UMKC - we know drama.
Jun. 15th, 2005 12:07 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
gogmagogSaw the most painful commercial yesterday while hanging out with ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
rathershady and courters28. A woman is going to a sub place, where the person behind the counter enumerates all their virtues: fresh dough, grilled meat, fresh produce...
She stops him with, "Shhh...you had me at fresh dough."
>_<
Also, every time I see a UMKC TV ad, I gag involuntarily. This is probably due to the smug bastard who was our commencement speaker and his vomitaceous (I made a word!) speech that was larded with PR slogans. "A great place to get a life," bleah.
Speaking of the good ol' alma mater and commencement speeches, the dean of arts and sciences there recently got outed for plagiarism in the Chronicle of Higher Education. Apparently he delivered a commencement speech at UMKC a couple of years ago that lifted large chunks from another commencement address delivered by Cornel West.
Now, I'm not a big fan of plagiarism. It's bad, obviously. However, I do feel that it should be punished equally. I fail to see why Stephen Ambrose and Doris Kearns Goodwin have sailed along, merrily ignoring their plagiarism scandals, but genre authors and journalists are excoriated for it. I suppose we hold genre and newspaper writing to a higher standard than the supposedly well-researched "academic" writing. By the same token, why is it OK in history books but not in a commencement speech by a historian?
Do I think it's bad that the dean did this? Totally. Do I think it's likely that he didn't actually write his own speech, and that the actual plagiarist is some University Advancement stooge with a stick up his ass? Yes. Is the dean going to be brought down by it? Much as I hate to say it, probably yes. Which is a shame, because, though he seems like an officious little prick personally, he's actually been a really good dean. Not to mention that my stepdad's press is directly under said dean, and so faces the possibility of a new, much less friendly ultimate boss. x_x
Anyway, of course the inevitable academic shitstorm is sure to ensue. Within a month, half of the Faculty Senate will be crying for the dean's head. And of course, just about all of that half will be made up of petty fomentors who have nothing better to do with their time than scheme to bring administrators down. (They certainly couldn't bother, y'know, spending that time on their students or on their classes. Hell, no.) And as for getting these octogenarian Brutuses to retire...fat chance. As one of the main fomentors has said in the past, "Why should I retire? I do whatever I want, get paid for it, and can't get fired."
Honestly, I would not accept an academic or administrator position at UMKC for all the money in the world. While you have some good faculty members, there are enough petty vengeful whiny bitches (who have tenure, natch) to make it a veritable snakepit of discord. And having brought down the previous two chancellors (UMKC's only two women chancellors, but I'm sure there's NO CONNECTION between that and their aggressively insecure masculinity), they're pretty power-drunk at the moment. (One of said fomentors has said in the past, "Administrators are no better than a secretary. In the end, they're all just staff - including the Chancellor - and they work for US." Of course, I'd like to see said faculty member get along without the maligned "staff." Then he might have to type his own stuff and do his own research, heaven forfend.)
...sorry. But after growing up with both parents working in academia - both with a foot in the academic side, but one as an administrator and one as a member of that untouchable caste "staff," I've seen so much of this from the semi-inside that I get kinda tired of it. I suppose I'd better get used to it, though, since I'll have to be facing it myself eventually. (While from all accounts the department at Iowa is quite unsnakepit-like, I may not be so fortunate with wherever I'm lucky enough to get my first dinky professor position post-Ph.D.)
Some links about the above brouhaha:
- A blog post by the person who tipped the Chronicle off
- The Chronicle article (requires a subscription to view)
- An article from IsThatLegal.org on the subject
- An article on the History News Network about the issue and the dean's response on HNN
- An article in the Kansas City Star...
- ...and in the St. Louis Post-Dispatch
Whew. Now that my vitriol's spent, here's a funny animated gif (frompekeana). I post it because I love the word "mesbian." XD
rathershady and courters28. A woman is going to a sub place, where the person behind the counter enumerates all their virtues: fresh dough, grilled meat, fresh produce...She stops him with, "Shhh...you had me at fresh dough."
>_<
Also, every time I see a UMKC TV ad, I gag involuntarily. This is probably due to the smug bastard who was our commencement speaker and his vomitaceous (I made a word!) speech that was larded with PR slogans. "A great place to get a life," bleah.
Speaking of the good ol' alma mater and commencement speeches, the dean of arts and sciences there recently got outed for plagiarism in the Chronicle of Higher Education. Apparently he delivered a commencement speech at UMKC a couple of years ago that lifted large chunks from another commencement address delivered by Cornel West.
Now, I'm not a big fan of plagiarism. It's bad, obviously. However, I do feel that it should be punished equally. I fail to see why Stephen Ambrose and Doris Kearns Goodwin have sailed along, merrily ignoring their plagiarism scandals, but genre authors and journalists are excoriated for it. I suppose we hold genre and newspaper writing to a higher standard than the supposedly well-researched "academic" writing. By the same token, why is it OK in history books but not in a commencement speech by a historian?
Do I think it's bad that the dean did this? Totally. Do I think it's likely that he didn't actually write his own speech, and that the actual plagiarist is some University Advancement stooge with a stick up his ass? Yes. Is the dean going to be brought down by it? Much as I hate to say it, probably yes. Which is a shame, because, though he seems like an officious little prick personally, he's actually been a really good dean. Not to mention that my stepdad's press is directly under said dean, and so faces the possibility of a new, much less friendly ultimate boss. x_x
Anyway, of course the inevitable academic shitstorm is sure to ensue. Within a month, half of the Faculty Senate will be crying for the dean's head. And of course, just about all of that half will be made up of petty fomentors who have nothing better to do with their time than scheme to bring administrators down. (They certainly couldn't bother, y'know, spending that time on their students or on their classes. Hell, no.) And as for getting these octogenarian Brutuses to retire...fat chance. As one of the main fomentors has said in the past, "Why should I retire? I do whatever I want, get paid for it, and can't get fired."
Honestly, I would not accept an academic or administrator position at UMKC for all the money in the world. While you have some good faculty members, there are enough petty vengeful whiny bitches (who have tenure, natch) to make it a veritable snakepit of discord. And having brought down the previous two chancellors (UMKC's only two women chancellors, but I'm sure there's NO CONNECTION between that and their aggressively insecure masculinity), they're pretty power-drunk at the moment. (One of said fomentors has said in the past, "Administrators are no better than a secretary. In the end, they're all just staff - including the Chancellor - and they work for US." Of course, I'd like to see said faculty member get along without the maligned "staff." Then he might have to type his own stuff and do his own research, heaven forfend.)
...sorry. But after growing up with both parents working in academia - both with a foot in the academic side, but one as an administrator and one as a member of that untouchable caste "staff," I've seen so much of this from the semi-inside that I get kinda tired of it. I suppose I'd better get used to it, though, since I'll have to be facing it myself eventually. (While from all accounts the department at Iowa is quite unsnakepit-like, I may not be so fortunate with wherever I'm lucky enough to get my first dinky professor position post-Ph.D.)
Some links about the above brouhaha:
- A blog post by the person who tipped the Chronicle off
- The Chronicle article (requires a subscription to view)
- An article from IsThatLegal.org on the subject
- An article on the History News Network about the issue and the dean's response on HNN
- An article in the Kansas City Star...
- ...and in the St. Louis Post-Dispatch
Whew. Now that my vitriol's spent, here's a funny animated gif (from
pekeana). I post it because I love the word "mesbian." XD
