UVa disaster continues: One of the top 13 professors has resigned

Read the resignation letter from University Professor Bill Wulf (Computer Science).  It’s a beauty.  It reminds me of one of those letters that your write in a fever and then debate whether to send or not.

Here’s a snippet:

Dean and Interim President Zeithaml,

By this email I am submitting my resignation, effective immediately. I do not wish to be associated with an institution being as badly run as the current UVa. A BOV that so poorly understands UVa, and academic culture more generally, is going to make a lot more dumb decisions, so the University is headed for disaster, and I don’t want to be any part of that. And, frankly, I think you should be ashamed to be party to this debacle!

 [rather impressive bio goes here]

In short we have extensive experience that spans academia, executive positions in the private sector, government, and board memberships. So we deeply understand the proper conduct of academic administration and the proper oversight of that administration by a board, In my opinion the BOV has perpetrated are the worst example of corporate governance I have ever seen.

To repeat_- I resign. I want no part of this ongoing fiasco.

Bill Wulf

Wm. A. Wulf University Professor, Dept. of Computer Science University of Virginia, and President Emeritus, National Academy of Engineering

Bill Wulf is not a slacker.  It’s unclear whether his wife intends to follow him.  There are other tweet rumors that the Vice Rector, Mark Kington was also in the process of has resigned. The vice rector is the second ranked member of the Board of Visitors who forced Sullivan to resign.  Governor McDonnell of Virginia,  appears to be cautiously critical of the board’s actions.  But half of the board members are his appointees.

And what of the interim president who was appointed today to take Sullivan’s place?

Zeithaml will take a leave of absence from the McIntire School during his tenure as interim president. In March, Bloomberg Businessweek ranked the McIntire School as the No. 2 undergraduate business program in the country, and the No. 1 MBA feeder school.

He specializes in the field of strategic management. He joined the McIntire School in 1997.

It sounds like the university community knows *exactly* what’s going on, who is doing it and why.  This isn’t about change.  It’s a corporate coup of MBA management assholes who are going to restructure the University to be more attentive to their needs.  They know nothing about academia but they have a lot of experience with management techniques.  Gawd help UVa.  They’re going to need it.

If UVa doesn’t have an Occupy group, now’s a good time to start one.  If they were located closer to a major metropolitan area, they’d be getting recruits to help make some noise.  But Charlottesville is kind of isolated.  Nevertheless, I hope the protestors get the attention they deserve.  When it can happen at UVa, no university is safe from the bonus class.

Update: the more I read about the forced resignation of Sullivan, the weirder this story gets.  A couple of sources (Here and here) are reporting that the board of Visitors did not meet to take a vote to get rid of Sullivan, that there was no unanimous vote and that Rector Dargas has been planning this resignation for months in secret without any faculty input.

Wednesday: You’re perfect, they love you, now Change!

CHANGE! CHANGE! CHANGE!

Now that George W. Bush has managed to make a clean getaway instead of getting tarred, feathered and run out of town on a rail straight to a federal maximum security prison, it’s time for America to assess the damage he and his bands of vandals have left behind.  Now, I realize that it may take Barack Obama a couple of days to show us his big stimulus package but that shouldn’t stop him from changing some very important things right now.  Like today.  What better time than the present for him to demonstrate to his myriad supporters that he really is the most amazingly perfect human being to have walked the earth since Jesus Christ?  And you Obots out there, don’t let the hangover of the morning after let anything stop you from asking him to carry through.  Surely, he will want to hear from you now that the two of you have seen paradise by the dashboard light together.

Here are the things I would like Obama to do, TODAY, to show us in good faith what a Change™ agent is all about. He cleared the field of all of the non-Change agents for our own good, so let’s get to work!  These are things that George W. Bush either changed (*he* was a change agent too, apparently) or perpetuated as a holdover from the Republican Movement Conservatives:

1. Restore habeas corpus.
2. Rescind “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell”.
3. Rescind the Bush Conscience Rule.
4. Rescind the Reagan Gag Rule on family planning organizations.
5. Reconstruct the wall between church and state by eliminating the Office of Faith Based Initiatives.
6. Eliminate the Department of Homeland Security.

That’s just my list for today.  Like I said, the economic stuff can wait until Friday when we should expect the stimulus package that would dwarf FDR’s plan, because that is what it’s going to take to save us from catastrophe or a very, VERY long recovery.

But lest the above list look too lefty, let me explain where I’m coming from.  Habeas corpus has been around since 1215AD and is essential to a free people.  The government can’t just cart you off to prison and hold you indefinitely without charging you.  Well, they couldn’t until George W. Bush came along.  Restoring the Rule of Law and not men requires that we have habeas corpus.  To me, it’s the most important thing on the list.  Items 2, 3, and 4 are just consistent with the values of the Obama supporters and non-Obama supporters who came of age during the 80’s who believe women have a right to privacy and that the gay community has a right to serve their country.  Obama’s campaign took the warning level up to code red where abortion was concerned.  Now is the time to bring the country back to code green like he promised.  Oh, he didn’t promise?   Well, I want him to do it anyway.  As for DADT, the country can use all of the help it can get like arab translators.  Why burden itself with qualified citizens who can’t serve or women whose lives and futures are subject to the decisions of others? Change!™

The Office of Faith Based Initiatives has always been a propaganda unit.  We know this from the guy who was asked to set it up, was quickly disillusioned and retired.  As James Madison said, God shouldn’t need any help from the state.  It would sort of make him less God like.  Plus, it discriminates against people who don’t have faith and don’t want one.  No one likes to have religion forced down their throats.  I guarantee that there were millions of Americans yesterday who were not impressed that Rick Warren knew how to say Jesus in 4 languages.  I as a believer have no right to dictate what goes on in your head nor should I make you pay for my proselytizing activities or the political activities of my party under the guise of religion.  It’s a bad office.  Sorry.  It’s got to go.  The sooner the better.  Like by the end of business today. Actually, if Obama is following Lincoln on this, he is probably aware that Lincoln was the *least* likely president to endorse any kind of organized religion.  He had a real bug up his butt about it.  Preachers like Rick Warren would have been on Lincoln’s $#@! list.  But I digress.

The Department of Homeland Security sounded like a good idea when it was proposed after 9/11.  Yeah, gang!  Let’s get everyone together in the barn and have a show!  But it has become a bloated patronage machine that sounds like it came straight from a Leni Riefenstahl film on the Third Reich.  It has been poorly managed since its creation, used to terrify the voters into pulling the Republican lever and undoubtably has been involved in violating our privacy.  The departments under its domain will still exist if it doesn’t so why not pull it down and see what they’ve really used it for?  I suspect skullduggery.  Better to ferret it out now.

So there are my first 6.  I could go on but like I said, I’m saving my economic suggestions for Friday when we can talk about putting all of the bankers in a time out corner and confiscating all of their ill-gotten booty.

What would you like to see Change!™ by the end of business today?

Bush and Obama: Perfect Together

Hooray! We’ve finally gotten our Unity Pony, guys and gals. Only problem is, it’s Obama who is unifying with Bush – and the dynamic duo wants a lot more of your…CHANGE.

The Unity Pony Takes Your Change

The federal government has decided to spend $800 billion more on purchasing mortgage assets and securitizing the frozen credit markets. Yes, that brings the total up to $1.5 trillion, officially. Golly gee, can I be a greedy bank, insurance company, financial institution, mortgage lender or credit card company too? All I have to do is get “too big to fail,” and voila! I can steal from the Treasury with both hands and laugh all the way to the bank, as my employees who put their 401(k)’s in my company lose their jobs and their financial futures. Wow, screwing millions of people to the wall is FUN!!!

But I digress. Barack Obama keeps saying there is only “one President at a time,” but in reality, he and Bush are acting as a team.  How sweet!

WASHINGTON — America has never seen anything quite like this: The president and president-elect acting like co-presidents, consulting and cooperating on the day’s biggest crises.

“It’s pretty unusual,” said George Edwards, a presidential expert at Texas A&M University, in College Station.

What Princeton University professor Julian Zelizer calls “the split-screen presidency” is the result of several historic forces converging this fall:

• The 24-7 nature of the global economy, which demands timely reaction.  
• Incoming and outgoing presidents who have personal and political reasons to show that they can manage a crisis.  
• A president-elect, Barack Obama, who “believes in strong government and wants to get things under way immediately,” said William Leuchtenburg, a University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill professor who’s written extensively about the presidency.  
• A lame-duck president, George W. Bush, who’s leaving office voluntarily. “Bush was not defeated. That makes for an easier relationship,” Leutchtenburg said.

Well, thank Gawd we didn’t elect McSame because, um…