Tuesday, December 05, 2006

Called It!

A few months ago, the Chronicle reported on a controversy at the U of Florida. The administration had announced plans to cut budgets for certain programs and increase them for others. I wrote at the time:

A fearless prediction (and all predictions guaranteed or your money back!): the faculty will claim to have been shut out of the decision-making process, the usual accusations about autocratic administrators will fly, compromises will be made, a few deans will be replaced, and the university won't look in 2010 the way this plan says it will.


A story in IHE yesterday shows that I was right on every count (and it only took three months!). There's a new interim dean (check), who is signaling intent to cave (check), and citing insufficient process (check). Affected departments are still claiming a lack of shared governance (check), and the university is proposing to mollify all and sundry by...wait for it...a tuition increase by another name! Make the strategic failure go away by throwing money at it.

From looking at my prediction, you'd almost think I knew what I was doing.

Honestly.

It's almost as if a single community college dean, blogging pseudonymously from his outpost in another region of the country, could see the train coming down the tracks before the leadership of a major research university could.

Makes ya wonder.

Now, back to our regularly scheduled blogging.