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As I was about to write another essay on what I see as the crisis at NDSU my editor called my attention to the response to my Minard Hall ssay. Since it raises precisely the issues I wish to address, I will respond to these remarks.

Tom Isern is presumably  For the record, I have been at NDSU quite a bit more than twice Isern’s tenure(I believe he came to NDSU in the early 90’s as dean of what is now the College of Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences, a post he did not hold for long).  As for “bold words … published anonymously,” it is FargoPhantom staffs) policy to write using pen names(mine is assigned by the   The Phantom knows my identity in the case of legal issues. I’ve used much bolder words on the floor of the University Senate.  As to my commitment to my students and the state, I don’t think Isern has enough experience to have the commitment I have and have had to my students nor to develop the disappointment I have for the state.

I can see why Izern wants to talk about consolidating gains, since the only gains I see are expansion in his college, more departments and more degree programs.  Since I am in favor of NDSU eventually becoming a respectable university, I am pleased about this expansion.  However, NDSU is the North Dakota State University and Apoplied Science, and regardless of what the President’s office has been feeding the press, I see no gains there to consolidate.  In fact, I think that we are in a crisis when it comes continuing quality teaching and research.

In the last few years, we have dramatically increased our student numbers wthout a corresponding increase in faculty or infrastructure spending.   In fact, I  do not think there has not been an increase in departmental operating budgets, at least in the College of Science and Mathematics since the late eighties.  Department Heads and Chairs are under pressure from the upper administration to increase class sizes, open more sections and hire less qualified short timer staff to teach them.  This has been going on for decades and is, I believe, in crisis mode.  Infrastructure for reserch is also under pressure, and retention of quality reserch is a problem, as is retention of faculty in general.  In fact, the Chair of Electrical and Computer Engineering resigned effective January 1st, whiom I cosider one of the best scholars I’ve ever met, over similar issues.  Research faculty as well as students need a good library for their work.  But departmental book budgets(the amount of library money departments can ask the library to spend on books in their disciplines) has declined to the point that for at least many departments, one can count on one hand that amount of books they can add to their collection in a given academic year.  Scholarly journal collections decrease at least bi-annualy.  This decline has been going on for well over thirty years, and I see it as a crisis.

The University has admitted for a number of years that faculty retention is a serious problem.  I believe it is beyond crisis.   There are 13 associate professors in the College of Science and Mathematics out of a faculty of about 80.  For those that aren’t familiar with academia, a new faculty member will typically be hired as an asssistant professor is reviewed after three years and is considered for tenure in his/her sixth year.  If awarded tenure, he/she is promoted to associate professor.  Full Professors are those that should have achieved an international reputation for their scholarly activity, as well as demonstrated excellence in teaching.  So, at least in the College of Science and Mathematics, the overwhelming number of faculty are either relatively young or senior.  And I can say without counting that the overwhelming number are assistant professors.  In fact, when a department needs a new chair or head, some departments find it difficult to find someone qualified.  Hiring outside heads/chairs seems to be difficult but not impossible.  My experience in serving on search committees both for chair and dean is that most qualified candidates turn down their offers, not necessarily  because their salary would be so low, but because they see the university as being desperately underfunded.  The only evidence I have for this is, of course, my own observation and experience, which is considerable.

As to faculty, our assistant professors have competitive salaries with our peer institutuions, the associate professors lag by 15% and professors by 35%.  More senior people can lag their peers by as much as 50%.  In my experience many if not most assistant professors do not even see their tenure question adressed.  After a couple of years and they’ve had an opportunity to look around, they leave, if they can.  I do not believe that the main reason for this is their individual salaries, but the awareness of the general underfunding of the University as well as the general lack of respect the University has in the state’s population.   In fact, a young PnD that stayed one year told me he was leaving because “the state of North Dakota does not want what we’re selling.”

I will point out again, as I remark that North Dakota ranks 50th in higher education salaries, that we have a billion dollar surplus.  I think the lack either of respect or knowledge is reflected in the make up of the search committee for the a new president.  The committee of 13, appointed by the State Board of Higher Education, contains one faculty member and one student.  Most of the rest are area businessmen.  I do not thnk this a good make up of a search committee for the president of a land grant university.  For that matter, I thiink the same of the State Board.  Before Isern came here, then Chancellor Treadway exhorted us all to become big Valley City States.  Nothing against VCSU, but their forte is elementary education.  NDSU is the State University of Agriculture and Applied Science.  Why is this relevant?  Because this is the situation we’re in, put there by a disrespecting or unaware public.  And I think the media is part of the problem.  According to WDAY, the decision to move to division one athletics was the “most important decision in the school’s history.”  Frankly, I think that, for example, the decision to hire Tom Isern more important.  When Interim President Hanson’s credentials are discussed, it is always mentioned that he is an ex Bison and Giant.  His other credentials are seldom mentioned, even though they are considerable.  When the MSUM enrollment crisis is mentioned, hockey is discussed as well as the effectivness of some of their billboards.  The idea of improving academic quality is never mentioned.  Do I believe that no one at MSUM has considered that?  Of course not, but it has been ignored by the athletics loving media.  I’ve spent years at other institutions, and this not the situation at those schools.  The public and media treat their academics with much more respect.

The above might seem off the subject, and maybe it is, but if the public is going to respect us enough to spend some of our billion dollar surplus to make higher education reasonable, we’re going to have to do something other than return to business as usual, or soon we won’t have a business to return to.

I would like to say that I remain committed to my students, like the people of North Dakota.  When I came to NDSU, we had 5,000 students and were still refereed to as “the AC” even though we weren’t.  I’ve seen many chnages and like to think I’ve been a positive force in some of those changes.  But I have also watched the support from the state erode, even in the environment of a huge surplus.  And when I saw the pictures of my beloved Minard Hall’s collapse, it’s as though a considerable piece of my insides died.   I fervently hope it wakes up again, a good reason.

Menards Hall collapses at North Dakota State University.

Definition of “Creeping Meatballism” The idea of thinking individually has become a big joke. Old Thomas J. Watson of I.B.M. came up with the idea for a sign which just said: “Think”. And today, it’s a gag! This is the result of “Creeping Meatballism”.

On the first of December, Dr. Richard Hanson became the interim president of NDSU. I recall thinking at the time that he might becoming president of an institution on the verge of collapse.  I had no idea that it might happen literally.  I’m referring, of course, the collapse of the north side of that grand old structure Minard Hall.

For those unfamiliar with the NDSU campus, Minard Hall is the four floor yellow brick building with maroon trim across Albrecht Blvd from the NDSU Library, sandwiched between Askanase Hall(the Little County Theatre), the heating plant and Festival Hall.  It was built in three stages, the first being in 1901. It houses the College of Arts, Humanities and social Sciences, as well s the Mathematics and Psychology Departments of the College of Science and Mathematics.

For those not involved in higher education at a research university, this is a catastrophe of indescribable proportion.  To me, it is symbolic of the neglect  a state with a billion dollar surplus and its population treats its higher education system.  I don’t expect to make any friends by saying this, but for me, this is the straw that broke the camel’s back.  I no longer care whether the youth of North Dakota get quality education or not.  Much as I love my students, the state just doesn’t deserve the effort.

So let’s return to Minard Hall, clearly one of the most important buildings on campus.  Currently it is closed to everyone.  There is hope to get the offices and classrooms not affected by the collapse ready for the start of spring semester.  There will supposedly be a window of opportunity for faculty with offices in the safe part of the building to return to their offices to retrieve important materials, such as books and papers, before the building is closed again.  I find that many don’t understand that NDSU is a research university, meaning that just because classes are not in session does not mean the faculty don’t need to use their offices.  I think the NDSU administration, in particular provost/academic vice president Craig Schnell, and, for that matter, some of the students, of publicizing the fact that many of the lost books and papers are irreplaceable.  I can only imagine how much research has been lost.

Bruce Frantz, who is in charge of the physical buildings on campus, would have us believe that this was an unforeseeable accident, and there were no mistakes made by his office or the contractor.  Snort.  This is an engineering school with a strong construction engineering program and excellent construction engineering faculty.  They just didn’t pay attention, in my view.  Franz is probably right to say the collapse happened at one of the few times no one would get hurt.  I’m glad, of course, that no-one did, but if someone had, I would have enjoyed the embarrassing national publicity that might have followed.

Franz would also have us believe that the damage can be fixed(for half a million.  The loss to the affected faculty, of course, can’t.  Even if it could, it turns out that NDSU carries no liability insurance).  I question whether Minard Hall should be repaired.  The building has been an expensive disaster for decades.  My office is in Minard Hall, but not in the affected area.  But my library and research papers and very probably my health has suffered much over the years.

Sometime in my first few years at NDSU the roof above(by a floor or two) sprang a leak and much of my library, carefully and costfully assembled while I was a graduate student and new faculty member, was drenched, rendering many of the books unusable, as the pages are all stuck together. This has happened so many times since that during a rain storm there is apparently a stand-by crew available  that can go rushing into faculty offices and cover everything with plastic if the roof leaks.  I read something about this once, but since I’ve observed it happening a few times, there’s no need to cite it.

Air quality has also been an issue in Minard Hall, due to its proximity to the heating plant.  In fact, the state health department once declared my office as uninhabitable.  My department and college administration was unable to find another office for me, but fortunately I was able to generate two invitations from departments in other buildings to reside there.  Yes, that is a dig at the problem solving abilities of the NDSU administration.

So, what we have here is an historic building that houses many important departments and in which many classes are taught that is virtually collapsing.  We didn’t have enough space for our 14,000 students before this happened.  And all of this at the end of an eleven year term of a president, Forum’s man of the year, that could raise millions for athletics, but couldn’t keep a major building safe in a state with a billion dollar surplus.

There’s many more problems Chapman left us with, but that could be the topic of another essay.

How long has it been now since Joseph Chapman has made the front page of the Forum or been the topic of a Television News Feature about his alleged accomplishments?  I’m not sure, but he sure seems to have dropped off the radar all of a sudden.  Wonder why  that is.  I can only speculate, but I think we don’t know very much of the story.  His sudden and unexpected resignation(regardless of what he says after the fact) and the speed with which the State Board of Higher Education accepted his resignation certainly makes one wonder.  It has been amusing, however, to watch the news media display their ignorance of the Chapman presidency and how a research university functions.

I recall the huge issue of the forum with the front page headlines of “Say it ain’t so, Joe,” together with several other articles with color photos of Chapman and his missus.  I have often wondered what NDSU president’s wives have to do with the situation: it is not their credentials that are examined, they are not the ones to give an address, as is customary, to the entire university community, so why do the presidents always refer to their spouses when announcing news about their actions on belhalf of the University?  In this case, Chapman’s wife was paid approximately the salary of a beginning assistant professor, supposedly to represent the University.  How could she do that, when she is not a University administrator, faculty member or staff member?  Of course she was not paid with apporpriated funds, and to focus on such minor apparent abuses is, I think, to miss the point.

There was supposed to be a huge rally in support of Chapman during the middle part of the class day featuring the Gold Star Band, speakers and throng of students.  Channel 11 hyped the event for approximately a week. promising full coverage.  I watched their coverage, and tried to figure out where the event was held.  There were remarks by Chapman and his wife, some members of the Gold Star Band performing on a stage, interviews with a couple of students(what does two interviews out of 14,000 students tell us about anything?) and some shots of some students sitting in an auditorium.  I noted there were a lot of empty seats.  Channel 11 did remark that the event was smaller and more subdued that the previous Chapman rally.
Later, I found out that the event was held in the Memorial Union’s Century theater and was attended by about 150 students.  If true,e I find even 150 a bit high, since that’s about all Century theater holds.  At that time of day, I could get 150 students to watch people flipping coins in the union.

I’m not sure what happened during the first rally to cause such a large and enthusiastic turnout, but I suspect it had something to do with athletics and a large dose of propaganda from the president’s office.  The turnout this time is not surprising: students really have almost zero contact with the president or his office, academic policy is not made by the president, so in general most don’t know or care who the president is.  Anything they learn about him will come from the media, which apparently gets its information directly from the president’s office.

So, now we come to the interim president, selected rather quickly by Chancellor Goetz.  Before the appointment of Dick Hanson as imterim president, the Forum again amused me with their picks.  One was Allan Fischer, who was interim president once before, and the mdia has indicated was “The student’s Choice.”  This last is pure balderdash: just because a fes students held a vigil outside the president’s office while Fischer occupied it does not make him the student’s choice.  As a metter of fact, the vigilantes were, as it turned out, all members of the Campus Crusade for Christ, an organization of which Fischer was the Faculty Advisor.  In fact, Fisher was previously Dean of the college of Science and Mathematics.  He neglected to have the faculty perform their mandatory evaluation of him, so Vice President Schnell stepped in and had the faculty evaluate Fischer.  Most people on the evaluation committee were shocked as to how unpopular he was with his own faculty.  Now, it is important that Dean does not mean “Boss.”   His unpopularity among his faculty did not come from poor administrative decisions, but rather from poor administrative style.  In fact, under current University policy, his style of administration would now be illegal.  But I won’t go into detail.

Despite an attempt by an end run by some local luminaries, Fischer was not appointed without submitting to the usual search process.  I asked one of the search committee members about his candidacy, and was told he was not a serious candidate.  During televised interviews he was often not able to respond in a complete sentence.    I was tempted to attend his address to the University community just so I could ask enough questions so that he would embarrass himself, but was told by the same member of the search committee that would be unnecessary, since he would do a perfectly good job of doing that himself.  Apparently, that’s what happened.  So, not a good choice for interim ;president now, I don’t think.

That brings us to another Forum choice, Provost/Academic Vice President Schnell.  Craig Shcnell is the closest thing to leader the University has.  He is far, far too valuable to the University and its academic programs, both teaching and research, to spend his time on funding and the like, in my opinion.  Also, he has a direct and honest style which I find refreshing and is unusual in a university administrator, which makes him all the more effective as provost and Vice President, but I don’t think it would help much in the Legislature or in fund raising.  Of course, that’s just my opinion.  I could be wrong, on all counts, but I  dont’ thiink the Forum consider any of these issues in deciding who they think should be NDSU’s president, either permanent or interim.

That brings us to Chancellor Goetz’s pice, Dick Hanson, whom the Forum apparently supports.  I knew Dick rather well when he was Sharon Wallace’s Associate Vice President for academic affairs, and admired him as the only man in the uppr administration with any brains(remember, Sharon Wallace, the Academic Vice President and Jim Ozbun, the president at the time were essentially run out of town on a rail).  I suspect that the Forum supports Hanson because he is an ex Bison football player, and so will continue to support higher profile athletics.  If so, I think they are mistaken: I think Dick’s football days are in his past.

But let’s look at the rest of the story.  Hanson, as reported in the Forum, was indeed a faculty member at NDSU for a few years, but I believe his PhD is in Home Economics are a similar field.  NDSU is the state university of agriculture and applied science.  Even though he had some success in the past. I don’t think Dck’s credentials qualifies him to seek funding for such a university.

When Dick left NDSU, it was to become academic vice president at Augustana College.  He apparently has had several other positions since then, most recently as president oi Waldorf College in Iowa, a 440 student liberal arts college.  The similarity between such an institution and NDSU is non-existent.  One main difference is that Waldorf wouldn’t be doing any researchm, while NDSU gets approximately 1/3 of its budget from overhead money for its research programs.  Dick is an advocate of high teaching standards for the faculty, and who can disagree with that, but he , at least used, to have some what are to me funny ideas.  For example, he doesn’t agree with those of us that think active researchers use that activity to make them better teachers.  Well, just think about it.  Would you rather learn a subject from someone active in the field or someone that just studies it?  He thinks, or used to, that high student evaluations were synonymous with good teaching.  sometimes, maybe, but when I was a department chair I used to be suspect of abnormally high student evaluations, and investigation proved me right on many occasions.  Besides, we are have a large College of Engineering: in taking their beginning science and mathematics courses, it is far more important that the students learn the material that if the like how its taught.  But all of this may be moot, the president doesn’t have much control over these things, and Dick may have changed some.  I always found him intelligent and open to new ideas.

But I cannot emphasize enough the difference between a school like Waldorf and NDSU.  Of course I’m biased, but to my way of thinking and experience, education at state land-grant schools is a real bargain.  Small liberal arts colleges pride themselves in academic excellence, but they are very limited in what they can offer.  In some departments at NDSU, the best students in their graduate courses are their own undergraduates.  I currently know of one student that in 3 1/2 years will have completed a double major in the sciences and earned a master’s degree in addition.  The type of institutions Hanson has been associated with would have noting to offer such students.

So, I hope whoever makes the decision of the composition of the search committee and ultimately the president will take into account the actual make up and structure of the University, and I hope everyone ignores the Forum.

Sometime about the middle of last week I read Mike McFeely’s column in the Forum. suggesting that the media was making way too much of the swine flu situation.  Now, I have nothing against McFeely and have no intention of entering into a debate, but I do wonder why a sports columnist wants to weigh in on this issue.  I don’t read the Forum, so maybe I don’t understand the situation.  But in any event, McFeely’s column raises some interesting issues.

One of Mike’s complaints is based on the low number of cases so far reported in humans.  How does he think pan-demic’s start?  Read the history of the Black Plague, which what passed for science in those days had no idea what to do with.  Still, with a little knowledge, they could have greatly reduced the devastation: stop killing and torturing cats, for example.  Instead they turned to superstitious religion, which if anything made things worse.

In some ways we’re not much different today.  Diseases like the swine flu start in animals and initially don’t infect humans.  At some point, however, there is enough human contact so that the virus gets its DNA sequencing confused by a virus that does infect humans, producing a new virus that does infect humans.  Don’t hold me responsible for having my scientific facts straight, but it’s something like that.

So at this point what we have is a virus that infects humans about which we know nothing. Science has to first isolate the virus, figure out how to kill it inn order to make a vaccine to give the population.  It is my understanding that doing this in a year is good time.  But let’s say science could do it in a month.

We all know, or should know, why pyramid schemes are illegal.  Let’s apply it in this case.  Suppose an individual is infected with  the virus.  That day, he shakes hands with two other people.  The next day these two contact two other two individuals each, and so on.  At the end of thirty days there are two to the thirtieth power people infected, or approximately one billion!

Science has promised us a pan-demic sometime in the not too distant future.  When it happens, it will start like the swine flu is behaving now.  Let’s hope this isn’t it, but even though we probably can accuse the media of sensationalism(when can’t we) it’s best that we stay informed, I think.