i dont see a rejection in there. i do see a bit of posturing and shifting the conversation away from the terminology of 7 solutions to something else. he's trying to keep faculty from revolting by pacifying them a bit. our BOR are just as invested in the 7 solutions as anyone else. hell we fired a chancellor over it (mike mckinney). you really think that the TAMU BoR, of all folks with their connection to perry, and with perry being an alum of A&M, are in position to reject perry's methods of higher ed reform? i dont.
Seriously, what is up with all the contradictions and deflections coming from you Aggie apologists? The deflections have ranged from "It's not so bad, the Governor is supposed to be calling the shots" to "Let me tell you a little story about Aggieland while I have you on the line..." As for contradictions...
I still don't know who you are arguing with that Rick Perry is a saint and all Aggies love him. I don't know that I can think of any Aggies that worship Perry the way you think we all do. Perry is far too much of a crony capitalist. No argument there. He is also a pure politician. I look point by point on the things he does, some I agree with and some I don't. I don't however think he has some personal vendetta against UT. At the same time I don't think he fears Bill Powers nor should he. I suppose you are angry at the latest outrage that a BoR member wants UT to keep all their emails for auditing purposes. After all the UT Law President has gone crazy giving out forgivable loans to Law Profs after Powers started the practice when he was Law President and didn't even inform campus officials about. It's certainly an outrage that anyone should want to ask questions and hold people accountable. I'm sure it's all Perry's fault somehow, after all everything is.
Are you freaking kidding me? There has already been an investigation into the law-school loans, which was not critical of the way Bill Powers handled his end of the bargain in all of it. Failing to hand the Perry regents a smoking gun to implicate Powers, the author of the investigation (UT System General Counsel Burgdorf) was forced to resign, and the same Perry regents have reopened the investigation. This is clearly a Perry witch hunt.
the forgiveable loans were a sager issue (at least to my understaning). not a powers one. oh and hey guess what, perry appointed a UT alum to our BoR. an evite to a pitchfork/torch welcoming party will be sent out later.
You do realize that Pejovich who is Chair of the Audit Committee on the BoR and is a UT Alum is the one who requested that the emails not be deleted right? So it is a witch hunt to have the Audit Committee Chair want to be able to make sure emails aren't deleted as well? Honestly I am shocked this wasn't already policy, those emails are always subject to FOIA disclosure and Discovery by any lawsuit at a public university. Certainly your internal audit needs to know what is out there so they can protect UT's interests. The thing I don't get about the "Perry witch hunt" against Powers is Powers was appointed in '06. That was 6 years after Perry was Governor and thus all of the BoR that appointed him were Perry appointees. So Powers is technically a "Perry" guy. I just really think you overestimate Perry's power and intentions. Perry is able to appoint the BoR, that's really about it. He also appears to want to run for Governor yet again (though I'm done with him as well) so angering hundreds of thousands of UT Grad voters and donors doesn't seem to make much sense. To me it is about Powers and not Perry. If you wish to think Perry is the great Aggie bogeyman go ahead though, I can't change your mind and the guy certainly is easy to hate. I just think Powers has done a masterful job of getting people to assume any criticism of him is because of Perry and not because of his own actions. For instance in this case it is true that Burgdorf was the one who went overboard with the loans but who does Burgdorf report to? The Law School is a part of UT Austin and not a separate entity of the System, correct? Powers doesn't want to be "micromanaged" but then he allows this kind of thing to happen under his watch on top of the other issues previously mentioned. Powers reports to Cigarroa and the BoR and thus they are also responsible for those actions and have the right to know what is going on. In truth if Perry really wanted to damage UT he would just leave Powers and Dodds alone, they seem to be doing a great job of it. Obviously you feel otherwise though.
I find it hard to believe that Lt. Gov. Dewhurst, Speaker Straus, Dan Branch and the majority of the Texas House of Representatives and Senate who have sided with Powers against Perry are having the wool pulled over their eyes by what you apparently consider some kind of shyster paper-pusher.
I find it hard to believe people think Powers is doing a great job. Dewhurst? Really? I dont care for Perry for other reasons, but I wont shed a tear if Powers is shown the door. Hell, maybe we could actually hire a great UT President.
i think that's the tough part of being a university president. what defines success? what are the specific assessment metrics? from an outsiders perspective, i think powers has done a good job at UT. i think he's elevated the status of the university as a whole (football had some part in that), and made UT a premier institution in the country. wasnt too long ago (well about 16 years ago) that texas monthly touted A&M as being the best public institution in the state of texas. that flipped under faulkner, and the upward trend has continued under powers. so i guess the question is, why do folks hate on powers so much? has he done negative stuff that i dont know about?
IvanDiabloHorn, do you support the "Seven Solutions"? Do you have a problem with UT Austin's focus on research? Perry, Sandefer, et al do. In fact, Perry's cronies on the board of regents hired a gentleman for $200,000 per year to "shake up the status quo" and transition the university away from its research focus. He was fired six weeks into the job; he obviously caused quite a ruckus (read: dissension). San Antonio Express-News If you do support moving away from a research focus, what do you think that will do to UT's national reputation, which is gauged against other research institutions across the country? Do you have a problem with Chancellor Cigarroa's leadership? Both the UT president and chancellor resisted these changes, and both have been hounded ever since by Perry, et al. IvanDiabloHorn, do you support the right of The University of Texas System administration to actually administrate, instead of looking over their shoulder trying to please the governor and his cronies? Ask Barry Burgdorf, who as UT System General Counsel looked in to some of the allegations being bandied about (the loans), and did not find anything on Powers worthy of removal. Failing to hand the headhunters a smoking gun, Burgdorf himself was run off, and the investigation has been reopened. IvanDiabloHorn. I would bet the utmost concern that you have with Powers is the direction of the athletics department. Do not fall into the trap of taking your eye off the ball by swallowing whole the false choices presented by Perry and his Aggie lackeys on this thread. This is not about crooked loans, or perceived four-year graduation rates, or not naming a Vice President of fundraising -- it is a power grab that smacks of corruption and revenge to allow Perry to appease one of his big donors, and a multimillionaire who wants to run The University of Texas into the ground to caress his own damaged ego. In reply to:
5 & 6 have merit, I dont agree with the other 5 solutions. I give my opinion upon having my youngest graduating from UT in 2010, 16 years after my oldest graduated from UT and 38 years after I graduated from UT. So my perpective comes from those three time periods, not from athletics and Powers is the worst. I am 100% in support of research and UT being a top tier research university. I also want UT to be a top tier academic/learning unversity admitting very best students in Texas to learn critical thinking skills from the very best professors in as many courses as possible. I base my opinion on Powers without any reference to the seven solutions. Cigarroa seem to be a non entity, collecting a salary and waiting to see which way the wind is blowing. He will back Powers to a point, but he is not going to take a bullet for him. I agree the president of UT should be allowed to administrate the University, but he should be held accountable for his administration, policies and management of the University. The UT Board of Regents ARE responsible for the President of UT and his management and his actions. The UT President DOES report to and work for the Board of Regents and they CAN fire him if they feel he is not doing his job properly or to their satisfaction. Yes, the Board of Regents are appointed by the Governor. Are you mad at the system? , then work to change it. I like the system, so when we have a president like Powers, they can boot him. Now here is why I have a problem with Powers and why he should be canned: 1. Administrating a holistic admissions policy for 25% of the admitting class that is racist and is morally corrupt. The policy includes portions that discriminates against White and Asian applicants. When Powers should be eliminating these crutches and reviewing blind applications that would fairly admit the best applicants after the top ten percent are admitted. UT graduate kids/grand kids are being unfairly judged by this policy. Rather than changing the racist admission policy, Powers would rather spend a million dollars defending the racist policy all the way to the supreme court. 2. Longhorn Scholars. WTF? After admitting unqualified applicants, Powers wastes UT money on a program of remedial education that actually awards college credits for eigth grade level work that basically is a social promotion program that devalues the UT degree. 3. General Studies Degree. See 2. 4. When the so called budget cuts were announced, Powers eliminated Professor positions and classes such as Western European history, while continuing to spend millions to fund the diversity department and and an elementary school. An elementary school and diversity department ?, while students that only have a short 4/5 year window are losing professors and classes? Power's does not seem to have clue on reducing costs in a budget crunch. The first to go should have been the cost of a diversity department that determines offensive behavior before cutting courses and professors. 5. Powers UT social justice tuition screwing that middle class students are recieving. Taking a percentage of tuition paid by middle class students and redistributing the students money to a "poor' student. Power's apparently has no problem with one student taking out a loan to pay tuition for some one else. Not sure why the poor student cannot take out the same loan other than a screwed up President engaging in social justce. 6. Terrible administration of grants and scholarships for non minority and Asian students. He is alienating many UT graduates that are seeing an unfair UT system for their kids/grandkids and want him gone and will not contribute donations until changes are made. Nothing to do with the 7 solutions, or Perry or anything else but Power's performance or lack thereof. Oh, and I have no problem with the athletic department.
Why did Ms. Kearney really get fired? If Mack won as many national championships as she has and it was found out he was banging one of is players ten years later and he didn't tell anybody, does anybody think he would be fired or allowed to resign? THey would probably give him a raise
OK, so Powers has continued UT's shameful and racist polices in admittance. He hired a big shot law firm at high cost to try to continue their quota program, which was a waste of money, as you can't dress up dog crap no matter how shiny the box is. His direct report, the law school dean, was caught giving himself (stealing) a half million dollars that was supposed to go toward keeping actual professors. But you support him because an Aggie governor wants to show him the door. I'm a UT grad, and if I was Gov, I'd have not only shown him the door, I'd have tossed him out on his worthless ear. As for the 7 solutions program, look, every institution will come up with a list of 28 reasons why it can't possibly change its ways. Fact is, UT has gotten tremendously expensive. 20 years ago when I started, it cost a grand a semester to go. I got a degree for about the 10 grand amount that Perry wants to shoot for. How much does a degree cost now? Why has higher education in general, not just at Texas, increased in price so much faster than inflation? Because they can get it. No matter the credit hour cost, there will still be a long list of people wanting to go to Texas. Perry is at least looking at what can be done so that a degree from Texas isn't priced so high that only either rich people, quota slots with lots of scholarship money, or those who take on 100's of thousands of dollars of debt, can afford it. The school will ***** and whine about it, as all institutions do when they're told to buckle up and cut some fat, and improve their performance. In this case, it may mean professors having to teach more than one class a semester, for a whipping 150 minutes per week, while having their slave grad students toil away on papers, that then the professor adds their name to when done. It may mean having to hold costs down, to cut back on the bloated and worthless administrative tier at Texas, with numerous deans doing squat of value. Kicking and screaming, I hope Perry can drag Texas and other schools into the 21st century, and let them know their model of double digit cost increases every year has run its course, and is not a sustainable model for the future.
