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Update: Moffitt passes his "business school case study" to the UO business school

3/19/2013 update: Law School had been planning on banking 45% of CnC revenue as profit

Law Professor Q: The particular question that interests me the most concerns the division of revenue from CNC courses. How much of this revenue goes to CNC/CRES/ADR, and how much goes to the law school’s general coffers? I know that the gross revenue per student for a four-credit course is $600. I’m interested to know how much of the $600 goes to CNC/CRES/ADR, and how much of the $600 goes to the law school’s general coffers.

Answer of sorts: The CNC budget was created at the same time and following the same process as the JD program budget. Revenue projections are made based on student enrollment, grants, gifts or other fundraising events. The CNC program requests an expense budget to meet their program needs. (These expenses do not roll up to a larger ADR center budget. The ADR Center has a separate budget index for their program expenses.) As a management tool, CNC program expenses can not exceed program revenues. However any surplus goes to the law school total budget. This has varied greatly over the past three years. In my first year, most of CNC was funded through the CNC foundation funds. In 2012, the program was just better than break–even. This year, there were surplus revenue dollars remaining after all program expenses that were targeted to law school general fund. In addition, the CNC program is allocated their share of the 35% tax base and a 15% overhead assessment for law school resources. In summary, in AY2013/14 over 45% of CNC revenues were budgeted to law school general fund to cover tax, admin support and surplus; 55% was budgeted for direct support the CNC program; 0% was budgeted to support any other ADR activities. But I don’t think you can use these numbers looking forward. The program needs and admin support needs may vary greatly depending on the outcome of the program decisions. We will start from bottoms up this year. 

_Kelly Sparks_
Associate Dean, Finance & Operations
University of Oregon School of Law
[email protected](541) 346-3643

3/18/2013 update: Not so fast, it seems. See bottom for an email from the LCB administration. Apparently their faculty was a little surprised to read about the program transition on UO Matters, rather than being consulted first by their own dean, Kees de Kluyver. The meat:

LCB is making no commitment to additional courses and any proposals generated will be run through a normal course approval process. Should any new courses be approved, staffing for those courses will follow our regular search process.

3/15/2013: The fallout from my post on the law school’s Conflict not Conflict courses last month is slowly coming clear. As I explain below, the consequences are very likely going to be borne by one of the CnC instructors (who has a UO philosophy PhD). He may lose his job over it. This is not right. I want to apologize to him for my role in this outcome and encourage people in the law and business schools to do the right thing by him.

On Thursday several law school faculty sent me Moffitt’s official announcement and self-serving email to the faculty, posted below. The background? Moffitt raked in the cash from the CnC courses, and bragged about it to the NYT:

At the University of Oregon, Michael Moffitt, the law school’s dean, has started clinics on nonprofit groups, environmental policy and probate mediation. He has also set up law courses for students in other parts of the university, which brings revenue to the law school. 

“The problem is that we have been selling only one product,” Mr. Moffitt said. “But if you are getting a business degree, you need to know about contract law. City planners need to know about land-use law. So we at Oregon are educating not just J.D. students. 

“Demand is through the roof,” he added. “I feel like I am living a business school case study.”

Moffitt apparently still hasn’t come clean to NYT reporter Ethan Bronner about the fact that most of the profits – about $200,000 a year – came from the CnC courses. The combination of Moffitt’s NYT quotes and my post raised a lot of questions with law school faculty and alumni. FWIW, here’s my current take on the situation, informed by a report on the CnC program that was passed to me along with the Moffitt email, and which I hope will eventually be public:

1) Courses on the philosophy and social implications of sports should be taught in universities. Given UO’s history, what better place than UO? We should do this, and we should do it well. 

2) My original post implied that these CnC courses were guts for the “student-athletes”. This is not true. The courses have tough grading curves, if anything tougher than average for UO courses. And I don’t see any indication that they were particularly popular with the jocks.

3) I think lots of people read the Football and Conflict exam that I posted and thought the course, taught by an instructor with a UO philosophy PhD, was an apologia for athletics. Having seen the report, I can say this is not true – this course was in fact a skeptical inquiry into the role of sports in life and society. The same seems to be true of the rest of the CnC program.  

4) The real problem is not that UO taught these courses, it’s that the law school treated the program as a cash cow. The courses were set up to maximize short-term revenue. Too many courses with overlapping material. No prereqs for upper division courses. Masters courses taught by adjuncts that were already teaching too many courses. Moffitt took the money, rather than invest the profits back in improving the program.

What’s going to happen now? Moffitt’s email explains that the CnC program is going to be taken over by the business school’s Warsaw Sports Marketing Program. Kilkenny’s endowment will presumably go there too – where it probably should have been in the first place. But the law school will retain “ownership” of the CnC program and courses. Very weird. Moffitt still won’t take responsibility, just the profits?
So, who *is* going to take the fall for all this? Obviously not Michael Moffitt. And CnC Director, Josh Gordon will move to the LCB. But the fate of the other CnC instructor is still unclear:

3/15/2013 email from Moffitt:

From: [email protected]To: [email protected]Subject: law-fac-staff: Josh Gordon Transition to Warsaw Sports Marketing Center
Date: Fri, 15 Mar 2013 00:09:39 +0000 

Dear Faculty & Staff,
Below please find a statement that Lundquist College of Business Dean Kees de Kluyver and I will be issuing jointly later this evening.  The headline is that Josh Gordon will be moving to the business school starting in the Spring term to work with the Warsaw Sports Management Center.  The law school will retain “ownership” of the CNC program and the affiliated courses.  We already had time scheduled into the faculty meeting tomorrow to talk about the CNC program and about next steps.  I look forward to seeing you then. 

Michael
Michael Moffitt
Philip H. Knight Dean
University of Oregon School of Law
– – – – –
Statement from Kees de Kluyver & Michael Moffitt
The study of sports and society is an emergent academic field concerned with the institutions, politics, economies, and communities within and around sports culture.  This summer, the Warsaw Sports Marketing Center at the Lundquist College of Business will be exploring new curricular possibilities around sports and society to complement its existing sports business concentrations.  In support of this project, Josh Gordon will be reassigned to work with Paul Swangard and the Warsaw faculty, effective Spring 2013.  The hope of both the Law and Business Schools is to better serve Oregon’s students and academic mission through the development of rigorous courses supported by clear pedagogical objectives. As with any curriculum, all curricular proposals emerging from this work will be reviewed using normal faculty governance procedures, including the undergraduate program committee of the Business School and the University’s undergraduate committee on courses.

3/18/2013 email from LCB:

Dear LCB Faculty and Staff,

In the absence of Dean de Kluyver who is travelling, I wanted to provide some additional context to the announcement that is being circulated by the Law School below. Our intent in working with the Law School is to determine if we might be able to serve the student demand that existed in the cancelled courses (the second largest population of which were PBA students). Josh Gordon will remain under contract and paid by the Law School during this period and there have been no promises made beyond the existing contract term. LCB is making no commitment to additional courses and any proposals generated will be run through a normal course approval process. Should any new courses be approved, staffing for those courses will follow our regular search process.
 Statement from Kees de Kluyver & Michael Moffitt [as above]

Dave
David M. Boush
Associate Dean for Administration
Marketing Department Head
Gerald B. Bashaw Professor of Business 

49 Comments

  1. Anonymous 03/15/2013

    UOM, I know you’re no economist, but how does all of this look, or shake out, in light of the Coase Theorem – which seems to be the only economic theory that most law faculty have ever heard of?

    • UO Matters 03/15/2013

      Coase: Bargaining can lead to efficiency, even with externalities, so long as the parties involved can contract over those externalities.

      The distribution of the surplus depends on the initial property rights. It appears the law school owns the courses that the CnC instructors spent years developing – or thinks it does.

      They are now going to sell the program to the business school, which will also accept the external benefits, or costs as part of the deal.

      Pareto efficient, but it doesn’t sound very fair, or just.

    • Anonymous 03/16/2013

      A good answer, but this one is even better:

      “Coase Theorem: Concept that economic efficiency is achieved best by full allocation of, and completely free trade in, property rights. It states that what really matters is that everything is owned by someone and that, initially, who owns what doesn’t matter. Based on two main ideas – freedom of individual choice, and zero transaction costs (expenses associated with the process of buying and selling) – it helps explain, for example, the unprecedented cost advantage digital firms will have in the marketplace (where transaction costs are approaching zero) over traditional firms. It has several other applications, such as in who pays for pollution costs. Proposed by the US-based Nobel laureate economist Ronald H. Coase (1910-) in his 1960 paper ‘The Problem Of Social Cost.'”

      From the Law School’s perspective, it doesn’t really matter who “owns” CNC’s intellectual property in the first place. Especially because the Law School can get even richer by screwing the developers of it out of their intellectual property rights.

      Efficient yes, but amoral. A fine model for higher education!

  2. Anonymous 03/15/2013

    UOM Conspiracy Blog Model

    1) Make post hinting at conspiracy or “evil doers” using freedom of info (makes things seem more dark, sinister, and evil). If freedom of info not available mysterious tipsters or eyes only info is also a great option.

    2) Say something is happening because of post

    3) If negative outcome occurs point finger at group X as incompetent or evil (CONSPIRACY!). If positive outcome occurs credit self from point 2 (Conspiracy and evil doers averted because of blog).

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GSw9sjqYK_I

  3. Alum 03/15/2013

    I have followed this CNC issue for a week or so now and have read all posts I could find. I have known the instructor, Dr. Ken Pendleton, aka “the adjunct,” for about 18 years. He can teach the pants off of anyone I know. He’s brilliant, creative, and absolutely devoted to critical examination of every subject he encounters. And he knows his shit–sports, philosophy, ethics, critical thinking, sociology, politics, etc. Just spending 20 minutes with him when this exam leaked would have allayed any concerns you, the blog owner and other commenters, might have had about his courses. You probably would have offered him a position in your own department. (Still, to this moment, have you called him?) But no, you chose to trash him through association with the athletic department, with donors you do not like, and with cynical administrators interested only in profits. You appear to be on the verge of destroying his career. Did you have fun? I can tell it felt really good to rip into this person’s work and integrity without any concern for the truth, which he could have supplied to you.

    I think it is telling that you all kept referring to him disparagingly as an adjunct, but never once considered that this very status might have rendered him powerless and vulnerable in the face of important decisions affecting the CNC program. Tell me how he, an adjunct, is responsible for the decisions of the Law faculty–who, as you saw, threw him under the bus at the first hint of problems. Will they be giving him the $400-500K he helped generate for them? Will they admit their shoddy treatment of him? We’ll see, but in your zeal to criticize the Law school, you have attacked the victim, the most vulnerable person in all of this.

    For someone apparently interested in exposing and explaining the power dynamics and injustices of the UO system, you have shown a frighteningly naive understanding of how adjuncts can be manipulated and abused. And you have made it much worse–your vapid, ad hoc backtracking notwithstanding. Good luck with anyone believing that “moral arbiter of all things Duck” schtick in the future. You might want to think about what you can actually do now to repair this damage and help ensure a just outcome, rather than merely reporting on new developments as some kind of disinterested observer.

    • Anonymous 03/15/2013

      Did you read the post above? I’m lost.

      Bottom line… innocents often get hurt when administrators follow their noses to the money. Just be thankful that JH doesn’t have the inclination to go after oil. Can you imagine?

    • Anonymous 03/15/2013

      One of the best posts ever written on this blog.

    • Anonymous 03/15/2013

      Agreed. Excellent in all regards. This really is just another example of purporting to take the high road and not giving a damn what falls in one’s wake. One of the most appalling things about this is that the implications about Dr. Pendleton’s teaching could have easily been investigated — starting with public course evaluations any faculty member can access via Duckweb. Then perhaps looking at past syllabi, also available. When UOM writes something that is fact based it is helpful; when it shoots from the hips it is just plain old grandstanding.

  4. Anonymous 03/15/2013

    There’s plenty of blame to go around here, not least of which includes the actions of whomever leaked Dr. Pendleton’s exam to UO Matters in the first place.

    Yet most of the blame belongs here: the incredible greed and lack of oversight supplied at the senior administrative level.

    Maybe UO Matters should have reported more carefully, but the problem here is that a full-time economics professor is having to play reporter in order to supply (force) some actual transparency upon the UO senior administration.

    Whose fault is that?

    Let’s be clear: none of the blame or fault belongs to Dr. Pendleton.

    Word on the street is that his teaching evaluations are the highest in the *entire* university, despite the fact that his average grade for sections comes in right at a C.

    That’s some serious teaching skill!

    Perhaps some of the tenure-track faculty can’t bear the “competition” of being out-taught by someone who is more rigorous, more knowledgeable, and more popular than they are – especially when the “competition” comes from someone who is *just a homegrown adjunct* – and so they have engaged in “conflict.”

    This is a shameful mess.

    • Alum 03/15/2013

      This comment has been removed by the author.

  5. Alum 03/15/2013

    Greed, perhaps, but there was no lack of oversight, just the opposite. These CNC professors were teaching effectively (and establishing an entire Program) in extremely difficult circumstances, all of which was known to the Law faculty, who created those circumstances and profited greatly from them. Pure exploitation. But please don’t take my word for it. Find out how many courses they were told to teach, what the enrollment was in each course, whether they were given GTFs or other necessary assistance, etc. The Law School dictated all of these terms, of course, because they could. Will the UO hold them accountable?

  6. Anonymous 03/15/2013

    I would assume a lack of oversight where one lacks “GTFs or other necessary assistance” to handle one’s huge grading load, especially when that one is legally blind. This matter is not exactly a secret, as Dr. Pendleton has lived in Eugene for a quarter-century. But it sounds as though you believe the explanation lies in greed rather than lack of oversight. You say tomato…

  7. Alum 03/15/2013

    Again, all of this can be verified by asking those involved. Perhaps CNC requests for assistance in grading, and other forms of support, were denied. Let’s find out.

    I read lack of oversight as not paying sufficient attention, being ignorant of the relevant facts about the program and courses. Not sure how the Law faculty/admin could have been ignorant of the course loads and the need for help with grading such large courses. They knew. There was no lack of oversight, only lack of the support for the program’s faculty. I’ll let others judge the reasons or motives, but it was not a matter of ignorance.

  8. Anonymous 03/15/2013

    Blech. The only thing worse than UOM in full-throated anti-administration sarcasm, is UOM offering saccharine mea culpas to the little people.

    The problem with the exam posted here was not its stance toward athletics, apologist or not. It was incoherent and not, by any standard, rigorous. If students were evaluated chiefly by exams like that, and C is the average grade (as alleged by one poster), I’ll eat my hat.

    Word around campus is that this guy was extremely well compensated by the law school, making much more than many tenured faculty here. That he doesn’t have job security is something he shares with many NTTF and adjunct faculty–most of whom are likely better teachers working for lower pay. So frankly, the weeping and knashing of teeth over this one case, seem out of place, whatever guilt UOM may be feeling.

    • Alum 03/15/2013

      Not worth a reply. Just call someone who knows firsthand, even if they be a little person.

    • Anonymous 03/15/2013

      I already regret stooping to this level, but you sir, Mr. Blech, are a moron. I would welcome the opportunity to discuss the merits of your evaluation in a more personal setting. One more suitable to actual weeping and gnashing of teeth.

  9. Anonymous 03/15/2013

    Hey look, UOM might actually get someone fired. Good to see he’s going after the blind professors. What’s next, the deaf?

  10. Anonymous 03/15/2013

    Some details: This Spring, the adjunct will continue working at the law school, co-researching and co-writing (with a tenure-track law faculty member) a law review article on sports conflict studies in the legal academy. (It’s a fair argument that this kind of intellectual groundwork should have been done already, before developing courses that were supposed to fit in the law school. But it wasn’t, so now it will be.) Very unclear what the fate of the CNC program/courses will be, but in the short term hopefully the involved instructors will not be too adversely affected by everything that’s happened and is happening.

    • Anonymous 03/16/2013

      The CNC developers did plenty of intellectual groundwork. What you don’t know is how much research went into developing CNC and the courses, or indeed what academic rigor is, if your “fair argument” criterion is that no one took time to publish a 15-page paper in a student-review journal at any number of the 200 US law schools (many of which are going the way of the dinosaur) and their plethora of 2L/3L edited journals which exist to credential faculty. Try peer review for some semblance of rigor! Or if that’s too challenging, at least explain why it would make CNC more acceptable if a paper on its subject matter appeared in the Oregon Law Review (which sounds like that’s what we should expect next). Even better, why don’t you dig into the relevant literature for yourself? I assure you that the CNC developers did.

    • Anonymous 03/19/2013

      Then the article should be easy to write.

  11. Anonymous 03/15/2013

    When do we call a halt to reprehensible writing like this blog, lacking in any of the attributes that we cherish in academics (fairness, objectivity, professionalism). Dog says “it’s just a blog”, yeah, it was just an off-color joke, Dog, it was just a slap on the butt, Miss. This blog serves to stroke the ego of one person, and the 1st Amendment allows this type of behavior. Perhaps we can shame him into shutting down, or find a moderator interesting in transparency without wrapping themselves in a muckraking glow of self-serving trash talk.

    • Anonymous 03/15/2013

      I believe that UOM started out with the best of intentions. However, currently the foundation of the blog is UO gossip, UO conspiracy theories, and general sensationalism. Think about it. Are the discussions professional, objective, and amenable to actual solutions? No. If UOM is serious about making an impact the sensationalism would stop and the professionalism towards solutions would begin. I don’t see that happening.

    • Anonymous 03/15/2013

      You need to get out of your ivory tower, silly. “Are the discussions professional, objective, and amenable to actual solutions?” … well, no, they aren’t. Why? ’cause they’d be boring as hell and exactly 3 people would pay attention/bother to participate. Current UOM model combines the sensational with the serious (though I do wish s/he’d include more salacious content). He swims in the same sea as a bunch of other sites that want your attention yet clearly has hooked you. He claims to be what, an econ prof or something? If that doesn’t work out, he might do ok in marketing. Does he look good in a suit?

    • Anonymous 03/16/2013

      HALT: I think you should start a blog. If it shines even a little light on what is going on in our school I will read it. UOM is by no means anonymous, and has brought many things forward on this blog and in the Senate. If you are now or were ever faculty, how many times did you stand up in the senate to fix something? Or did you just duck your head and cover your ass, and wait for the PERS check to come in. It took a long time to get where we are.

      I think that if the ranked faculty stood up for what is right, UOM would not have to be here. Tenure is for so much more than a 5 hour work day and that is why the boomers are going to f.i.u. for the rest of us yet again.

      Next week, all week, are higher ed hearings in Salem. Anyone of rank going, to meet the legislators and tell them what should be done? Or did you care or even know? The changes in Oregon education this year are on a scale that other states are taking notice.

      Tuition is going up another 6%, state funding is flat, but will be more than the foundation gives to academics. Faculty salaries are flat, I do do not know what the admin over head will do.

    • Anonymous 03/16/2013

      Yes the blog world is a little rough and tumble. Yes, UOM goes over the top sometimes. But it gives us some inkling about what is going on here. The polished PR vehicle Around the O does not. (and UOM costs us nothing – what numbers of faculty are we forgoing to put up the ATO flack?)

      We do have a lot of problems at the UO. The main problem is transparency from the top. The main value of UOM is that it attempts to poke holes into the highly guarded JH tower so we might glimpse at what is going on. Maybe UOM gets things wrong, but if you read regularly including the comments, you get a good sense of what is happening.

      So JH, if you want to reduce the power of UOM, start adopting the religion of transparency.

  12. Anonymous 03/16/2013

    Ranked professors are making too much money to say anything to rock the boat. Simple conflict of interest.

    • Oryx 03/16/2013

      I don’t know what you mean by “ranked,” but I’m a tenured professor and I certainly don’t think there’s any conflict of interest. I (and many of my colleagues) very strongly think that the administration of this university leaves much to be desired. The problems with fighting this are that faculty are generally left out of most high-level decisions, decisions aren’t made transparently, and maintaining one’s research and teaching activity at high levels is already a more-than-full-time job. And I can assure you, we’re not “making too much money.” Do you actually know any professors?

  13. Anonymous 03/17/2013

    I do know “actual professors”, but many of them are rarely seen because they don’t show up for even the most obviously important meetings. Because they have tenure they can’t be compelled to do anything, and do they don’t. I’m glad you care. I wish more in my part of the uni did.

    • Porcupine 03/17/2013

      So what part of the uni are you in? I’m a tenured professor, and know lots of tenured professors and none of them are skipping “obviously important meetings”. What kind of things are you trying to “compel” them to do?

    • Anonymous 03/17/2013

      I Don’t get to compel them to do anything. It’s funny, all the noshow tenured profs in my school think they are really participating too. These people can convince themselves of anything; like they are working anything close to a 9 to 5 day or ” producing top notch scholarship and teaching”. Virtually every college on campus is a solipsistic circle jerk of sad schlolarship repeating “insights” of 60s French philisophers. We care a lot.

    • Peter Keyes 03/17/2013

      Is UO Matters considering ” solipsistic circle jerk of sad schlolarship repeating “insights” of 60s French philosophers” for Comment of the Week? I’m not sure about the content, but I like the alliteration.

  14. Anonymous 03/17/2013

    As for the administration, they are all pulled from the faculty, so with everyone checked out, only the most egotistical money whores get promoted.

  15. Anonymous 03/17/2013

    All of you humanities and science weenies are toast. Languages are getting dropped left and right, and science as anything other than a paid advertisement is a thing of the past.

  16. Anonymous 03/17/2013

    Dear tenured faculty:
    You do not have to wait for a meeting.
    You have tenure.
    You do not have to hide behind “Anonymous”.
    You have tenure.

    You are in fact an elite but dying fraternity, who were given great power because you are meant to be at the vanguard of humanity, surging forward into the unexplored and unknown, selected by your peers: TO ROCK THE BOAT, to investigate the taboo, to speak truth against prevailing wisdom, and to keep humanity moving ever forward by protecting the institution of which you are a part with your integrity, honor, ethics, and an unfaltering duty to truth.

    One tenured professor is a cracked pot, a dozen are a conspiracy, 596 are the university.

    • Anas clypeata 03/17/2013

      If you wanna end war and stuff, you gotta sing loud.

  17. Anonymous 03/19/2013

    I’m glad UOM is sorry about how it treated the CNC prof., but too bad UOM can’t do anything about it to “make it right,” so someone else has to clean up the mess. It’s a lot easier to break a window than to fix it, turns out. Grown adults are still learning this.

    • Anonymous 03/19/2013

      UOM didn’t treat the prof poorly at all. An injustice was called out by UOM (there are plenty around here), and with new eyes on Moffitt’s CNC scam everyone who could bailed on the program and left the prof hanging. They had already done so, long ago, it seems. Hang Moffitt, not UOM. Hang Bean for his role in implementing a budget model without safeguards for this sort of stuff. (Such outcomes were predicted years ago… it was just a matter of time before it all came out.)

      If you don’t like the river of ugliness coming out of JH and elsewhere, stick your head back up your ass and shut down your blog reading. Don’t pollute the story with your pathetic cries for UOM to turn attention away from this shit. SHow me someone else on campus trying to make things right? Show me what has been made right that UOM was not a contributor to?

    • UO Matters 03/19/2013

      Thanks.

    • Anonymous 03/19/2013

      Agreed. We still have the problem of the behavior of someone who leaked the exam to UO Matters as if it was scandalous material. Let’s hear it for collegiality and academic citizenship!

      Besides, the reasons why the CNC thing blew up as it did have to do with poor performance by law school administration, ignorance and knee-jerk reaction by law school faculty and administration, and the dean’s incredibly poor choice of words as appeared in the NY Times right around the same time the CNC thing hit.

      Word on the street is that many law school faculty thought CNC was costing the school huge amounts of money! They were completely ignorant to the fact that CNC was bringing huge revenue and underwriting the law school, but they were sure quick to assume the worst, weren’t they?

      What’s that old saying about a fool and his money? What’s that other old saying about when you assume?

    • Anonymous 03/19/2013

      The exam was scandalous and would still have been even if I didn’t share it. You just found out about it. Had it not been a complete scandal, it would have contributed nothing.

      “We can easily forgive a child who is afraid of the dark; the real tragedy of life is when men are afraid of the light.”

      Just imagine the scandals people have yet to uncover, or share. They’re ongoing, of course. You just don’t care about them yet.

  18. UO Matters 03/19/2013

    It’s the Ungrown adults I worry about

    • Anonymous 03/19/2013

      As you wish

    • Anonymous 03/19/2013

      Wait, how UOM treated the CnC prof? UOM calls BS on a program and it’s ‘final’, and so the Law School scrambles and the Biz School wants to do a double-take. Yet it’s UOM’s fault?

      Yeah, let’s worry, but not about the ‘ungrown’. It’s about the me-myopics wherever you find them.

    • Anonymous 03/21/2013

      Read the posts, UOM has done a complete 180 on this issue. The courses were made by the adjuncts; you can’t say the courses suck but the adjuncts are great. An opinion rag should at least have a stable opinion. It’s not uom’s fault alone, but they unquestionably threw gas on the fire.

    • Anonymous 03/21/2013

      Read the posts or read the entry? The posts are looking more and more like law and biz student crap. There’s no 180 here and there shouldn’t be.

  19. Alum 03/19/2013

    It’s not a mess, not an accident. It’s an injustice threatening people’s livelihoods. Those whose cynical decisions and lack of support set the program up for this crisis are responsible, and they should make it right. Law School administration and faculty, do you have any integrity? Will you step up to your responsibilities or try to sweep this under the rug? Just asking.

    • Anonymous 03/19/2013

      Alum, for heaven’s sake. This is hardly an injustice. The staff involved had contracts through the end of the fiscal year. Those contracts are being honored. The law school can decide what it wants to do with the program. The end.

    • Alum 03/20/2013

      A person’s reputation and honor are dragged through the mud, but since they will be paid to the end of the contract, no harm.

      These two faculty were asked to build an entire program for the Law School–they were paid and treated as adjuncts but given responsibilities far beyond that title–and, as is obvious from the recent updates, the Law faculty couldn’t be bothered to learn anything about the program. They just sat around and resented it until there was a chance to jump on it, which UOM eagerly provided. Now they have learned what a substantive program it was (and that it made a lot of money for them). Whoops. But a substantial reaction beyond words? Not yet. Oh well, they were just adjuncts. What could they expect?

      I don’t have a problem with a system that treats adjuncts as the bottom of the barrel; every system must have some way of ranking people and priorities. I have a problem when those at the bottom are blamed for the decisions of others and then thrown away to get rid of the “problem.” Yeah–I don’t have a problem calling this injustice.

    • Anonymous 03/21/2013

      Externalizing the work of the department on adjuncts, which doesn’t only happen in the law school btw, will be the end of higher education as we know it. We should just get rid of adjuncts and accept the costs.

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