terrapinsanity.com

This morning’s announcement to campus began “Farvardin Named President, Stevens Institute of Technology” – an announcement from President Loh that Farvardin will step down as our Provost in February.

Good riddance.

Farvardin was out of his depth as an administrator – insulated by senior staff, deaf to input from the campus he led, and blind to the effects of his decisions. Under this Provost, the strategic plan became a joke (an aggregation of buzzwords for show but never followed), the general education program became a dumbed down advertising operation, and, for want of adult supervision by any member of the professoriate, the Office of Admissions became a patronage shop that optimized for job security among special programs – not quality at the flagship.

Rather than perform serious studies of campus programs, Farvardin’s senior staff engineered “made as instructed” reports in order to justify decisions he handed down. The Provost himself is on record as simply ignoring basic reporting duties and processes in interaction with the Senate, which he viewed as a large rubber stamp and used as such. Our mission suffered accordingly.

This change could not happen soon enough. All eyes now turn to Dr. Loh, in the hope that indeed, this new broom will sweep clean.