Sasse Grifting UF

I want to say that it is appearing that what sasse has done was not wrong per se, he just approached it in such an arrogant fashion and communicated so poorly with his stakeholders both above and below that the optics are far worse than the reality.

Senior leaders hire their trusted colleagues on a regular basis- but the huge pay bump these guys got coming in the front door is a little obscene. Especially for a guy screaming stewardship, and also planning to slash departments to save money and fighting to increase tuition. further, none of these guys had significant higher Ed experience but are coming in the door making as much as experienced associate provosts - that’s not good optics and he obviously didn’t care until he got called out for it in public.

 

Oh yeah only Senators are corrupt, I forgot.

 

Oh, my bad, you are just some crank and not a serious person. Good luck with that. Also, literally a picture of a US Senator here ...

 

Boy you sure are quick. That is a picture of a Senator, exposing a doctor for corruption.

All I am asking for is equal treatment from the press, but apparently that is a bridge to far for the left.

 

Isnt he a doctor too? Was he exposing himself? I dont understand conservative lore enough to understand whats happening just based on a picture and why its relevant to the fact that Ben Sasse is a senator, which might make him a higher profile than some guy no one has ever heard of outside UF like Machen or Fuchs.

 

I just read it and would recommend it. It’s a winsome message that offers a rationale for the spending and evidence that it was done ethically. He finally sounds like the Sasse from his wonderful book, Them. If he had started the job with this tweet instead of six months of silence, he might have actually recruited some vital faculty and public support. Of course, he could be lying, but so too could be the Alligator’s sources.

 

A politician with an ex post facto rationale after his hand is caught in the cookie jar, never seen that before

 

Sure, but that’s no proof of the allegations, as a news article embellishing the facts is hardly novel either.

 

The indisputable facts are the following:
1. He spent 3x more than fuchs did
2. He spent a lot more than normal for UF on consultants
3. He hired a lot of people he know from previous roles.
4. He paid those people above market rate for their positions - based on similar positions around UF, and around the country in higher ed.
5. Most of those people were remote.

Those are the facts that people are trying to fit into narratives that may or may not be true and are unprovable most likely. None of that is illegal. Arguments can be made about the ethics. Regardless, it's a non-story if he was a more communicative and transparent leader earlier in his term.

 

Indeed, his lack of transparency is a real head scratcher for me. The good news is that it should be relatively easy to verify his defenses that he was hired with full knowledge of his spending intentions, that some of his people took a pay cut to work for UF, and that these moves passed through UF’s standard audit channels.

 

I think this is a statement of someone who is not familiar with the scam of academia. It isn't what you think. Academics rarely get huge salaries, in fact, most of the time they are paid less than the market rate of professionals. They are kept in academia with illusory promises of power and false status, which is why so many in academics tend to be self-aggrandizing arrogant pricks. They are built up with these false indicators of status to they will accept less in terms of actual compensation. They get to form little fiefdoms, carve out niches, go to conferences and get the reach around from other academics. This is not to say they aren't good in their field - if they actually get tenure (a grueling process I watched my ex and others go through) they probably deserve it from an academic standpoint, even with the inherent personality flaws. What they don't get is rich.

Without tenure, the model doesn't really work - people might as well go to industry. And they will - it just dilutes the quality of academics and research to eliminate tenure. Not one notable academic will come to a university without the promise of tenure, and NO ONE worth a damn is going to put up with Florida's tenure review system if they have any other choice at all.

 

He overspent ethically (meaning that it isnt illegal so its very cool and very ethical) though

 

Hiring McKinsey to tell you how to "un-woke" a large land-grant university is wrong per se.

 

The main guy leading the proposed suit against the tenure review law is a Republican law professor. At least in the short term, it doesnt look like the main people failing review are the type they want to purge either.

 

I will say that often a long term academic will get a nice pension, even fully or partially inflation adjusted. People underestimate the value of those pensions. I know someone who will be eligible and if you were to try to annuitize the payment stream through the private sector it could $1.5 million to $2 million. Plus they are typically allowed to save in a defined contribution program (403b or somesuch) and the result is a very comfortable retirement.

 

That did make me laugh - from my POV I definitely agree since there are much cheaper, yet effective and respected, educational consultants out there.

 

Very cool - love it lol.

 

That's true, but people also overestimate the number of full tenure-track professors at any school. Those people are rare. The bulk of faculty are non-tenure track, junior professors, adjuncts and grad students working for peanuts. The "radical professor" 'indoctrinating' your kid in a freshman English section is probably making 20k a year and can be fired at will.

 

I don't have a high opinion of Sasse from some of the inside information I'm privy to. And to be fair to him, the issues could be a result of Hosseini and the BOT. But UF has done a lot of problematic things as it bent over backwards to please Tallahassee, things that went beyond what other universities did to comply with the idiotic laws our legislature and governor have been passing.

Yep. It's probably a grad student.

 

I have a couple of tenure track professors in the family (not UF). Having discussed these issues somewhat superficially, it seems to be a clear bad look for UF. Secondly, for most profs, it doesnt seem to matter whether they are liberal or conservative, profs dont like politicians telling them who they can hire and how to do their jobs.