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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

#91

Post by dredmorbius »

chernevik wrote: post #79
dredmorbius wrote: post #38

Additional backstory for those not gleaning sufficient context from either the HN title or Bill Wulf's resignation letter (echoing another comment: more a resume than a list of wrongs). From the Slate article below: On Thursday night, a hedge fund billionaire, self-styled intellectual, “radical moderate,” philanthropist, former Goldman Sachs partner, and general bon vivant named Peter Kiernan resigned abruptly from t…

"Sullivan is an esteemed sociologist who specialized in class dynamics and the role of debt" Actually kind of a revealing sentence.

Indeed. I may have to look her up.

The most interesting things I've seen written about debt in the past 20 years comes from an anthropologist, David Graeber. Debt, the first 5000 years. Insights I've never seen from an economist.

I'm curious as to what a sociologist has come up with.

Re: UVA Computer Science professor resigns over incompetence of board

#92

Post by jleader »

rayiner wrote: post #66
brown9-2 wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He may be impressive, but he also sounds like an entitled baby boomer who thinks he should get more and more tuition dollars from young people in the name of "academic freedom." Source? Sounds like his entire complaint is about the BOV. I don't see anything in the letter that would give you a different impression about the professor's complaint.

It's implicit in the context of the larger debate. The furor is in response to the board trying to cut departments, because UVA has increased expenditures by 80% in the last decade while tripling tuition. It's easy to say that's not what it's about, but practically that what it's about. The university has been increasing faculty expenditures at 4-5% for years in the face of 0.7% increases in enrollment. The state has…

But 4-5% increase in faculty expenditures since 2001 only produces a 60% increase. If the biggest line-item increased by 60%, why did the budget overall increase by 80%? Something else must be growing a lot faster than faculty expenditures!

And why does an 80% increase in expenditures necessarily lead to a tripling of tuition? Shouldn't tuition go up 80% as well? Unless some other source of funding has disappeared?

Re: UVA Computer Science professor resigns over incompetence of board

#93

Post by dredmorbius »

kickingvegas wrote: post #15

"More computing sins are committed in the name of efficiency (without necessarily achieving it) than for any other single reason — including blind stupidity." — W.A. Wulf As an alumnus of the University of Virginia in Computer Engineering, kudos Professor Wulf.

Thank you.

You've just given me my #1 salvo against systemd :)

Re: UVA Computer Science professor resigns over incompetence of board

#94

Post by willvarfar »

scott_s wrote: post #44
0xABADC0DA wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

UVA is a crown jewel of Virginia's old boy network. The first woman president, well-liked and not an old boy, is fired by the business college for no legitimate reason. This couldn't be any more blatant.

The difficulty with that "blatant" narrative is that the chair of the Board of Visitors is a woman. Just because a theory is possible does not mean it happened. As I stated before, I have heard no one, on any side, allege discrimination.

> And he reassured them that sharp, trustworthy people were handling the transition process: “And you should be comforted by the fact that both the Rector and Vice Rector, Helen Dragas and Mark Kington are Darden alums,”

"Old Boy" network indeed. The discrimination is not her gender but her provenance (which is that, not being a Darden alum, she is not under the control of the Darden alum pecking order)

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

Re: UVA Computer Science professor resigns over incompetence of board

#97

Post by [deleted] »

rayiner wrote: post #82
_delirium wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 pac…

[deleted]

Re: UVA Computer Science professor resigns over incompetence of board

#98

Post by _delirium »

rayiner wrote: post #81
herdrick wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

That seems like more evidence of some kind of clumsy political agenda on the board's part, since there's no way actually looking at the budget could give you a picture where Classics and German studies, of all things, are responsible for unsustainable spending increases; they're among the cheapest programs to operate. I suspect it's just some hedge-fund types who don't like the humanities and are looking for excuses to gut them.

If the goal was really to keep costs in line, then the first thing to do would be to assess where the cost increases have come. Which programs have seen the biggest cost increases? And, in which of those are the cost increases worth the quality the program brings to the university? Rank the programs by both expense and quality, and cut the programs which have the highest expense relative to their quality.

Re: UVA Computer Science professor resigns over incompetence of board

#99

Post by acdanger »

InclinedPlane wrote: post #84
herdrick wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Sorry. Professor Wulf sided with the board's agenda? That wasn't apparent in his resignation letter. It seemed like his resignation was a response to the board's removal of Sullivan.

Re: UVA Computer Science professor resigns over incompetence of board

#100

Post by chernevik »

dredmorbius wrote: post #91
chernevik wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Sullivan is an esteemed sociologist who specialized in class dynamics and the role of debt" Actually kind of a revealing sentence.

Indeed. I may have to look her up. The most interesting things I've seen written about debt in the past 20 years comes from an anthropologist, David Graeber. Debt, the first 5000 years . Insights I've never seen from an economist. I'm curious as to what a sociologist has come up with.

What I've seen of Graeber's stuff is interesting. Economics is too important to be left to the economists.

But I've always regarded sociology as undisciplined and people studying it unrigorous. I haven't missed much by those rules of thumb.

A number of Sullivan's books were written with one Elizabeth Warren. When other academics tried to examine their data they came up short. Look her up if you like, but you're more likely to learn more elsewhere.

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