University of Illinois kicked out one of its useless paper pushers, chancellor Wise. These overpayed bureaucrats are all a waste of space but Wise also caused extreme embarrassment to the university with her offensive scheming and endless intrigues.
The university announced it was going to give her a gift of $400,000 (sic!) for finally buggering off. In a broke state that’s been sending some of its professors – people who actually do useful work – on furloughs, an enormous gift to a dime a dozen bureaucrat who made U of I the laughing stock of the global academic community with its shameful treatment of Stephen Salaita provoked outrage.
U of I announced that the kickbacks to Wise will not take place. I’m glad because the story was starting to resemble news from Putin’s Russia.
Clarissa's Blog 
I was desperately waiting for the new link encyclopedia so I could drop that news there.
So happy that this corrupt administrator has resigned in disgrace. I hope Steve Salaita gets a big fat settlement out of U of I. I was reading some of Wise’s personal emails that U of I had to disclose because of the court order, and man, she and her cronies in the university don’t sound like academics at ALL. Straight up politicians. Or higher ups at Enron trying to cover up.
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It’s an absolute disgrace. These people get huge salaries but the value they produce for the university is nil.
At least, she’s not managing to bite off another huge chunk of the school’s resources.
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I like how the one thing universities have copied from the corporate world is the idea of golden parachutes. Even if you fuck up you’re still guaranteed metric fucktons of money.
One of the things written up in her contract was that if she went back to being a professor, she’d get the highest salary in her home department. Note that this is a person who hasn’t taught a class, engaged in any research, or published a paper in years. Highest salary in the department, though. Because reasons.
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I like the idea of a “metric fuckton of money”, so I had to look this up …
Apparently 1 million USD weighs roughly one metric tonne if you’re dealing with one dollar bills, so in fact this was not actually a fuckton of money. 🙂
But still, four-tenths of a metric fucktonne of money is still too much for this walking embodiment of the Peter Principle …
What basis did they have for considering this “bonus” anyway?
Oh yes, let’s all fail faster to the top, and can I have some sprinkles with my Tall Taxpayer-Funded Bonus Latte with Heavy Compensation Cream while we’re at it …
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“the one thing universities have copied from the corporate world is the idea of golden parachutes”
I’ve long assumed that was the whole idea – the idea of corporationizing universities makes no sense in academic or economic terms so the real reason has to be something else….. and of the available options…. plunder (for lack of a better word) seems the most obvious (and I can’t find any evidence that supports any other reason).
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Update: She really has no shame. Lawyering up to get her $400,000.
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