Former Sen. Ben Sasse Takes Office as UF President and now announces he is retiring

What in the world are you talking about?

 

Sorry....sometimes I presume knowledge beyond the snowglobe...my bad.

https://www.google.com/amp/s/thehil...tudent-groups-controversial-israel-hamas/amp/


Full list of US universities staging pro-Palestinian protests


Students hold ‘Protest for Palestine’ amid international conflict - Daily Forty-Niner

Protests kick off near Harvard - where 31 student organizations issued 'sickening' statement that Israel was responsible for Hamas' terrorist attacks: Man in keffiyeh calls Israeli demonstrators 'Nazis' and 'pigs' | Daily Mail Online

Have they NO shame? Anti-Semitic college group 'Students for Justice in Palestine' are plotting a 'Day of Resistance' in support of 'historic win' against Israel after Hamas killed 1,200 people | Daily Mail Online

NYU students respond to Israel-Palestine conflict at citywide protests


As an aside....these SOB's knew about this before it happened. It wreaks of a concerted effort to manipulate the narrative on cue--not plausible as a spontaneous celebration of chopping off babies' heads, raping women, and mass kid-nappings of women and children.

(Or they're monsters endorsing monstering...).

 

Utter fail. Your comment was Ben Sasse’s letter “stands out against so many attempts to come off as more learned”. The implication was politicians and leaders but if your whole argument was about Ben Sasse’s comments being more main stream than embedded Palestinian groups… well then water is wet.

 

Sasse promising to avoid being a politician gets praised for a political statement. Funny. Wish he was getting more done at his actual job. Central admin is in shambles, he still has no plan for online education, no strategic planning, Uf still missing several deans, but oh he did hire his old consulting firm to evaluate things so I’m sure that’s going great. He hired two new associate provosts and we still have no clue what they actually do. Appreciate good letters but maybe he could, idk… do the rest of his job?

 

Tlaib Statement on Ongoing Violence in Israel and Palestine - Rashida Tlaib

https://www.axios.com/2023/10/11/squad-democrats-israel-hamas-tensions

The Squad's Socialist Party Rallies in Support of 'Palestine' Hours After Hamas Terror Attacks

Michigan Dem has to split with Dem socialists because? .... support for the attack.

Democratic lawmaker cuts ties with prominent left-wing group over pro-Palestinian rally

BLM "Stsnds with Palestine!"

BLM chapter sparks outrage after posting pro-Palestinian cartoon referencing Hamas terrorists



So yeah, no shit, "water is wet" (/terrorism is evil and wrong)...

....and a shit pile of ppl seem to have forgotten this--making Sasse’s comments stand out.

That was my point. *Shouda been* a "no shit Sherlock" formality; but sometimes, when the world's gone batshit whackadoodle, common sense comes as a refreshing thirst quencher. Which appears to be the case here.

 

....and yet we went up in school ranking becoming #1 public with WSJ after he arrived.

...and he had some HUGE shoes to fill.

Anyway....stay negative bro!

You're awesome!

 

Meh. Your attempt to slam American leaders responses as lacking is cracking me up. There is universal alignment supporting Israel and condemning the attack. Stop acting like that isnt true. Youre attempting to slither away from that statement by providing proof of responses by Palestinian supporting entities in the US who are concerned about Palestine and some that are anti-Israel is laughable. Just admit the political response has been unified and Ben Sasse has responded in kind.

 

Lol! Yeah, ok...

 

I knew youd see it my way! lol

 

For some reason(I can’t understand how) something tells me that you have already passed judgement on Sasse’s performance before he has really gotten started.

Like Coach Napier, the large junk pile that Sasse inherited took years with contributions from many to build. And like Hamas, the shitheads who have impeded our university’s greatness hide amongst the competent and the good.

IOW, the mess can’t be cleaned up in a morning when the junk pile has to be sifted to separate the good from the bad.

His letter was great. The unfortunate thing is that it was necessary. Sasse also gave a great, brief introduction/speech at summer commencement in August, and Dr. Woodard hit the equivalent of a 450 ft grand slam with his address.

Criticism of actual performance is fine. But “FireRonZook.com” tactics are not. The man has a job to do. His letter shows that he has a grasp of the problems in elite academia and he seems to be going about correcting them in a smart way.

But you find a few trivial items to form a club. I hope that he does go through the staff and make adjustments where things have gone ideologically astray to the detriment of the mission. But I do not want him doing it in a “throw the baby out with the bath water” way.

 

How tied in are you on University staff feedback on Sasse? I havent seen much from him as of yet and found Slayers questions pretty sound.

 

that number 1 ranking he inherited. On the work of people like me who have been here 20 years. Not because of some guy That’s been here 6 months and done literally nothing. Lol. So if you’re celebrating that ranking you’re celebrating me and thousands of others. Not Ben sasse.

 

I haven’t written him off yet. We are hoping and praying he can clean things up administratively. And believe me there was a lot to clean up, a deep rot in places on the provosts office. The last president was so laser focused on rankings he let admin go out of control and there is a lot of change we want and need and have been asking Sasse for. But the guy has done almost nothing at this point. He’s often in hiding. He has provided no vision or direction. I mean… you can choose to not believe me that’s on you but we are all here begging for leadership and so far he’s been missing in action.

 

I believe you have made a great point here. It seems to me that all of our presidents since Lombardi have been “laser focused” on one thing or another to the detriment of everything else. Lombardi may have been as well and was just lucky or had people around him keeping the other things moving in the right direction.

From experience, I can tell you that going in to fix a system or program that is broken can be very difficult to an outsider. I learned years ago from an old mentor that when executive management wants you to fix something as an insider from within the company, then you demand to bring some of your people with you. I pick the biggest issue (usually middle program management or engineering) and put my person there immediately.

Sasse can’t do that, so he is utilizing consultants. They are often very good at tactical solutions, but suck air at strategic/cultural solutions because they don’t connect with the staff, they just ask for data for their model and let it spit out metrics that are often either wrong or are not applicable. I’m not a big fan of consultants so he could be making a mistake if he gives them too much consideration.

The biggest thing he needs is to know who he can trust and who he can’t. Not people he can trust to agree with him, but trust to evaluate reality and tell him the truth. I hope he finds those people quickly now from the 6 month mark forward.

Best of luck going forward.

 

What?

There are a lot of buzzwords here, but I'm not sure what this is supposed to actually mean.

 

You do know if the ranking had dropped, it would be his fault. This is too hot after all.

 

Yeah, I don't really understand why any University president has to weigh in on international issues that don't involve the USA. Or other schools admins have felt compelled to put out statements about letters circulated by student groups. None of the keep politics out of school people actually want that, they just want a different view in the bully pulpit. Ultimately it just shows you how weird US/Israeli relations are!

 

Any speculation on why the man would even take the job if didn't intend on jumping in and actually working?

 

Political aspirations would be the only guess. It sure as hell is not because he knows anything about being president of a major university or his a long-term commitment to higher education.

It is kind of obvious, after his epic failure as a Senator who was going to lose his re-election bid in Nebraska, the he decided to hitch his political wagon to DeSantis' arse and be the willing instrument of DeSantis' vision of turning higher education into a farce. In return he would likely be gifted a position in the DeSantis World Order.