Yesterday the Provost came to the Faculty Senate and, for once, she had a great suggestion. We have an online system for curriculum and program changes. It works at a glacial pace. People wait for years for their paperwork to move through the system. Finally, the university decided to ditch the clunky thing and introduce another system next Fall.
In the meantime, the Provost proposed that we form a committee that will work in the summer and move all of the proposals that are currently stuck in the system at an accelerated pace. She even proposed to pay extra money to people who would do this work. I perked up because imagine how great that would be? All the multi-year backlog cleared so that we can start over with a clean slate in the new academic year. Plus, people would get paid to do this work over the summer. What’s not to like? I have a proposal that has languished in the system since 2023. There are 13 (I kid you not) levels of review in there, and my proposal is at level 9 currently.
The Provost needs the Faculty Senate to approve the expedited procedure for this to happen. But guess what? People shouted down this idea. It’s too fast, it’s too unexpected, we need to “have conversations” about it. Most people aren’t on contract in the summer, so there won’t be any conversations. The proposals will not go through.
“I want to make this easier for you guys,” the Provost said bleakly. “I found money to pay the summer stipends. Can’t we agree to do it just this once?”
But no, we can’t.
The entire time I’ve worked here, people have been complaining about the slowpoke system that is supposed to process these proposals. Finally, we get a chance to get it all done. And … they refuse.
Clarissa's Blog 
For something like this, at my university, my colleagues and I would jump at the opportunity to get a stipend and do some extra work.
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I have never understood this type of thing.
But my current go-to explanation for everything that looks like this is: embezzlement. If you look at it as a bunch of people who would benefit from things working well, voting down the thing that would make it work well… nothing makes sense. But if you look instead and ask: how is this covering for embezzlement? It makes total sense.
Somewhere in that kludge, someone is benefitting financially from the lack of things actually working.
The solution is always a proctology-level financial audit of the entire thing. All such problems would resolve quicker if everybody involved were forced to support only one of two options: make the thing work well, or get audited.
ethyl
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Is it any wonder that sane America wants to burn Academia down and salt the earth?
It’s become the inflamed and superating appendix of the American Institutions.
From it we get public school teachers, too many of the private ones, journalists, and NGO bureaucrats.
Can any of these institutions be saved? What would it take?
I know of (and support at least one) new college that does what it ought: Veritas Christo et Ecclesiae. Perhaps that is the way forward. I mourn their libraries, though.
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~Codex
WDE
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