As some of y’all already noted, I got two of my three wild guesses right on the finalist list for USC president: Harris Pastides, and a woman. (Do I get extra points because there are two women?)
Andy Card* was apparently no one the trustees ever wanted. Apparently, the talk about him was generated by the wishful thinking of politicos — or somebody.
Of course, the fact that wild guesses were in order reflects the failure of USC trustees to conduct an open process that would allow stakeholders (i.e., the people of South Carolina) to vet the candidates before the decision is made.
But that’s par for the course, isn’t it?
Of course, if Pastides is the winner of the contest, we’ll have had plenty of opportunity to assess the new guy. And the impression I’ve formed over the years has been quite good. He’s been at the forefront of the most critical initiatives the university — indeed, all three of the state’s research universities — has been engaged in, and is well-positioned to continue the push.
At this point — thanks to the trustees’ secrecy — going forward with either of the other two candidates will seem like stepping off blindfolded into a void. Maybe they’re great, but we haven’t had the opportunity to decide that.
One worry I have if it is Pastides (and if it isn’t, he sure made the wrong call putting all his eggs in this basket), what will he be able to accomplish that Andrew Sorensen could not? I’ve never been satisfied with the official explanation, that Dr. Sorensen and the board suddenly realized he was about to turn 70, and there’s this multi-year fund-raising push coming up, yadda-yadda… Didn’t he ALWAYS have a future full of fund-raising? What was new?
My worry takes this form? If for some other reason the board had become disenchanted with the charismatic Sorensen, how will a quieter member of the same administration succeed? Or is "low-key" what trustees are looking for?
Who knows? I don’t. I just want the next president to be successful, because so much is riding on this for South Carolina. I think Harris Pastides can do the job, if the string-pullers will let him. As for the two ladies? I have no idea…
* Did I ever mention my almost-connection to Andy Card? I’ve never met him or anything, but he was supposed to be my uncle’s roommate at USC. They had been randomly matched up, but at the last minute my Uncle Woody roomed with someone else. Yes, Andy Card is of my uncle’s generation. I’m that young — haven’t you seen my picture at left? … Actually, Woody is my Mama’s way-younger brother — he’s only six years older than I am.
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“What will he be able to accomplish that Andrew Sorensen could not?”
How about convincing the legislature to fund the university at a percentage comparable to neighboring states. How about consolidating some of the 9 campuses (only 1 less than the gigantic UC system!) to save money on administrative overhead. And how about making the College of Science and Math independent again so it can be run by and for scientists and mathematicians who understand the needs of researchers.
How about reducing tuition and fee increases to the rates of increase of family incomes, and freeze the budget for a few years to compensate for decades of lavish waste?
How about some real R&D, instead of the empty dreams of Innovista?
I think Brad should put “lavish waste” on his list of potential band names.
Exactly what do you want them to cut?
There is a great deal of salary compression, much of the faculty pay is well below the first quartile nationally, and the standard raises for promotion to associate and full professors ($3,500 and $5,000) would be jokes in any industrial settings. Currently starting graduates with M.S. degrees regularly make higher salaries than the assistant and associate professors who advised them.
There is a huge amount of deferred maintenance. Several buildings don’t have drinkable water, at least one is still having troubles making air quality standards, and another that was recently upgraded was done so by having cloth ventilation pipes hung in the hallways. This doesn’t even get to things like peeling paint and carpet remnants and lack of classroom space.
Regular operations are horribly stretched. In the colleges where a majority of the faculty work, there is no regular mechanism to upgrade faculty and graduate student computers to the point where they are even operational with software upgrades, there is no mechanism for providing raises to University staff who are underpaid relative to their peers either within academia or without, and the operating budgets for phones and paper have not held up with inflation over the past decade.
Yes, I agree that the money from Innovista could almost certainly be put to better use than building big empty buildings where the labs aren’t even up to the quality promised to the people brought in to fill them. But even if we took all the money from Innovista and put it toward those other needs there would be a shortage.
As far as the tuition… the tuition is higher in SC than surrounding states because the state support given to the schools is lower. Your call to both cut tuition, not increase the funding from the state, and freeze the budget before the needs mentioned above are met would kill the university (well, not quite kill, it would be a community college with a really nice football stadium). And you want some “real R&D” while making these cuts?
Specifically, what do you want cut that would keep the university in operation as a research university and also allow for the tuition cut/freeze you want?
bill, my leading contender, so far, is “Wireless Cloud.”
… for the band name, not the USC president…
Comparing one government college to more wasteful ones in surrounding states is like comparing East Germany to communist Romania and Bulgaria – they all are mismanaged wrecks.
The primary measurement for management is how close cost increases are kept to the customer incomes. Just because you can force taxpayers to pick up the slop doesn’t make it anything but slop.
There are many underpaid faculty at all colleges. PhDs have some of the highest rates of unemployment. But many of those faculty who do stay are paid much more than they would make in the private sector, with lavish benefits. The median faculty private retirement account is $575,000, in additoin to state pensions.
Over 1,000 professors in SC taught no classes last year.
So, I should compare what SC’s budge to the budget of private (presumably market driven) research schools? Don’t we already have smaller per student budgets then most of those?
Why shouldn’t they have a private retirement account at the low end of what industry would give a research scientist?
How many of those 1,000 (if thats the right number) are research professors (as opposed to tenure track), in administrative positions like being a dean, have grant funding explicitly budgeted towards buying out of the teaching for the year, or are on un-paid leave?
Why don’t you find out the answers to your own questions? Then you will have something to post.
Try reading slower. I didn’t say anything about comparing public colleges to private ones. I contend that no business should be increasing its prices faster than its customers’ ability to buy the products, unless it just wants to get rid of those customers and find wealthier ones.
Maybe that is what USC, Clemson, and most colleges are doing – abandoning the state resident students in order to market to wealthier nonresident students. Maybe the administrators just don’t care about their mission, or don’t know how to control costs.
I never said you that you brought up comparing publics to privates. You said it was useless to compare publics to other publics. What else does that leave? You also continually hold up institutions shaped by the free market as being better. Doesn’t that make private ones the ideal comparison group?
The vast majority of undergraduates at USC are in state. Replacing the more qualified out-of-staters with less qualified SCers would both lower the rigour of the course offerings and reduce the quality of the degree. And, if, the out-of-staters are willing to pay an arm and a leg to come and increase the value of the product to the in-staters… whats the problem?
Find me a college that has kept its price increases in line with family incomes, and we’ll use them as the standard for comparison, not some other mismanaged school in Georgia or North Carolina.
State colleges and universities are supposed to serve to educate the citizens of the state. Instead, resume-building adminisrators are playing rating games, by
* getting lots of students to apply, so they can inflate the ratio of rejections.
* accepting non-resident and foreign students in order to inflate SAT scores
* accepting marginal minority students whom they know can bring in the most grants and loans, then flunking them out.
* building sports facilities and fraternity houses rather than laboratories and libraries.
* building empty “research” buildings with no idea of the intended research, and not prospective tenants, while shutting down all continuing education and part-time graduate programs for engineers and scientists – the exact opposite of what successful schools like Stanford, Duke, Michigan and Georgia Tech did.