terrapinsanity.com

President Dan Mote’s delivery of his regular ‘state of the campus’ report on Wednesday was another serving out of the same cookie cutter of past years. A lot of people who are bone-weary of being punked by the governor got to hear how well we are all coming together to optimize our core competencies and move forward in a positive direction and blah blah blah. The audience wasn’t quite asked to hold hands and sing, but it might as well have.

Under-resourced office staff are burning out keeping things operational under the freeze, buildings are crumbling, on-campus housing remains an exercise in dense packing and all employees know the golden rule: the governor takes the gold and makes the rules. (When each of us screws up a budget, we pay. When the governor screws up a budget, we pay then too.)

Ahh. But Dan says we’re doing great. Well there, that should make us all feel better.

Dan Mote gets paid a lot of money to put on an act like this, but obviously the budget affects him too. His entertainment fee only covered up to the part at the end of his talk when he casually slipped in that we’ll soon have program reductions.

Program reductions? Like the stuff that closes departments or removes degree programs? Like substantive information we hoped to learn today from the boss?

Doh! Too late, gotta tune in next time, Dan’s on the clock and we just didn’t have time or money to tell any details today.