. Suddenly, last week she was forced to resign because of a "philosophical difference" with the Board of Visitors, a group that is appointed by the state of oversee University Affairs and top level hirings. It was later revealed this wa…

It was later revealed this was the result of a coup by a bunch of Darden MBA's because they wanted "radical" change to the future plans of the University, not incremental change. Which, as I recall, was revealed in some seriously mustache-twirling e-mails that the main orchestrator had used the Reply All feature for or something to that extent. I can't remember which article I read this in, but this has all the eleme…

Perhaps this one?

http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/hey_wait_a_m...

Re: UVA Computer Science professor resigns over incompetence of board

#84

Post by InclinedPlane »

herdrick wrote: post #75
rayiner wrote: post #48

Additional backstory: the revolt of the faculty is due to the Board wanting to close marginal academic departments at the University. Further backstory: the expenditures of the academic division at UVA have increased about 80% since 2001. Enrollment has only increased 9%. In-state tuition has increased about 275%. I'm not a UVA alum, but I grew up in Virginia, so I care about what happens at UVA. UVA's faculty can wa…

OK, what departments did she want to cut? Honestly, I've never hard a harder time trying to figure out what an HN story was all about.

The board, apparently spurred by professor Wulf, wanted deep cuts in spending. Sullivan, the president, was moving slowly to implement cuts so she was pushed out by the board. Now Wulf has quit as well, seemingly due to some sort of internal drama within the board due to widespread public condemnation of the ouster of Sullivan.

Re: UVA Computer Science professor resigns over incompetence of board

#85

Post by scott_s »

chrisrhoden wrote: post #58
jmduke wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Virginia -- particularly Charlottesville and Richmond -- is not some Southern stereotype. That being said, I think the people most interested in this news are those with vested interests in Virginia higher education -- alums, donors, etc. -- and that tends to raise the average level of discourse.

Most of the south isn't a southern stereotype. The DC metro is more like a new england city than either of the two you mentioned. This paper is based out of southeastern VA, in the VA Beach and Norfolk area.

I grew up in the DC area (Virginia side), and myself and others there never considred it "the South." I always thought of it as the dividing line between North and South. This always seemed natural to me, since Virginia seceded in the Civil War, and Maryland did not.

Re: UVA Computer Science professor resigns over incompetence of board

#86

Post by scott_s »

rayiner wrote: post #48

Additional backstory: the revolt of the faculty is due to the Board wanting to close marginal academic departments at the University. Further backstory: the expenditures of the academic division at UVA have increased about 80% since 2001. Enrollment has only increased 9%. In-state tuition has increased about 275%. I'm not a UVA alum, but I grew up in Virginia, so I care about what happens at UVA. UVA's faculty can wa…

I don't think that's an entirely accurate backstory.

The facutly are in revolt because the Board fired the President without warning or stated cause. Eventually, the Board said the cause was that the President, who is in the process of making cuts, was not acting fast enough.

For the other stuff, to add to the budgetary woes, the amount of state money that the public universities in Virginia receive (not just UVA) has dropped significantly.

Re: UVA Computer Science professor resigns over incompetence of board

#87

Post by scott_s »

herdrick wrote: post #71
ChristianMarks wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You could start with this: http://leiterreports.typepad.com/blog/2012/06/coup-detat-at-...

It says nothing. How about some facts?

Check the rest of the thread. There's a good Washington Post article which summarizes the situation.

Re: UVA Computer Science professor resigns over incompetence of board

#88

Post by trevelyan »

rayiner wrote: post #48

Additional backstory: the revolt of the faculty is due to the Board wanting to close marginal academic departments at the University. Further backstory: the expenditures of the academic division at UVA have increased about 80% since 2001. Enrollment has only increased 9%. In-state tuition has increased about 275%. I'm not a UVA alum, but I grew up in Virginia, so I care about what happens at UVA. UVA's faculty can wa…

I do not know the details, but it does seem incompetent to identify German (language of the most important economy in Europe) and the classics as marginal departments which must be eliminated in the name of economic efficiency.

A vendetta against the humanities perhaps, but economic efficiency? Neither are departments likely to have soaring costs: all you need is a classroom and professor. Lecturers in the classics will probably not even break 50k, while language classes are even cheaper since they're often offloaded to graduate students teaching from standard texts. As long as there are students opting to take those courses, they should be printing money for the university.

So unless there has been gross mismanagement of these departments for decades (aggressive hiring and declining enrollment), it is hard to believe that costs could get out of line. And closing down popular and should-be-profitable classes in order to funnel students to other departments in the name of economic efficiency is a very strange move.

Re: UVA Computer Science professor resigns over incompetence of board

#90

Post by jleader »

rayiner wrote: post #48

Additional backstory: the revolt of the faculty is due to the Board wanting to close marginal academic departments at the University. Further backstory: the expenditures of the academic division at UVA have increased about 80% since 2001. Enrollment has only increased 9%. In-state tuition has increased about 275%. I'm not a UVA alum, but I grew up in Virginia, so I care about what happens at UVA. UVA's faculty can wa…

"the expenditures of the academic division at UVA have increased about 80% since 2001...In-state tuition has increased about 275%."

This says to me that some other source of funding (state subsidy?) has just about disappeared, is that right?

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