George's Higher Ed Med Shed: UT System

UT System

07/06/2010

From the "Point out the Obvious" Department: Tenure in Trouble

Yep, tenure is in trouble, particularly in Texas, which tends to lead the nation in higher education trends along with California, of course. The University of Texas, as I've pointed out many times, has publicly stated that tenure protects only a position and not compensation, which leaves faculty open to constructive termination. You cut faculty members' pay enough, and they'll leave. Then, there's the AAUP censure of the University of Texas Medical Branch and how it treated its own tenured faculty. Yes, there's no doubt about it: tenure is in trouble.

To some extent, however, I have to blame faculty for allowing this to happen. To a large degree, faculty has forgotten that those who govern do so with the consent of the governed. As an observer of higher education and as a participant in a variety of fracases, I can testify that (1) the majority of faculty, hoping the management lynch mob will pass them by, will stand by while one of their colleagues is burned at the stake by administrators, and (2) many of these members of the "silent, shameful majority" are encouraged by administrators into faculty governance slots, effectively silencing any meaningful faculty voice in university affairs. Faculty senates that merely serve as echo chambers of administrators' desires are more numerous than senates that do their job. Even faculty senates that try to do their jobs must also contend with officers and other senators trying to further their careers by currying favor with the administration. These self promoters think only of themselves and never of what they're doing to academic freedom or the greater good. Yet as tenure continues its retreat, these sycophants only become more prolific.

Tenure does not have to continue to recede. Those who govern do so by consent of the governed.

Tenure, RIP - Labor & Work-Life Issues - The Chronicle of Higher Education

Over just three decades, the proportion of college instructors who are tenured or on the tenure track plummeted: from 57 percent in 1975 to 31 percent in 2007. The new report is expected to show that that proportion fell even further in 2009, dropping below one-third. If you add graduate teaching assistants to the mix, those with some kind of tenure status represent a mere quarter of all instructors.

Jul 6, 2010 10:20:06 AM | Tenure, UT System, UTMB

06/22/2010

UT System Salary Supplementation Reports for Component Presidents

UT presidents have a base salary and then it gets supplemented. These reports show the base salary plus a supplementation and then give the total salary. Readers should note that this is not their total compensation, which would include bonuses, car allowances, and the like. Even without all the extras, I count three state-supported millionaires in the crowd: Presidents Kaiser, Podolsky, and Mendelsohn.

Supplementation reports for system and components

UT Pan Am only

Jun 22, 2010 11:30:01 AM | Compensation, MD Anderson, UT Southwestern, UT System, UTHSC Houston

06/20/2010

Recruiting Good Faculty: Perhaps UT's to Blame for Difficulties

Not too long ago, UT Executive Vice Chancellor Kenneth Shine stated the following:

Recruiting top-notch scientists to Texas has been difficult, Shine said, because of a perception in the outside world that Texas is unreceptive toward such science-related issues as evolution and climate change.

Of course, this absolves UT and its component institutions of any blame whatsoever, doesn't it? Why, it's the fault of the citizens of Texas, according to this theory, not anything that UT's administrators have done. What a self-serving little theory.

An inconvenient truth concerning the global warming and evolution excuses, however, is that there is a little more to the story. UT has taken action against faculty that has gotten national attention. Perhaps the most visible of these actions involved the reduction in force the UT system sanctioned and the UTMB administration carried out against faculty in 2008, recently resulting in a censure from the AAUP. Utterly failing to involve faculty governance in the process except as window dressing toward the end, UTMB administration employed a stacked RIF selection committee and a stacked RIF appeals committee to carry out its agenda. On average, the selection committee, which included the Provost's neighbor and a disproportionate number of people from the Provost's former department before his promotion, had about eight minutes to consider the careers of faculty being considered for a cut. It is impossible to digest a substantial curriculum vita in only eight minutes, much less the volumes of other information that these faculty generated throughout their careers. Of course faculty names had been presented to the committee by chairs, who had largely already made the decisions.

As for the RIF appeals committee, it was uniformly staffed with management personnel who also held faculty appointments. (UTMB President David Callender holds a faculty appointment.) This committee only upheld about three appeals, and one successful appellant's contract was not renewed a month later, making the whole process meaningless for him.

Then there are the well-publicized cases in which UT has crushed dissent, such as Dr. Larry Gentilello's concerns that UT Southwestern was not in conformance with Medicare rules. He was the chair of a department until he made his concerns known to UT Southwestern management (not a third party), and suddenly found himself demoted and his pay cut. (More about UT Southwestern and its Medicare problems can be found on the blog UT Southwestern and Parkland Hospital Stories. (See additional stories concerning this in the Zemanta box below.) Dr. Gentilello's case is still under way and on appeal right now.

Click on the highlighted text to read about similar cases involving Dr. Robert Klebe of UTHSC San Antonio, and Dr. Naiel Nassar, yet another unfortunate instance occurring at UT Southwestern. Dr. Klebe's case is still ongoing with UT appealing to the Fifth Circuit in May after having lost two separate jury awards in favor of Doctor Klebe of $900,000 and $400,000, and UT has vowed to appeal Doctor Nasser's case after a jury awarded him $3.6 million dollars.

No, there's more than evolution and global warming going on here. UT needs to stop looking at Charles Darwin and Al Gore and start looking in the mirror for the root of its problems. Of course, all that hot air accompanying its excuses may well be contributing to global warming.

Jun 20, 2010 10:26:56 AM | Ethics, Faculty mistreatment, Lawsuits, layoffs/terminations, UT Southwestern, UT System, UTHSC San Antonio, UTMB, Whistleblower

06/18/2010

UTMB Censure Story Stretching Its Legs in Austin

Image via Wikipedia

Judging from this excerpt, whether UTMB or UT admits they did anything wrong or not, it appears the regents have tried to strengthen faculty involvement during a reduction in force. The problem is that UT had a policy in place back in 2008, and it simply was not followed. We'll see if these changes are followed next time around. (I'll try to find the changes on the UT website and post them later.) I also worry about "faculty" involvement. The UTMB RIF Appeals Committee was stacked with management personnel who also had a faculty appointment. Even UTMB Pres. David Callender has a faculty appointment in the Otolaryngology Department.

Higher education notes

A UT System advisory panel recommended enhancing the role of faculty members in a financial exigency, and last month the Board of Regents approved amendments to its rules reinforcing the importance of faculty involvement.

Jun 18, 2010 7:34:02 AM | layoffs/terminations, Reduction in force, UT System, UTMB

06/15/2010

AAUP Shared Governance Workshop

This looks like it would be interesting to attend. It wouldn't hurt a few UT administrators, particularly a few at UTMB, to attend as well.

AAUP: Shared Governance: Making it Work

November 12-14, 2010
Washington, DC

Join colleagues in the nation’s capital for a series of practical workshops designed for faculty governance leaders to help them improve the effectiveness of their senates and other governance bodies. Hear experts’ advice on empowering faculty and on developing an effective faculty voice on your campus on matters of concern to you.

Jun 15, 2010 2:55:37 PM | UT System, UTMB

UT Southwestern Brings up the Rear in Study of "Social Mission" of Medical Schools

Since UT and UT Southwestern are both state institutions, the Legislature should be looking at this study and how these state institutions serve the state's citizens.

Harvard Medical School Places No. 62 in ‘Social Mission’ Study - BusinessWeek

After Morehouse, the second-ranked school in the study was Meharry Medical College in Nashville, Tennessee, while Howard University College of Medicine in Washington came in third. The lowest-ranked medical schools in the study were Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine, in Chicago, University of Texas Southwestern Medical School at Dallas, and Vanderbilt School of Medicine, in Nashville, Tennessee. They show up in 139th, 140th and 141st place.

Jun 15, 2010 7:18:44 AM | UT Southwestern, UT System

06/08/2010

Cigarroa Making UT System Administration Cuts

University of Texas Chancellor Francisco Cigarroa is making some personnel cuts within System Administration in response to the budget cuts mandated by the state. I am struck by a couple of aspects of these cuts. First, I don't get the sense that the people being cut or, for that matter, the people allowed to stay had much input into the process. Why do I say that? A couple of key phrases in the attached letter, linked below, led me to that conclusion, to wit:

"I, too, have spent considerable time looking at U. T. System Administration, carefully studying all aspects of our organization and budget, as well as taking into consideration your valuable input." (This letter was addressed to UT system component presidents, so the "your" in Cigarroa's sentence had nothing to do with the people being cut.)
"In order to achieve these goals, I am implementing the following System Administration organizational changes effective September 1, 2010."

There's just a little bit too much first-person stuff going on in those two statements for my comfort. There may be no "I" in team, but there sure is one in RIF.

The second thing that struck me in this letter is the liberal use of "sunsetting." What a nice little euphemism that is for throwing people and their families onto the street during a high period of unemployment. I wonder if it makes people feel better to know that they were sunsetted rather than fired or laid off.

Cigarroa's letter to component presidents, several of whom are in the "Million-Dollar Club," is linked below:

Download Cigarroa-presidents system cuts

I've said it in a previous post, and I'm going to say it again: UT faculty had better be on the lookout for administrators using the state budget crisis to unilaterally target faculty rather than receiving faculty input and following system policies.

Jun 8, 2010 7:56:09 AM | Budgets, layoffs/terminations, UT System

06/05/2010

"Eminent" Scientists Who Doubt Darwinism?

Compare this list, only a small portion of which is re-created below, to University of Texas Executive Vice Chancellor for Health Affairs Dr. Kenneth Shine's statement not too long ago about why the state of Texas has so much trouble getting good scientists to come to work here.

"Growing list of eminent Scientists who are sceptical about the Claims of Darwinism" | PRABHUPADANUGA NEWS

Janet Parker Professor of Medical Physiology Texas A&M University, Health Science Center
Scott Northrup Chair and Professor of Chemistry Tennessee Tech University
John Omdahl* Professor of Biochemistry & Molecular Biology University of New Mexico
Matthew A. Jenks Professor of Horticultural Science Purdue University
Fazale Rana Ph.D. Chemistry Ohio University
Rebecca Orr Ph.D. Cell Biology University of Texas, Southwestern
Cevat Babuna Professor Emeritus of Gynecology (Post-doc, University of Chicago) Istanbul University (Turkey)
Bruce L. Gordon Ph.D. Philosophy of Physics Northwestern University
Lawrence Overzet Professor of Engineering & Computer Science University of Texas, Dallas
J. C. Meredith Assistant Professor, Chemical Engineering Georgia Institute of Technology
Siddarth Pandey Assistant Professor of Chemistry New Mexico Institute of Mining and Technology
Bruce Holman, III Ph.D. Organic Chemistry Northwestern University
Gordon Mills Emeritus Professor of Biochemistry University of Texas, Medical Branch
A. Clyde Hill Ph.D. Soil Chemistry Rutgers University

Jun 5, 2010 11:01:56 AM | UT System

06/03/2010

UT Southwestern Feeling the Heat

As UT Southwestern's leadership wiggles deeper and deeper into this quicksand, I have one question: where is the UT System in all of this? In the not-too-distant past the University of Texas Medical Branch at Galveston, the University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio, and now UT Southwestern have all gotten the attention of the Feds. This is not rocket science. Even I understand that a faculty physician must supervise a resident. It seems to me that ensuring compliance with that simple fact wouldn't be hard to do, and it also seems to me that the System Office ought to be interested, assuming that doing the right thing is interesting to the System Office.

UT Southwestern responds to our report on feds investigating possible Medicare, Medicaid fraud | DMN INVESTIGATES Blog | dallasnews.com

Late this afternoon, UT Southwestern Medical Center posted online a written statement from President Daniel Podolsky, calling our story Sunday "misleading and incomplete."

Be sure to see UT Southwestern's own internal audit report. Here's an interesting analysis of that audit report.

Jun 3, 2010 12:57:45 PM | UT Southwestern, UT System, UTHSC San Antonio, UTMB

05/29/2010

Tenure's Biggest Threat Is at Medical Institutions

The biggest threat to academic tenure lies like a snake ready to strike passersby at medical academic institutions, and the greatest threat may well be coiled up at University of Texas medical institutions. Why do I say this? I say this mostly because of what has happened over the past few years in Texas. First, let us not forget that the UT Executive Vice Chancellor for Health Affairs, Dr. Kenneth I. Shine, has repeatedly and publicly stated that tenure protects only a position and not a salary. This stance, of course, leaves a faculty member wide open to what is known as "constructive termination." Constructive termination occurs when a faculty member's salary is cut to a level that is intolerable, requiring the faculty member to seek another job. The University of Texas Medical Branch, an institution directly under Dr. Shine, at least thought about doing this on a massive scale. Please see the e-mail linked below in which former UTMB Dean Valerie Parisi discusses cutting tenured faculty salary in order to run them off:

Download Parisi-Stobo re tenured salaries 060622

Now, I wouldn't expect administrators to say, "We're cutting your pay to run you off." No, they would get on their game faces and talk about how bad the budget was, how they needed to make cuts, and how everyone needed to sacrifice. In other words, the institution would have to lie to its tenured faculty as a matter of course in order to pull something like that off. Although UTMB never fully implemented this scheme, I, in fact, saw several faculty members' pay cut in an effort to make them dissatisfied enough to leave. This was done mostly through the manipulation of resources. These faculty members, by the way, were tenured.

Here is a syllogism for my readers:

Resources control faculty productivity.
Administrators control resources.
Administrators control faculty productivity.

So how do you go about cutting a tenured faculty member's pay? One way to do it, and the way I've seen it done several times, is simply to restrict the resources that a faculty member has to be productive. This is particularly effective at an institution like UTMB, where faculty compensation is based in large part on productivity. I have seen lab space taken away from faculty. I've seen faculty reassigned to less lucrative pursuits. I've seen opportunities for professional growth and development denied out of hand. The problem is that for institutions where tenure protects only a position and not salary, all those resources are fair game.

As the old saw goes, "Money is the root of all evil." A tremendous amount of money, whether through patient revenue or government grants or whatever source, moves through a medical institution's coffers every year. With corporate management steadily taking hold in academia, the push for faculty to be more productive will only grow more intense as the years go by. Academia's corporate managers will have very little regard for concepts like tenure and the academic freedom that tenure protects. They will be concerned primarily with the bottom line of the spreadsheet and keeping the faculty complacent and cowed. For instance, when UTMB laid off three of the last five faculty senate presidents during its 2008 reduction in force, what effect do you suppose that had on the remaining faculty? Do you think they got the message? How about the faculty who watched what happened to Dr. Robert Klebe at the University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio? How about the faculty who watched what happened to Dr. Larry Gentilello at UT Southwestern Medical Center? I would think that a whole bunch of faculty got the message.

Yes, tenure is in real trouble, and nowhere more so than medical institutions, where the temptation to manipulate money is the greatest. Faculty at these institutions must decide if they're going to stand up for what is right, or if they're going to be "complacent and cowed." Most will take a look at their mortgages and tuition rates for their children and opt for the latter. The problem for the bad guys is that it doesn't take too many good people standing together to stop them. That's why these few are often called "heroes." Tenure could use a few heroes where they're needed most right now: medical institutions.

May 29, 2010 7:10:54 AM | Budgets, Compensation, Tenure, UT Southwestern, UT System, UTMB

George's Higher Ed Med Shed