University Shenanigans

Two big posts went/are up for grabs at my university, currently, and there is intense controversy surrounding both of them.

First, we lost our basketball coach, John Beilein, immediately after we won the NIT. The freshman basketball player in my composition class has been devastated. According to him, they won the tournament, and Coach was on a plane to Michigan the next day. He feels betrayed. The new guy we hired swiftly is problematic. What the previously linked article won't tell you is the number of problems Huggins has had with his coaching time at Cincinnati. NCAA violations, players who got special treatment or who had trouble with the law, and a thugish coaching style are his hallmarks. Cincinnati even had a few scholarships yanked for his shenanigans. Lucky us. My basketball player seems scared to death.

The second Big Deal is that we're in the market as a school for a new President, which is also filled with controversy. It comes down to Nellis and Garrison. Nellis is an academic first and an administrator second, who has raised or helped to raise over $7 million in grants, mostly educational grants. Garrison, like the current president Hardisty, is a politically connected lawyer with no background in higher education. He lists as one of his skills "fundraising", but all he did was fundraise for Wise's political campaign. Those are drastically different dollars. Recently, one of the profs in the English department gave an impassioned speech about the situation to the Board of Governors, which was met with hearty applause from the audience.

I'm amused by all of this anyway, as a political exercise. But there are some ramifications for me personally. The new basketball coach is probably going to make it rough on me with his students--I don't have the best track record when dealing with the athletic dept. There was some flap last semester that apparently has resulted in my name being somewhat of a dirty word for the basketball team(s) as far as English instructors go. I exaggerate, but not much. I would be happy to tell Coach Huggins to his face that his player sucks at English and will fail. Coach Huggins is the kind that would probably create that kind of opportunity for me.

A president who doesn't give a crap about academics is always problematic, because it means he'll cut funding to the humanities first. They always do. That means no scholarships or grants, no travel reimbursement for conferences, and it might mean a tighter limit on who gets into the department in the first place (no money to support them)--which could affect me as I go to apply for PhD status this fall.

Sigh. Stay tuned.

-- Virgil