terrapinsanity.com

Days ago it was announced that UMUC’s President Aldridge had gone on an indefinite leave. There is still no good word (or even credible rumormongering) about what’s going on. The Chronicle fleshes out the present picture, wherein we learn that even top-placed legislators aren’t able to get a hint about how this mystery might unfold.

Even perpetually up-beat faculty around campus are coming to a shocked stop in their tracks today, pole axed by David Rieger’s memo to employees “Important Information Regarding Anticipated Health Plan Changes for FY2013″. Warning: reading details of this memo could cause symptoms of anxiety, cramping, migraines and constipation.

The state’s plan for balancing the budget in next fiscal year entails employees picking up a big – and we mean big – piece of the bill. If you aren’t in one of the few HMO programs that already ration coverage, then plan on paying 10 percent of non-co-pay expenses (meaning about everything) up to an annual cap. That’s on top of co-pays themselves going up.

Yup, these health plans are now ideal for people who don’t need health plans, but the moment you need one (X-rays, most lab work, any kind of procedure) then gosh, these plans aren’t for you, you need to pay your fair share. For a family that must use a procedure out-of-plan, that could be up to $6,000 more out of pocket (above co-pays) before hitting the cap.

The folks in Annapolis are debating (even as we blog) about whether to give a little pay bump to “make up” for all the furloughs in recent years. Leaving aside the insult of presuming we would not notice how a fixed (potentially pro-rated) gratuity is the smallest fraction of what we lost, this contemplated bump (if it shows up at all) won’t even cover the increase in co-pays in most cases for families that need any amount of health service.

We guess these officials have decided they are beyond ever needing votes from anyone employed in the state again.

Didn’t see this one coming: UMUC President Susan Aldridge goes on indefinite leave without explanation.

Then there’s Reginald Avery, President at Coppin State, whose faculty just delivered a vote of no confidence.

So far we’ve seen nothing from USM on any of this, which does not bode well. Someone in charge needs to get in front of what’s going on in defense of the system, a task which is, we grant, all the harder while trying to present a bold face to legislators in Annapolis who are handling the budget bill at this moment.

Last year the state cut $4M from the USM budget, saying they could recover expenses for services given to the individual campuses. Apparently business as usual continued so Annapolis would like to do it again, and the hearing about this wasn’t all fun and games for administrators.

So much for that “we’re doing more with less!” strategy. People paying those bills like to hear it. Maybe a “we’re doing less with less” message would have gone over better, where officials got to hear about the effects of their cuts, which might have to be ‘splained back to constituents.

What’s really going on? The original deal was simple: keep serving the governor’s political needs and the state will keep supplying the cash. USM correspondingly has optimized to shoulder an ever-increasing load of workforce training (not education) for tech industry (making workers commodities that are less-expensive for gubernatorial backers to hire at need), and ensured that the campus community is readily at hand to support whatever social measures seem trendy on the second floor.

Obviously Annapolis doesn’t seem to feel like it is getting best value on that deal any more. The budget hearings are a chance for political saber rattling to remind those uppity academics just who’s in charge. Look for a fiscal accommodation to be quietly worked out once the Metzerott Road crew has kowtowed and genuflected appropriately – backed by promises of some more support to come from campuses in the coming year.

The Washington Post coverage begain:

At a bar named Looney’s, more than a week after just about every other major high school player announced his college choice, in a circus-like atmosphere, the University of Maryland football program landed its biggest recruit in years when Good Counsel’s Stefon Diggs announced his intention to play in College Park.

Really? At a bar?

Is there any more effective way to promote a party atmosphere on campus than to bring high school draft picks to a local watering hole to announce his plans to play football at College Park? Forget the wink and nod – way too subtle. Set the party at a student hang out immediately adjacent campus and make sure you have a packed house. Have the athletic foundation pick up tabs on food and drink. (Not to worry, we can cancel another low-priority sport to pay for it.) Make sure your coaches do media reports from there too. Go Terps!

Does this mean the campus now wants professors to recruit scholars from, say, Montgomery Blair High School science magnet program by partying with them at local bars? Huh, wonder what local principals would think about that. Didn’t the faculty senate just have a long discussion about the problems of promoting underage drinking? None of that particularly seems relevant any more.

Yes, campus leaders are changing the environment. Yesterday they got coveted statewide media coverage at the Sun, featuring photos of the most famous UM alumni. Number four on the list, ahead of legislator/scholar Tom McMillen or even Jim Henson? Len Bias, whose claim to fame is his death of a cocaine overdose while partying after being recruited to play basketball by the Celtics.

Now that’s some serious partying, and recruiting high school athletes like Stefon Diggs in local bars seems like we are trying to keep up the tradition. Maybe someday Diggs will be just as famous as Bias.

One piece of legislation currently under consideration in Annapolis would tear yet another hole into Maryland’s tattered Public Information Act by adding another exemption (meaning, another way the state would not have to respond to requests by its people who seek access to documents owned in their name.) The bill would exempt university researchers from having to share their scholarly materials and raw data.

You know. Like scholars who believe in intellectual objectivity and scientific reproducibility do.

The Sun describes the proponents’ spin about why this limitation on distribution of information is needed, at least in their minds. Largely it has to do with public reaction to tremendously controversial academics in other states, where campuses gave a platform for distribution of notions that many others thought were as unsupportable as they were well-sought by extreme advocacy groups. People wanted to examine how those views came to be and test the strength of those conclusions, the advocacy groups didn’t want to have to ‘splain themselves, and hence the controversy over information access erupted.

Maryland’s extreme edge – we suspect the bill sponsor would wear that as a badge of honor – wants to erect defenses so our campuses can similarly serve as platform for advocacy positions that, by law, cannot be tested by other scholars.

Unfortunately, University of Maryland VP for Research, Patrick O’Shea, testified on behalf of our campus in support of this return to the dark ages. Quoting O’Shea from the Sun, “It would allow us to compete and win the trust of cutting-edge staff,” he said. You know. The kind of staff who want to speak controversial things to the public without danger of having to show their work.

The ultimate newspeak is again from the bill’s sponsor:

Rosenberg said that by passing his bill, the legislature could set Maryland apart from such states. “It would send very strong signals that Maryland is a place where we value scientific research and academic inquiry,” he said.

Indeed. We value academic inquiry so much that we want to pass a law to stop people from being able to inquire.

“[C]oach Randy Edsall took the first steps toward putting last season in the past with yesterday’s unveiling of the Terrapins football team’s 24-man recruiting class.”

Splendid! When do the chemistry, psychology, economics, art history, zoology, journalism and one hundred other department chairmen roll out word of their recruiting picks?

Oh wait. Nobody makes recruiting resources available to those stakeholders. And for that matter, no prospective chemists, psychologists, … have yet heard whether they are even accepted for fall 2012, unless of course they play football.

How about it, Randy? What majors are your hand-picked 24 recruits? Do you even know?