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All three finalists for UMass chancellor job withdraw
By adamg on Mon, 05/21/2018 - 7:44pm
The Dorchester Reporter reports UMass President Marty Meehan is pissed at people on campus going public with criticism of the process to find a new chancellor, which may have made the three decide UMass wasn't worth the trouble, and now he's telling UMass Boston: No permanent chancellor for you.
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Comments
As long
As they get that sweet sweet land in Newton!
Let's not confuse
the issues with the campuses. UMass Amherst made a deal to purchase Mt. Ida. UMass Boston is having trouble hiring a chancellor because the faculty want to be involved in the hiring process and they weren't.
I’m not confusing the issues
I’m saying umass has its priorities and Newton > Boston. Amherst >Boston. Basically everything > Boston
AND ...
The chancellor candidates realized that the faculty were shut out AND they don't want to work someplace where their selection does not have the assent of the faculty.
The faculty should have
The faculty should have absolutely no say in the choice of their own boss. Talk about inmates running the asylum.
A chancellor is not the 'boss
A chancellor is not the 'boss' of the faculty. They can be fired, tenured faculty cannot (except for cause). Per the charter of the university, faculty share in governance of the institution. This seems to annoy many people, as it is not in keeping with their understanding of how organizations must be structured, but so be it.
I'll do it for fifty grand
"Seven month search." I went six weeks without a job offer, THREE people straight punt on this because they got their feelings hurt. Two Americas.
Ayup
'cept in Massachusetts they'll happily pretend its good manners to rub everyone's face in it. But vote for Liz Warren: she'll teach Rich Uncle Pennybags a thing or two!
Real headline from bostonglobe.com right now:
"A family organized a whole trip around one meal in Modena, Italy. Was it worth it?"
http://www.bostonglobe.com/lifestyle/food-dining/2018/05/21/unforgettabl...
Lifestyle section
You're offended by a travel article in the lifestyle section? Europe is affordable for a majority of Globe subscribers, how is that "rubbing it in"?
Europe is more affordable than Disneyland
Our little xenophobe doesn't get out much.
Six weeks?
6 weeks is not really that long at all. These people have better options than heading a group of people who publicly question their qualifications. They probably are out there interviewing somewhere nicer right now, instead of becoming a regular on their local news blog comment section
Professional jobs
They require a bit more than data entry on the late shift.
it's almost certain
that they were all interviewing simultaneously with at least one other institution for similar jobs. no one interviews for just one chancellor/department head/similar academic job at a time, or while simply puttering around the house unemployed.
Not a matter of hurt feelings
If you take that job with a substantial faction of the faculty angrily against you, you're entering a no-win situation. Why would any sane person choose to leave an excellent job, uproot their family and move to a new city to face the certainty of major opposition and resistance to anything you try to do.
I don't blame them at all. I'd like to know what proportion of the faculty signed on to that letter (it did not come from the Faculty Council). The Globe quoted the letter as saying “The faculty assert a collective and resolute judgment that none of the final candidates have demonstrated that they are sufficiently qualified to serve as the chancellor of the only public research university in the Greater Boston area and the most diverse four-year public institution in New England.”
These "unqualified" candidates were a senior vice president at the University of Pittsburgh; a vice provost and dean at Georgia State University; and the president of Western Illinois University.
And you think that makes them qualified?
You forgot the litmus test -
a) they are not currently on the faculty
b) they are not OFD
With a few exceptions, top jobs around here only go to insiders and locals - and when I say locals - I mean born here.
Meehan has to take responsibility for this mess
As much as the UMass system office would like to blame them, the faculty are not to blame for this, the President's Office is. They knew the faculty's objections from the beginning of the process and rushed through the search process and then super rushed the campus visits anyway. It is always a mistake to ignore the faculty in a situation like this. If they're not included in the internal process, they'll go outside of it - they have access to the media and they will use it. And the candidates were all weak in critical areas of academic and/or research administration, none had much experience in an urban research university. I didn't think they were irretrievably weak, but enough to give disgruntled faculty an opening.
As I've often said, the chancellor's job at UMass Boston is incredibly hard, probably harder than any of the other campuses. It has a less resourced student body, applicant pool, and alumni base; a horrible physical plant problem; a demanding faculty; and as the state university in the state capital, constant interference and patronage demands from every politician in the state. The UMB chancellor needs to be a combination of Machiavelli, the Dalai Lama, Warren Buffet, Barack Obama, and Joan of Arc. Assuming these finalists could read, the issues at UMB were not a surprise and the faculty disapproval should have been expected.
But such failed searches are not uncommon. If the person is any good, once a candidate's home institution finds out they're a finalist elsewhere, they start making moves to keep them. Candidates are often candidates for no other purpose.
Why news coverage "no confidence" votes?
I don't know why the news media covers "no confidence" votes.
The employees don't get to pick their boss.
As a matter of fact, in most cases, the employees don't like their bosses. Who cares what the spoiled staffers in higher education, who don't realize they are subordinate to the new chancellor.
Doesn't matter if they like him, or have "confidence" in them.
$.02
Higher Ed doesn't work like that
That's not the way higher education works. Higher Education is based on "shared governance" a process in which the faculty share control of the institution and take primary responsibility for academics. It's part of the founding documents of almost every US college or university. Faculty are not just employees and are not considered subordinate to the chancellor or president.