terrapinsanity.com

In case you missed it, the Chancellor at University of Illinois who just had to resign in disgrace was, in his previous job, one of the Deans here at University of Maryland.

So far no criminal charges stemming from Richard Herman’s professional demise, and for that matter, it isn’t much of a demise. After stepping down he will land back in the mathematics department there, pulling down a quarter megabuck per year in salary. Not bad change for teaching a couple calculus classes. Where do we sign up to do that?

The trigger for his resignation was an on-going Illinois mess surrounding revelations that the university gave preferential treatment when admitting family members of state power brokers, ahead of far more qualified applicants. You know, business as usual for corrupt Chicago politicians.

But good golly, what a thought. Preferentially admit unprepared students ahead of academically superior applicants who would have thought that as tax payers in the state they’d get a fair and unbiased shot at entry to the flagship campus? Wonder where Herman learned that trick?

While news of Herman’s fiasco surely created a high pucker factor in Main Admin, officials here are relatively sure we won’t see the Illinois mess replicated here. Our leadership has been careful to quash any attempt to openly and candidly assess the Office of Admissions, and as we saw in the Diamondback today, nobody can get quality data out of our computers anyway.