And what better way to put smiles on the faces of a faculty suffering from low morale than offering one unpaid sabbatical leave for the 2010-2011 academic year. The followin bulletin was issued Monday from the university's Academic Affairs office:
One unpaid Sabbatical Leave will be available to faculty for the 2010-2011 academic year for either the fall or spring semester.
Due dates will be different from what is listed in the faculty handbook. Deadline are as follows:
Deadline for Letter of Intent to VPAA & Department Head = Friday, October 23, 2009
Deadline for Completed Application to Department Head = Friday, November 6, 2009
Deadline for Completed Application to VPAA = Tuesday, November 17, 2009
The completed application must contain a recommendation from the department head and the school dean. It will then be passed on through regular channels to the Vice President for Academic Affairs by November 17th, who will pass it on to the Sabbatical Committee. The Sabbatical Committee will review the application(s) and make its recommendations to the Vice President for Academic Affairs by December 10th. The Vice President for Academic Affairs will write a recommendation for all candidates and forward this information with sabbatical application(s) to the President of the University. The President will recommend faculty for sabbatical leaves to the Board of Governors at the January meeting of the Board and all applicants will be notified in writing from the President’s Office upon Board approval.
This should put the rest those rumors that Bruce Speck doesn't care about the faculty.
Gee, my son is in construction and has been taking a unpaid Sabatical for 3 months now!
ReplyDeleteI think what "anonymous" fails to understand is that part of the actual job of being a professor is engaging with research in the field in which that person has been trained. This is not just a benefit to the professor: anyone who says that active research on the part of the professor does not _greatly_ augment their teaching effectiveness is either lying or clueless.
ReplyDeleteFurther, it is understood in academia that an active pursuit of research is very difficult (in some cases near impossible) to do if you have a full time teaching load. This difficulty is made considerably more difficult at schools like MSSU, where the teaching load is the highest it can be and still retain accreditation as a four-year college.
As a result, every 7 years (at all schools) professors are allowed to apply (they are not automatically granted) for sabbatical. If the project is deemed to have sufficient rigor and merit, it is granted: the teacher is relieved of teaching responsibility to work on the active research program he/she needs to participate in to (a) maintain connected expertise as a scholar and (b) increase effectiveness in the classroom.
This new policy at MSSU, as a result, it a slap in the face not just to the faculty, but to the students. To offer _ONE_ sabbatical a year as a policy is to automatically cap the number of professors -- even highly qualified ones -- who could _EVER_ get a sabbatical during their entire career, let alone every seven years. Second, it scoffs and laughs at MSSU students, assuming that the only function of a professor is to read them a bunch of old material from a textbook that the professor has no real active connection with.
Accreditation boards recognize the need for sabbatical in order for a university to function as a serious university (as opposed to a fake one). Apparently here, Speck researched it and saw that he can meet the accreditation standard by offering ONE UNPAID leave a year. This is a standard bar so low it belongs in comedy. No one will apply for it, and he doesn't care. The fact that he feels that MSSU merely needs to meet minimum accreditation standards tells you how he feels about the school, and to be honest, how he feels about the quality of the students the community sends to MSSU. He is laughing at the school and its students here.
It's too bad the "community" is too caught up in their vast misunderstandings of what faculty do, and what universities are, to notice. Instead, they will concentrate their attentions on their ignorant belief that a sabbatical is a "vacation".
Anonymous faculty member: Which university press published your book?
ReplyDeleteAnon 9:36:
ReplyDelete(1) if I said that I had a book published by an academic press, would that shift your opinion to being wholly in favor of funding multiple sabbaticals? Or would you just move to your next point on your red herring list?
(2) if I said that I did not have a book published by an academic press, why would it matter? Is scholarship defined by the publication of a book by an academic press? Surely that is one way, but if you think that's the only way a person can engage in meaningful scholarship, you have clearly outed yourself as someone who doesn't understand what research is.
(3) Sabbaticals are not given away at colleges. Instead, they must be applied for and approved. They are approved by committees that judge the rigor of the project being proposed for the sabbatical. Such committees understand what rigor is, and what scholarship means. If they reject a sabbatical request because it is not serious, that is a good thing for the university. If, however, they reject a sabbatical request even when the research proposed is rigorous, that is a decision to degrade the quality of instruction at the university by choosing not to invest in one's own intellectual infrastructure (which is, after all, what creates the backbone of the product).
Perhaps that's it, though: perhaps Bruce, as I mentioned above, really thinks that MSSU is a joke of an institution? At a serious one, there's no way a "one a year unpaid leave" policy would fly. No serious instructors would apply for jobs, and in time no serious students would enroll. Perhaps Bruce is really signalling here what he thinks MSSU is really is -- a backwoods community college masquerading as a university handing out 4 year degrees? That would explain his policy, to be honest.
Of course, that's not how the faculty at MSSU think of themselves, or the way they think of the students, or of the school.
Perhaps Bruce and the rest of the MSSU community have a difference in "vision" about what the college is, or should be.
Seems like a pretty fundamental difference.
Dear anonymous junior faculty member:
ReplyDeleteThanks. You proved my point. If you were published then a one-word answer would have been sufficient. Your 356-word response reveals that you obviously suffer from an inferiority complex. Are you sure your not Bruce Speck?
I'm really sorry that you don't have the degree or qualifications to get a job at a more prestigious university. Your as much a pretender as Speck.
2:42 You apparently have nothing better to do than to count or to copy and paste into MS word (and use its word count), the number of words from written by another commenter. Boy, that wouldn't fly in the real world.
ReplyDelete5:19 - do tell, what exactly is your son in construction doing with his sabbatical? Of course he is going for additional training or honing his skills, right?
6:38 and 10:18 - Give up the fight with commenters here and at the Globe. They are either here to bait faculty into commenting to add to the impression that faculty are whining or they won't understand the most lucid explanation you can offer. I'm telling you... don't bother anymore. Let the vote on 11/2 speak for itself.
Anon 5:40 -
ReplyDeleteOh, I don't mind at all. Reading the comments of folks like 9:36/2:42 can actually be pretty amusing!
Randy is right. Nobody will jump at this opportunity.
ReplyDeleteIT'S ANOTHER INSULT BY BRUCE, AGEE, YUST, GIBSON, EIS, ET. AL....
Faculty sabbaticals have always been "paid" for one full semester or "half-pay" for a full academic year, depending on the project.
To offer an "unpaid" sabbatical to faculty who have received no pay increases for two years, while under order to improve relations with the faculty, speaks volumes about Bruce's lack of judgment...
I think this nail in the coffin may be the one that nails the top down. Good going, Bruce! May you enjoy your next job.
ReplyDeleteMSSU's board, president, and faculty deserve each other. They're all third tier for a third tier institution. Except for Bruce. He doesn't even deserve to be third tier.
ReplyDeleteRandy, I hope your students and former students reading this look elsewhere for college.
Dear anon 6:38/10:18
ReplyDeleteMethinks you have actually overestimated Speck's competence. For example, you said, "Speck researched it and saw that he can meet the accreditation standard by offering ONE UNPAID leave a year."
I seriously doubt Speck did any research. Instead, he asked the VP of the week to recommend a way to "solve a problem" without costing any money. When he received an answer, he assumed the information was good (as it always is when it suggests something that costs no money) and went with it.
The idea that any *research* was involved is absurd.
Let's do lunch.