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Thursday, February 22, 2007
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Southern Illinois University Faculty and Staff: UD Salutes You Your university tried to shove a motivational speaker in your face. You said fuck you. "When less than 10 percent of SIUC's faculty and staff shows up to a presentation designed to motivate them - and pass this motivation on to their students - the faculty and staff validate the marketing report that called them prideless." [The SIU student newspaper - I'll be quoting from its article about you - is angry with you. It thinks you ought to have gone. "The university scheduled 10 of these meetings at different times and in different places in the past week to ensure everyone would have a chance to hear the speaker. Still, only a smattering of people showed up. Maybe it's the administration's fault for not understanding what the faculty and staff need. Maybe it's the faculty and staff's fault for not cooperating with the university. Either way, it is an issue. [When an event] is ignored by 90 percent of the professionals at this university, it is a big deal." [Yes - it tells you, the student, that your faculty refuses to sit in a room and listen to an idiot. You should be pleased.] "The faculty had a lecture to go to. It wasn't mandatory, but it was recommended. And valuable information - ways to improve the quality of the university's product - was discussed. Most of the faculty and staff decided not to attend." [Because they don't think of what they do as producing a "product," as one produces a urine sample. Talk to your school's administrators, who need accounting rather than motivational instruction, about why your university is so weak.] "The administration paid $20,000 for this speaker. This is $20,000 that could have gone to deferred maintenance, technology or to the return of some of Morris Library's journals that had to be cancelled for lack of money." [Absolutely. It was a total waste of money.] "But the university chose to spend this money to try to inspire those whose job it is to inspire, and re-instill a sense of pride. It was a noble gesture, and it disappoints us that it may not work out." [It was - as the response suggests - an idiotic gesture, recognized as such by your faculty. Professors don't need some yahoo yelling at them to crinkle up a big ol' smile every morning and fill their lungs with pride. Thoughtful people understand this shit for what it is. Your upper-level administrators apparently do not. You should feel motivated to militate for new upper-level administrators who aren't hucksters.] "Professors, teaching assistants and other educators would agree that 10 percent is a failure. As students, we give the faculty and staff an F." [As UD, I give them an A plus plus. What the hell - they've graduated with honors.] *************************************************** Here, by the way, is the smileyface in question, SIU faculty's master facilitator. Why doesn't his biography list any college degrees? Here's some of what SIU's professors had in store, philosophy-wise. **************************************************** UPDATE: My man McLemee takes me on a walk down motivational memory lane. |