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Something like this...

We’re deviating from the plan already, but we’ve been tipped off by many of you to something which we believe warrants the “Uncovered” title.

Faculty governance, which one may assume doesn’t affect them as a student, is an issue which reaches throughout the entirety of the institute. If your professors don’t have any means to officially assemble, they can’t truthfully express what they (as experts) think is best academically for the institute. They have no means to advocate for us students when it is needed. The opportunity to voice their opinions may not even be presented to them without an official body.

Now, you may be thinking why should I care? And quite frankly, you don’t have to.But if you’d like to know more about this whole faculty governance debacle, there is a VERY comprehensive article (pdf, 22 pages) written by two (hopefully tenured) RPI professors which you may want to take a look at (especially you student government geeks.) The article goes into the history of governance at RPI, and continues through to the present day situation. It was published as part of the new AAUP Journal of Academic Freedom, which aims to be the “one place to track the developing international discussion about academic freedom and its collateral issues.” Sounds good to us.

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We're not sure which one we're getting with our AAUP investigation.

The AAUP (American Association of University Professors) announced recently that it will be investigating Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute for issues surrounding faculty governance, specifically the still suspended Faculty Senate.

The Chronicle of Higher Education’s “The Ticker” had this to say:

The American Association of University Professors announced on Friday that its general secretary, Gary Rhoades, has authorized an investigation of Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute over issues of shared governance. The group says the investigation by a panel of its own members will focus on the suspension of Rensselaer’s faculty senate. The office of Rensselaer’s top-paid president, Shirley Ann Jackson, suspended the faculty senate there in 2007, and it has not met since.

The AAUP’s press story is available here.

Here is another story from the Chronicle ‘07 where the AAUP publicly criticized the school.

I don’t really know what this investigation will entail, but I believe it is a step in the right direction to resolve this faculty/administration fiasco rift within our school community.

Share Uncategorized AAUP, faculty, faculty senate, investigation

This past Sunday, Professor E. Bruce Nauman passed away at the age of 71. He had recently been diagnosed with lung cancer. Known on campus for his criticism of the current administration (and especially Dr. Jackson), he was well known in the chemical engineering field too, having authored five books and over 150 research papers. In addition, Nauman was the owner of six patents.

Before the Faculty Senate was dissolved in 2007 by the administration, Nauman had spearheaded the body’s  “no confidence” vote of Dr. Jackson in 2006 which narrowly failed.

His passion and dedication to the ‘Tute will surely be missed. Our deepest sympathies and thoughts are with his family during this difficult time.

There will be a memorial service tomorrow, Friday May 29th, at 11 AM at the Chapel and Cultural Center (C + CC).

The Times Union has more, and Dr. Jackson’s email to the community is after the jump.
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Share Uncategorized Dr. Jackson, E. Bruce Nauman, faculty

In today’s Times Union, author Scott Waldman wrote an article entitled “RPI dumping teacher honored by students.” While perhaps that is how it could be perceived, there’s more to it. The School of Humanities, Arts and Social Sciences had been hiring professors on essentially “extra” money. When a professor from HASS left RPI, that person’s salary would be returned to the School and could be used for any number of things. What ended up happening most of the time, is that this extra money was used to hire other professors, such as Julie Guttman. This reallocation of “unused” funds occurred year after year. When RPI entered vacancy management as a result of the economic downturn, that money disappeared. The money went elsewhere.

What is terrible is that this wasn’t realized until it was too late. I think it’s too bad that this oversight occurred, and that a more proactive approach to reviewing faculty positions and hiring was not in place. Julie Guttman will be missed. I think that when the students deem a professor “Person of the Year” that that should be taken as a strong vote of support. I would love to hear that the administration had said “we should try harder to keep Prof. Guttman around because clearly she has had an impact on the students,” and as a result of this extra effort, they could renew her contract.  Unfortunately, that doesn’t seem to be the case at the moment.  But the ‘Tute has a few months, maybe they’ll figure out a way.

During this past Pizza with the Cabinet, Dr. Palazzo was asked a question which had to do with this, and what stuck out to me was that he said something to the extent of  not being able to believe that one subject matter hinged so critically upon one professor. He felt confident that other faculty would be able to teach as effectively. While this may be the case, undoubtedly it is where Prof. Guttman went above and beyond that made her stick out in students’ minds. I don’t know if that will be replaced as easily.

And as for the TU article? Perhaps the more appropriate title would have been “RPI fails to find a way to keep valued professor.” But that just doesn’t have the same zing to it…

Share Uncategorized faculty, Julie Guttman, provost, Scott Waldman, Times Union

He has a nice profile?

We just found out, but apparently on May 14th, ANOTHER dean of an RPI college was secretly announced to the world. (Do they really mean to leak this stuff?)

Mr. Evan Douglis will be the new Dean of the School of Architecture effective August 1st 2009. He comes to us as the former Chair of the Undergraduate Department in the School of Architecture at Pratt Institute. Douglis has previously taught at Columbia and The Cooper Union, as well as abroad at various institutes in Spain and China. He is the principal of the Evan Douglis Studio. Part of Douglis’ work has to do with ” the role of smart building materials in sustainable design, the function and use of modular building components, and the relationship between functional structure and ornament.” Bottom line? He sounds pretty impressive.

You may not recognize him if you see him on campus, (is RPI the new Pleasantville?) but I’m pretty sure he’d love a warm welcome in the fall too.

Current Acting Dean Mark Mistur will return to his academic position as an Associate Professor in the School of Architecture when Douglis takes his new position.

photo: pratt.edu

Dr. Jackson’s letter is after the jump.
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This is Dr. David Rosowsky

Starting July 15th, RPI’s School of Engineering will have a new dean, Dr. David Rosowsky. Dr. Rosowsky joins us from Texas A&M where he was a professor and head of the civil engineering department. During his time there, he expanded degree programs, hired more than 25 new faculty, and oversaw the implementation of a mentoring program (with both internal and external mentors.) We must say, Dr. Rosowsky’s resume is pretty impressive, and we hope that he is able to continue to do great things when he joins the Rensselaer family. We wish Dr. Rosowsky the best in his transition to the area (and all it’s quirky weather.) We look forward to seeing him around campus in the Fall, and if you see him looking lost, I’m sure he’d appreciate a “hello”, and a point in the right direction. (I know I would!)

Current acting dean Timothy Wei will return to his old position as professor and head of the MANE department.

rpi press release

photo: rpi.edu

UPDATE: Dr. Jackson’s announcement letter is after the jump. Read more…

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Ever wonder why so many of our Deans and Department Heads are “Acting”?  Well, it means that the job has been temporarily filled since the previous person left, and they are conducting a search to fill it.  What’s interesting is how many “acting” administrators there are (3 out of 5 deans and 4 out of 21 Department Heads):

Architecture- Mark Mistur -Acting Dean
Engineering- Timothy Wei- Interim Dean
Science- David Spooner- Acting Dean

Arts- Mary Anne Staniszewski -Acting Head
Civil and Environmental Engineering- Jose Holguin-Veras- Acting Head
Computer Science- Martin Hardwick- Acting Head
Mechanical, Aerospace, and Nuclear Engineering- Achille Messac- Acting Head

The high turnover in Deans and Department Heads doesn’t reflect well on RPI’s ability to hold good administrators.  Let’s see if we can actually keep some deans!

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Hopefully RPI won't resort to using the Video Professor.

A wall post on the facebook group Students Against Financial Mismanagement at RPI from a Computer Science Adjunct that their department has been told to “drastically reduce the number of adjuncts.”

While we have yet to confirm the validity of this claim, we’re very surprised to hear this.  A cutback on the number of faculty members at RPI will do nothing but decrease both the quality and value of an RPI education.  More news to come as we try to shed more light on the issue.  Full post below.

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To our pleasant surprise, we were recently contacted by Jason Gorss, RPI’s Manager of Media Relations. He has volunteered a link to the text of Dr. Jackson’s speech from earlier today that she made to the tenured and tenure-track faculty. It is a press release, so it is to be taken with a grain of salt, but for the institute to reach out to people (especially a blog which has been around for not even two months) with information is good news. We hope this is the beginning of much more transparency within the institute. This being said, there were very little details released. Judge for yourself, but it seems to be a whole lot of vague media PR.

No one wants RPI to be more successful than the editors of this blog, and its painful to see the institute and it’s community take a hit as a result of the economic downturn. We’ve been posting email after email in an attempt to increase information coming from the institute.

We have posted the text of the speech below. Here’s a link to it on RPI’s site.

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Share Uncategorized Dr. Jackson, economy, faculty, layoffs

The Provost has sent an email out to the faculty inviting them to a forum about RPI’s economic situation. He opens the letter with the following paragraph. (Emphasis ours.)

As we begin a new semester, given the pressures that Rensselaer has faced recently as a result of external economic conditions, it is important for members of the Rensselaer faculty to know that the Institute did not take lightly the decision to reduce its staff. The departing employees were hard-working and their contributions were valuable. But the current economic reality, as every family and every university and business leader knows, requires actions that focus on long-term sustainability and growth – even if it necessitates short-term discomfort. This is the spirit in which Rensselaer acted. While of course we empathize with, and continue to offer support to, every single person that was let go, the university’s leadership team firmly believes our decision was the best course of action.

They’re sticking to their guns on this one. But calling layoffs “short term discomfort”? C’mon! The email also reiterates information about Dr. Jackson’s salary. Her salary is set by the Board of Trustees which meets a couple of times a year.

There is a faculty meeting in a few hours at 3pm. Students are not invited. Because of the suspension of the faculty senate, this meeting is of note as it gathers tenured and tenure track faculty together.

Full email below!

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