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Sunday, December 12, 2004
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THAMES REDUX
“Southern Miss is a world-class institution with faculty members and an educational experience that are among the best in the nation,” says America’s most delusional university president, Shelby Thames. UD has been tracking with fascination the ebbs and flows of Thames (see UD posts dated 3/29/04 and 9/19/04) as he allows USM to meander into something much worse than mediocrity. USM’s latest outrage is something it hasn’t tried before. It isn't the persecution of its faculty, or political corruption, or nepotism (“The school already has been shaken by faculty bickering with Thames, an enrollment scandal last fall and a money squeeze. Thames also reorganized USM early in his administration, with nine deans suddenly dismissed.”). No, this time USM has gone and got itself placed on probation because of simple rank administrative incompetence. It has failed over a long period of time to provide documentation to the state of its educational activities. As a result, the school could lose its accreditation. As UD noted in a previous post (see UD, 4/10/04), university corruption is so widespread in certain southern states that you now see hometown newspapers arguing that their schools ain’t so bad onaccouta it's just as bad coupla states over: "It is worth noting that just before it was learned that USM was being placed on probation, it was announced that Auburn University over in Alabama was being taken off probation by the same accrediting association. Did Auburn's probation taint its degrees? Of course not. And neither should USM's. Maintaining academic accreditation is a complicated process, as is restructuring an established university. USM is trying to do both and, we still believe, will do so successfully." Hoowhee. Yes. Maintaining academic accreditation is complicated. President Thames is hard at work figuring out how to do it, but while he’s learning, USM will have to put up with the paralysis and humiliation of being a university on probation. As ever, in the eternal tides of human affairs, the great poets were there before us. Here's Wordsworth: Glide gently, thus forever glide, O Thames! that other schools may see Your school drown softly while you bide Your time, fair river! Glide, fair stream, Thy turbulent soul its powers bestowing, ‘Till all good minds and souls outflow, Leaving you up shit’s creek, rowing. |