At 11:59 AM 3/25/97 -0800, Michael wrote: >Our administration is led by lefties. Our provost is a marxist, but he >makes public announcements that we have to change. As evidence, he >tells us that McDonalds runs a successful university that does not rely >on government support -- well a few subsidies for grazing, promoting >exports and the like. We have to be able to compete with such >organization by ... well here it gets sticky. Mostly, by giving the >administration more power to run things better. > >Our chancellor was a sidekick of Charles Hurwitz, famed S&L bandit and >destroyer of forests. > >Wierd, but he does not seem any different from our lefty leadersip. I have a hard time putting much blame on administrators for the mess we're in--even pathetic McDonalds-quoting losers like yours. About six years ago, I was involved with a statewide student coalition that tried to stop cuts in education and welfare and push for tax reform to pay for it. We never ceased to be amazed at the apathy on the part of faculty at both the UCs, the CSUs, and the community colleges. Faculty assumed that all the nasty cuts would leave them unscathed, and so they weren't willing to drag their butts to Sacramento for lobbying or to work in their communities to build support for protecting CA's system of higher education. Moreover, even very left faculty were also totally unwilling to do anything to challenge the increasing influence that corporate money was having on campus (ultimately, student activists weren't either, but that's another story). The only real help we got was from a few administrators, who let us sneak in xeroxing and phoning, and sometimes leaked information we needed. Some of the most sympathetic were very pissed at the faculty, because there wasn't a lot the administrators could do w/o getting fired if they didn't have very vocal, organzied faculty support. There will always be Dogbert-like administrators running colleges. But I doubt they'd be trying the lunacy you describe if faculty had stood up when the axe was first falling on welfare moms. Anders Schneiderman Progressive Communications
