Spread Far the Fame of Our Fair Name (apologies to NU)
Graduation Rates Again Under the Spotlight


Everyone at BigU knows that we have serious problems with graduation rates. As was reported lately: " Professor Sirc said he talked to Dr. Howard, Director of Institutional Research, about what would be the single best measure to improve the University's rankings; Dr. Howard said it would be to improve the graduation rate."

A website devoted to college admissions reports:

Two economists at William and Mary will be publishing an article that they think improves on the "overperformance/underperformance" in US News.

Here is the link to a draft of the article:

http://www.wm.edu/economics/wp/cwm_wp24.pdf

They compare graduation rates after adjusting for four things:

(1) SAT 25th percentile
(2) percent of freshmen in top 10% of HS class
(3) percent of faculty who are full-time
(4) expenditures per student

They ranked 187 schools based on how well they exceed expectations in getting students to graduate. They produce a "technical efficiency" score for each school that tells the actual graduation rate divided by the expected graduation rate (determined by the four inputs above). For example, a technical efficiency score of .95 means that the actual graduation rate is 95% of the expected graduation rate.

This is, in effect, a ranking based on "value added." How well do schools do given the students they enroll?

Unfortunately, this method indicates again that there are some severe deficiencies at BigU with respect to graduation rates as our ranking and that of some neighbors is indicated below, as well as that of some of our competition:

1 Indiana University Bloomington 1.
1 Pennsylvania State University 1.
1 University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign 1.

39 University of Wisconsin Madison .995.
47 Northwestern University .985.
49 University of Michigan in Ann Arbor .981.
56 Michigan state University .973.
92 Purdue University West Lafayette at .916.
94 University of Iowa .914.

140 Ohio State University Columbus .837.

179 University of Minnesota Twin Cities .700.

Ouch!

Our closest competitor in the BigTen is Ohio State, the other BigTen Megaversity. But they are nearly 40 slots above us. A gap of more than 40 separates OSU from the rest of the BigTen. With the exception of Minnesota and Ohio state, the BigTen performance by this measure seems pretty respectable. Particularly interesting are the outstanding performances by Indiana, Penn State, and Illinois. There are certain geographic similarities in those institutions, but clearly having an outstanding football team does not seem to correlate with this measure of graduation rates.

So here we are again, folks. Last in the BigTen in graduation rates. Brushing this off by saying "we are improving" will not cut it. There IS literally no place to go but up - we are 179 out of 187 schools studied. Institutions clobbering us include: Universities of Kentucky, Oklahoma, Mississippi, Wyoming, Idaho, Toledo, Montana, Miami [sic], Missouri, etc., etc., ad nauseum. There is something fundamentally wrong here that needs to be attended to before we should be dreaming about being one of the "top three public research institutions in the world [sic]." The Science Class Room situation, posted on earlier, is just another example of the unreal world in which our administration seems to live. Tearing down large classrooms - required for efficiently processing the large introductory courses that are necessary at a BigU - and not replacing them is wrong-headed, especially in opposition to faculty who are actually using the present Science Classroom Building.

While the Gophers are in Indiana next weekend, maybe OurLeader and ET (Indiana Law is his alma mater) should go down a day early and talk to the folks in Bloomington about how they do so well with graduation rates? Then next Saturday they could cheer on the Gophers, in whom they have so much invested.

Ciao, Bonzo

The Natives Are Restless, or

Does BigU Have the Money to Fulfill Our Ambitious Aspirations?

Minutes*

University of Minnesota Senate Committee on Finance and Planning

Tuesday, September 18, 2007

* These minutes reflect discussion and debate at a meeting of a committee of the University of Minnesota Senate; none of the comments, conclusions, or actions reported in these minutes represents the views of, nor are they binding on, the Senate, the Administration, or the Board of Regents.

Tuition Increases on the Horizon

Will the Regents support a 7.5% tuition increase, Professor Martin asked? They have been told it is part of the budget plans, Mr. Pfutzenreuter said. Professor Chapman suggested that 7.5% will be seen as quite high. Mr. Pfutzenreuter agreed but pointed out that for Minnesota residents the legislature provided funding to buy down the increase by 2%, so it will only be 5.5% (for students from households with an income of up to $150,000). Professor Chapman said he was sorry to see such an increase in an election year; Mr. Pfutzenreuter said the other choices are increased state funding or less new investment.

Austerity at BigU

Professor Chapman inquired of Mr. Pfutzenreuter if, based on his experience, this will be perceived as an austerity budget. Between the tuition increases and the cuts, it looks pretty austere to him, he said. Mr. Pfutzenreuter said it is austere.

Professor Martin said there is no sense of this coming austerity in the University community after all the discussion about how much support the legislature provided for the biennium. This will be a big surprise, she said.

Professor Martin reminded Professor Konstan that while the University can get rid of a college, it cannot get rid of the faculty, who hold tenure in the University. It seems, however, that the University has closed units and not saved money, Professor Konstan said.

Later, Professor Konstan asked whether the universities it seek to join--top public institutions like Michigan and Berkeley--share Minnesota's model of continuously squeezing units. Does this squeeze really lead people to think efficiently, or does it just add stress that saps productivity?

Mr. Pfutzenreuter said he had proposed the approach of putting the burden on the cost-pool owners. Last year they were told to talk to their customers; this year they have an obligation to reduce costs or find more productive ways to do business—and not, for example, by closing four libraries. At some point almost all at the University will say there is nothing more that can be done more efficiently, Professor Martin commented, and people may be close to that point now—and cannot respond in a rational way to directives for greater efficiency.

Professor Konstan related that his back-of-the-envelope calculation was that his department spent $20,000 in faculty time debating whether to hire a faculty member into an open slot versus saving that slot to offset an uncertain upcoming cut. Multiplied across the University, that's a lot of research, teaching, and service not being done that could lead towards top-three status. "We may be spending more time and energy to find cuts than the resulting savings yield in gains.”

More generally, Professor Konstan asked, is $8.5 million in reallocation providing more advancement of the University towards the top-three goal than the amount that University-wide agonizing, stress, and wasted effort over these cuts moves it away from the goal? Mr. Pfutzenreuter agreed that the University may be trying to invest too much in new programs or activities

UMorePark – Gold Mine or Money Sink?

He has been asked a number of times how to pay for this, Dr. Muscoplat related; the goal is to make a lot of money for the University that would be captured in an endowment to support University's academic mission, but it must spend some money to make money. There is several million dollars set aside for UMore Park; there are options for funding, including the mineral rights for the gravel and hiring a developer to sell land, for example. He said he believes the University can finance the project, but at this point they have only a vision, not a plan.

Dr. Muscoplat said he has talked with Dean Bailey about whether the University could develop a different educational system at UMore Park. The question is how to get there; it will not happen at the academic level without resources, such as research assistants and faculty lines. Any plan can be futuristic and scholarly, Dr. Muscoplat said, but if it does not make money for the University, it will not be built.

There is a lot of benefit to the University to invest in real estate as a growth vehicle; the Harvards of the country are doing it. That is a political decision that the Board of Regents must decide, Professor Martin said, but the University does not have a good record as a landlord.

Discussion

With respect to the top-three goal, if the University does not have the financial foundation to make it work, it is unwise to pursue the goal. Only the Academic Health Center has said what it needs to get into the top three, which is 500 additional faculty and new space for them. CLA could say that it needs 200 additional faculty but it has no place to put them. Ambitions may be outranking the ability of the University to achieve them.

Professor Konstan said it would help to identify what the top-five institutions do, whether they have continuing stress. If they have financial stability, the University is in a losing game.

---

BigU Bumbles On

Left Hand/Right Hand Problems Continue

For some reason, Mr. B. receives numerous blanket emails of minutes from various BigU committee meetings. Almost every time he reads one of these, interesting things jump out. I have previously posted on the Science Classroom Building. Many of the other issues raised seem worthy of some sort of dialog. But our administration continues merrily along, safe in the knowledge that they know best. I wonder? Tid-bits below.

From Minutes

University of Minnesota Faculty Consultative Committee

Thursday, September 13, 2007

Caveat:

"These minutes reflect discussion and debate at a meeting of a committee of the University of Minnesota Senate; none of the comments, conclusions, or actions reported in these minutes represents the views of, nor are they binding on, the Senate, the Administration, or the Board of Regents."

Faculty Discipline?

Professor Durfee, although unable to be present at the meeting, had sent an email message about the strike; he suggested the Committee discuss what punishment the University is contemplating when it makes official statements such as "faculty who move class away from picket lines may be disciplined."

In response to a question, Professor Balas suggested the Committee not issue any statement on the strike because it should not get in the middle of the bargaining process. The Committee should, however, discuss with the Provost the language used about disciplining faculty members and what might be done. Committee members assented.

Faculty Input On Decisions About Classroom Configuration?

The Committee turned to the proposed design of the science-teaching-and-student-services building, which will replace the Science Classroom Building at the northeast end of the Washington Avenue Bridge. A number of Committee members expressed considerable dismay at the configuration and size of classrooms in the new building. (The current lecture auditoriums that seat 200+ students (4) and 70-seat classroom will be replaced with six smaller 117-seat interactive classrooms, six 90-seat interactive classrooms, and seven 30-seat seminar classrooms.) Department heads in IT have protested the configuration as not appropriate for their needs.

The question, Professor Windsor said, is how academics closest to a facility are integrated into the planning for that facility. She said this reminded her of the decision about the new CSOM/CLA building, decisions about which were made at a high level, not with the faculty.

With the budget model as it is, and many departments increasing class size, not reducing it, the new lay out seems counterintuitive.

She expressed concern that the right hand doesn't always pay attention to what the left hand is doing. She observed that she teaches a large 3-XXX lecture course, including in the Science Classroom Building, that is a prerequisite to other more advanced courses, and if they cannot find enough lecture halls to teach large numbers of introductory students, the students don't have the prerequisites for other courses, and their progress in the major is stymied. "So much for 5-year graduation rates in that case." Professor Durfee commented in an email on the subject that perhaps someday classroom design planning would be done in collaboration with faculty, perhaps through the Academy of Distinguished Teachers, so that issues of classroom size and what constitutes an "interactive classroom" have faculty input.

The Committee agreed it would raise questions about the new facility with the Provost next week.

Is BigU Still a Land-Grant Institution?

The Board of Regents has seen the data on the increasing qualifications of incoming freshmen, Professor Wambach said, and a couple of Board members have asked how far the University can push on increasing the high-school rank metric. What will be the tradeoffs if 90% of the students are in the top 10% of their class? Is that a realistic or politically-desirable goal? Some Board members, Professor Balas added, suggested that this may be the wrong metric; the University is a public, land-grant institution and it should seek to educate students from many parts of society. The Provost, however, has said that the University will continue to use as a metric the academic quality of incoming students.

Metrics

Professor Balas turned next to the question of metrics and measurement, a major topic of discussion at the retreat in late August. He reported that he took away points from the September Regents' meeting that made him realize this is an issue about which the Committee must be assertive. One of the Board members focused on the comparison group: who does the University want to be like, and why. Tracking metrics generates policies; if the University is tracking something, why?

The Committee, he concluded, must disregard the advice it received at the retreat not to worry about the metrics and measurements, because they will clearly have an effect on decisions and policies.

Committee members made it clear at the retreat, Professor Martin commented, that they are not happy about the metrics currently being used.

(Professor Balas observed that there is only one metric related to research in the current set: dollars.)

Professor Sirc said he talked to Dr. Howard, Director of Institutional Research, about what would be the single best measure to improve the University's rankings; Dr. Howard said it would be to improve the graduation rate. It is not clear what any individual faculty member can do about that. In the case of his department, it has sought to hire new and interesting faculty but has been told that will not happen.

One can measure and re-measure, Professor Windsor said, but unless one identifies what is driving any comparative advantage, the measures don't by themselves help achieve outcomes. What is it that higher-ranked universities do, she asked? For example, do they have lower student-faculty ratios, do faculty teach fewer/more classes, do they admit students with better academic records, do they provide more/different advising support, do they recruit more outstanding faculty, do they have better retention mechanisms for faculty and staff, etc.? Knowing these types of pivot points would help to identify where resources might be directed.

Professor Martin commented, apropos Professor Windsor's point, that they have known for a long time that Minnesota's faculty is 20% smaller than the faculty of its peers given the number of students. It appears that CLA faculty teach more students per faculty member than other CIC liberal arts colleges, for example. Of all the discussion about getting into the top three, she has only heard one part of the University say it needs more faculty: the AHC has been forthright in saying it needs an additional 500. The rest of the University does not make that kind of statement because there would be no place to house them if they could be hired. It is an odd ambition to be really good without the wherewithal to get there.

What is excellence, Professor Balas asked? Professor Windsor responded that some would say one knows it when one sees it; departments are just excellent. His concern, Professor Balas said, is that the Regents are set on metrics and measures, and if there is nothing there about teaching and scholarship, they will be lost in the message. He said he would prefer that the Board not just talk about metrics but have a much richer conversation about what it takes to make the University great. If there were three additional metrics that would be easy to measure and that would go beyond what is being proposed, what would they be, Professor Yust asked? The University collects a lot of data; there must be some that say something about faculty excellence.

Professor Martin urged that Professors Balas and Hoover bring up the concerns about metrics in their meeting with the chair and vice chair of the Board of Regents and convey the faculty discomfort with metrics that are missing important parts of faculty activities. And that do not correspond to faculty perceptions of what it means to be a top-three university, Professor Balas added. It is the faculty's sense that other things are going on that matter but that are not measured. To the extent that Institutional Research is disconnected from the academic mission, Professor Martin said, the faculty will not see what they believe appropriate in the metrics. That is why Professor Balas is correct, Professor Kane said: the Committee must take an active role in identifying what it believes should be measured.

Professor Wambach asked if it mattered "what most of us do or what a few of us do." The University has 45 National Academy members; its peers have 65 or more. So what the University needs to do is hire 25 National Academy members who will bring a lot of grant money and reputations. That would solve the problem without worrying about the rest of the 3000 faculty. Or hire three Nobel Prize winners, Professor Martin added. The metrics reward the star system, Professor Wambach maintained. People are brought in after they have established their reputation; schools with high reputations recruit stars. That is why the Committee should develop metrics it can embrace, Professor Balas said, because the star system is divisive; do some get everything and the rest nothing? Its metrics should be ones the Committee believes are right and the discussion should start with them.

Communication

Up to now the Committee has been a strong advocate but it and the administration have been two ships passing in the night, Professor Balas commented.

Things have not changed this year; sometimes he (a department head), as a member of this Committee, knows more than his dean, but sometimes his dean knows things that he would have expected to know as a member of this Committee. The faculty generally are clueless about many things; they know that budgets are increasing but that costs are up 10% so that the departments must make cuts.

Professor Yust said it has been her sense that Minnesota has been among the most consultative institutions; in the past there was one person responsible for certain kinds of decisions and one could call that person to get an answer. Now responsibility is diffused over a number of people and it is difficult to identify responsibility.

A lot of faculty were involved in strategic positioning, Professor Martin observed, but they are no longer. The Provost created a culture of consultation with the task forces that has since diminished.

The Committee should have a conversation with the Provost to express its views that the measures the colleges are being held to do not fit what faculty do and that the process as constructed did not have enough academic participation.

There was so much time and money spent on the task forces, Professor Yust said, and the disconnect between their work and what has happened may lie with whomever was charged to carry out the recommendations. One question is the extent to which those obligated to carry out the recommendations were also obliged to consult.

September is the best month in ColdState...


Mr. B. is taking a little breather after the tense period of the AFSCME strike, two two-hour lectures per week, a bad bout with bronchitis, kvetch, kvetch, kvetch...

Momo is also exhausted and depressed and in need of self therapy. Thus, she has posted a nice picture of her cat, inspiring a post of the above picture taken by Mrs. Bonzo. Mr. B. discovered Momo's blog and likes it very much since she seems to be the appropriately left wing kind of person that Mr. B. admires.

Mrs. Bonzo has been complaining about lack of notice lately, but then again she is in the throes of finishing another book, something about John Stuart Mill and interior decorating [sic]. A project of many years that will, hopefully, be submitted for publication to YUP (Yale University Press) soon.

The Bonzos stepped out last night to see the preview of a pretty good play at the Guthrie by Brian Friel, "The Home Place." This will be its American premiere. It is directed by Joe Dowling, who ought to know how to do Irish plays. My current favorite local actress, Sarah Agnew, has a major part. The StarTribune has an article about the play, not a review, that appeared today. When the full review appears, I'll post selections and a link.

I'll wait until the final vote on the AFSCME strike has been tallied to make some comments about the strike, its aftermath, and future implications. Although I am sorry for the workers, this strike has helped to further clarify the position, goals, and values of the current BigU administration. The more scrutiny and questioning they receive, the better.

Its a beautiful day in the neighborhood and if Mr. B. does not do some porch painting today, Mrs. B. will kill him.

Ciao,

Bonzo

This just in from the Pioneer Press

Union says U strike is over

Paul Tosto
Pioneer Press

Article Launched: 09/21/2007 12:01:00 AM CDT

Clerical, health and technical workers at the University of Minnesota have ended their two-week old strike and agreed to a settlement offer by the U, union officials said early this afternoon.

The deal appears to be identical to the last offer made by the University. Union officials said they were not happy with the deal and will bring it to their members for a vote without recommendation from the negotiating committee.

"We are forced back to work because we can no longer sustain the loss of salary and a looming end to our health care coverage," one union leader said.

.

University of Minnesota General College Alum Norman Borlaug

From the Daily:

Nobel-winning alumnus feted

By Alex Robinson

he father of the Green Revolution returned to his alma mater yesterday to be honored just a few hundred yards away from the hall bearing his name.

The plant pathology department honored Norman Borlaug for his outstanding work to cap off their three-day centennial celebration.

When Borlaug introduced a more productive wheat grain in the 1940s, he helped end famine in Pakistan and India, sparking the Green Revolution - a shift in agricultural practices that yielded significantly larger harvests.

Over a four-year span Borlaug and fellow scientists doubled the wheat production in Pakistan.

In 1970 Borlaug won the Nobel Peace Prize for his accomplishments.

From Wikipedia:

"Through a Depression-era program known as the National Youth Administration, he was able to enroll at the University of Minnesota in 1933. Initially, Borlaug failed the entrance exam, but was accepted to the school's newly created two-year General College. "


Something to think about?

Bonzo

Striking U of M union suspends picketing

Associated Press

Last update: September 21, 2007 – 7:27 AM

There's no word yet on how talks went between the University of Minnesota and its striking clerical, technical and health-care workers.

But two union Web sites say all picketing is suspended, and a rally planned for ten this morning also is canceled.

The university said in an e-mail this morning that they decline to comment on the strike negotiations.

Strikers are asked to come to a noon meeting at strike headquarters for an update on what happened during Thursday's mediation.

The union workers -- represented by AFSCME -- have been on strike since Sept. 5.
Money is the biggest issue in the strike.

Fingers crossed - bonzo

U continues talks with striking union

Last update: September 20, 2007 – 9:52 PM

The University of Minnesota and its striking clerical, health care and technical workers Thursday held their longest bargaining session since workers walked off the job more than two weeks ago.

The two sides were still talking when this edition of the Star Tribune went to press.

Strikers, U return to bargaining table

By Jeff Shelman, Star Tribune

From the Star-Tribune

Last update: September 20, 2007 – 11:22 AM

The University of Minnesota and striking clerical, health care and technical workers are returning to the bargaining table today.

University spokesman Daniel Wolter said that the AFSCME-represented workers requested the meeting.

The workers have been on strike since Sept. 5. Since then, the university made one contract offer, but it was rejected by the union. Slightly less than 1,000 workers of the approximately 3,100 workers covered by the contracts remain on strike.

The biggest issue in the strike is money.

The union says the university's contract offer of a 2.25 percent annual raise for clerical and technical workers and a 2.5 percent raise for health care workers isn't sufficient. The U's position is that when combined with step raises for experience, most AFSCME represented employees will receive raises of at least 8.5 percent for the contract's two years.

On Friday, the union turned down an offer in which workers would have received a $300 lump sum during each year of the contract while keeping the base increases the same.

AFSCME has said that if the university bumped the salary increases to 3.25 and 3.5 percent, the strike would likely end.

On Monday, a number of students and faculty members and union supporters began a hunger strike.

Those people have gone nearly four days and consumed only water and juice. Marion Traub-Werner, a graduate student in geography and one of the hunger strikers, said the group has been in contact with a nurse as one of the participants is being impacted by not eating.

Adding Hunger to the Strike

More Great Publicity for BigU and Further

Unhelpful Comments by OurLeader's Spokesperson

We make Inside Higher ED - This is just great publicity for a university in the midst of becoming "one of the top three public research universities in the world [sic]."

To repeat the message of an earlier post - the hunger strike is wrong on many levels. AFSCME members at the U should vote to request the students to stop the hunger strike.

Stefano Bloch has an excellent explanation of why this is so in today's Daily.

Nevertheless, excerpts from the article are given below because they provide some insight into what the striking workers are dealing with at the university, particularly the inappropriate comments of one Mr. Wolter, OurLeader's spokesperson.

Two weeks into a workers’ strike at the University of Minnesota, a group of students has jumped on board with a strike of its own — a hunger strike.

“We’ve been pushed to take a more somber approach to force the administration to listen,” said Sofi Shank, a freshman at the university who is helping to organize the student response. The move comes after an earlier attempt to make the university listen — when 75 to 100 students stormed a Board of Regents meeting on Sept. 7 — ended in five arrests.

The student-led hunger strike is not being coordinated by the union, Council 5 of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees, although the student organizers are being housed in the same church as the one being used as a headquarters for the strike committee, according to Jennifer Lovaasen, a spokeswoman for AFSCME.

The university, for its part, views the hunger strike as “theatrics” by a “cadre of activists looking for a cause, and this is their cause,” according to Wolter.

“Figuratively, we’re still at the table because we never left,” Wolter said.

“We’re not known for a rigid level of discipline with faculty members,” Wolter conceded, although he said there were discussions about the possibility of financial repercussions for some departments or temporarily replacing instructors. Some students, he said, have had to drop classes because of the inconvenience of attending class at a church or theater.

Ah, you must be new around here, Mr. Wolter or you would realize the irony of that statement and wouldn't make it... But of course, you were until recently a spinmeister for Governor Pawlenty. You should realize that needlessly insulting people you are going to have to work with in the future is not a good idea.

You are no longer a Republican trying to badmouth DFLers. Google "tenure wars" and "University of Minnesota" when the strike is over and you will realize how ignorant your remarks are about faculty members and discipline. We are still trying to recover from the damage done to the University by its administration and the then regents in attempting to weaken tenure at Minnesota.

Dismissing people of conscience, especially students, who disagree with your handlers as "a cadre of activists looking for a cause" is truly despicable. Read some selections from Mark Yudof's inaugural address as president of the University of Minnesota. You might learn something, especially:

"In recent years, too many in the academy have abandoned community, with its commitment to fairness, willingness to sacrifice for the good of the entire enterprise, and a sense that we are all in this together. They have played the politics of distrust, envy, cynicism, and self-advancement.

It is fundamental--as Emmanuel Kant beautifully explained and the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution of the United States embody--that the individuals in our community be treated with equal respect."

Saber-rattling by our Provost should remain just that. Use of heavy handed tactics in dealing with well-respected, principled, faculty members like Paula Rabinowitz would be a very serious mistake in your pursuit of "world-class greatness [sic]."

There are people other than Mr. Wolter who bear responsibility for his statements. Those include OurLeader, for whom Mr. Wolter serves as mouthpiece. I suggest to OurLeader that he put his attack dog on puppy chow for the foreseeable future. Mr. Wolter's past and present statements do not augur well for putting the university back together once this strike is over.

Ciao, Bonzo

On the Approaching Tenth Anniversary of Mark Yudof's Inauguration

As President of the University of Minnesota

Mr. Bonzo has been associated with BigU since 1970. During this time he has observed the reign of presidents Malcom Moos, Peter McGrath, Kenneth Keller, Nils Hasselmo, Mark Yudof, and Robert Bruininks.

Of these presidents, the one whose influence on the university will be the most lasting and who did the best job was Mark Yudof. It is possible that Ken Keller might have had a larger influence if he had served longer but his presidency was cut short by a harmless mistake or overweening arrogance depending on what you thought of his Commitment to Focus program.

Now Mark Yudof was an outsider and he did not stay at the university for very long. Some apparently feel that this is bad for the university and seem to be willing to settle for a lifer who knows the institution well and will stay as president for a long time. Hasselmo, Keller, and the present occupant are examples of this lifer type.

Mr. B. is not a great fan of administrators but in his career he has observed two excellent presidents, Yudof at Minnesota and the late Howard Swearer while at Carleton. Swearer later served at Brown University where he did an outstanding job. They were both great writers, articulate, cultured, and comfortable in dealing with students, janitors, secretaries, and faculty. Yudof knew how to deal with state legislators and other politicians including Jesse Ventura. Swearer didn't have to, but I am sure he could have picked it up. Both individuals were scary smart but did not take themselves too seriously.

Events of the past ten years are indeed depressing, e.g. the destruction of General College, the prostitution of the University to Coca-Cola, Twin City Federal, and Pepsi Cola, addiction to consultants and the latest management fads, disgraceful treatment of workers. Now in cynical moments when ugly things happen at BigU courtesy of our administration it can be consoling to think: "It's this way everywhere." Don't believe it. Leadership matters.

What follows are some excerpts from Mark Yudof's Inaugural Address. They make you want to go out and labor mightily to keep the University of Minnesota a great university. Let's hope that some day we have another leader of Mark Yudof's caliber in the Big House.

Inaugural Address ( October 17, 1997)

I am deeply honored by my appointment as the 14th president of the University of Minnesota and by all of those assembled today in Northrop Auditorium to celebrate that ascendancy. I accept that honor with gratitude and humility. I accept it with the certainty that I would not be standing here today but for the family that nurtured and guided me.

Today marks a transition or passage in my own life and in that of my family, and it may also evidence a further evolutionary stage in the life of this great University, an accelerated evolution toward higher levels of excellence and service to this state and nation. I certainly hope so. I will do my absolute best in the years ahead. I approach the 150th anniversary of the University with a confidence borne of deep respect for our government leaders, the Board of Regents, and our splendid faculty and staff. Most importantly, I have faith in our students, those sons and daughters of Minnesota, who are our sole reason for being.

One critical value is community. The University should be a functioning community in which students, staff, and faculty are part of a larger whole, in which there is a sense of social obligation that transcends self-interest, and in which there is a culture of civic responsibility, civility, and tolerance.

In recent years, too many in the academy have abandoned community, with its commitment to fairness, willingness to sacrifice for the good of the entire enterprise, and a sense that we are all in this together. They have played the politics of distrust, envy, cynicism, and self-advancement.

It is fundamental--as Emmanuel Kant beautifully explained and the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution of the United States embody--that the individuals in our community be treated with equal respect.

The need for integrity permeates every aspect of the University. The education mission of the University must be taken seriously--not just the way to get state funding.

Administrators should tell the truth, keep their word, implement what they promise, and not dissemble. My point is plain enough: Without integrity, the phrase higher education is an oxymoron.

Within our resources and true to the multiple purposes of a great land-grant institution, the hydraulic that drives the University should be the quest to be outstanding, to do things as well or better than any other institution in the nation.

We should always nurture a climate in which academicians are not intimidated by outside forces, other faculty members, students, or administrators.

I pledge today that I will always defend academic freedom. After all, whatever the titles, I am first and foremost a member of the academy and a fellow professor. All I ask in return is that the faculty never accepts mediocrity, that it hold itself to the highest standards of intellectual and pedagogical excellence, and that it police itself for those few colleagues who fail to uphold the highest standards of our profession.

Minnesotans expect us to be fair in providing access to the University for their sons and daughters. If we do not provide reasonable access--including access for those who are underprepared and historically underrepresented in higher education and in the upper levels of our socioeconomic life, the taxpayers and state government of Minnesota will turn their backs on our graduate, research, and outreach functions. Simply stated, it is imperative that we continue to embrace our land-grant roots if we are to thrive.

When making decisions, I view shared governance and consultation with constituent groups as only fair because of the enormous stake they have in the University. Without fairness there is no legitimacy and no buy in to the institutional vision.

To the best of my recollection, no great scientific discoveries, no insightful social science tracts, and no novels have been produced in Morrill Hall. No classes are taught in Morrill Hall. No patients are made well in Morrill Hall. My point is that we must value delegating academic and other decisions to campuses, colleges, schools, departments, and faculties. Administrators can facilitate, they can help the deans to build better English or physics or public health programs, but they cannot actually do the building. Help, or get out of the way! The great universities of the world--whether Bologna 900 years ago, Trinity College-Cambridge in the 17th century, or Stanford and Berkeley today--are highly decentralized. Without authority invested where the real work of this University is done, the light of excellence will only grow dimmer.

If war is too important to be left to the generals, then education is too important to be left only to professional educators. University administrators have not yet cornered the market in acumen and foresight; a monologue will not suffice.

We must also value our obligation to reach beyond the boundaries of our classrooms, libraries, and laboratories. We must value using our vast stores of knowledge to help solve the great public policy issues of the day; to help alleviate suffering; to assist in the development of aesthetic sensibilities; and to preserve the ecology of the planet. This is outreach and service where it touches and can be touched.

As a newcomer, let me tell you a great secret about the University of Minnesota, one that you may have overlooked. It is a secret that makes me very proud to be here. The University of Minnesota system, with its 48,000 students, varied campuses and programs, University and General Colleges, partnerships with MnSCU institutions, plans for distance learning, and more, has created the best balance between access and excellence that I have observed in any public university in the country. Self-doubts are inevitable in higher education, but in this case Minnesotans should be patting each other on the back.

Some would urge the University to pull back on its land-grant responsibilities, to rein in the access programs, to abandon the General College, to minimize the importance of the University of Minnesota Extension Service and other outreach programs, tone down our efforts to strengthen elementary and secondary education, or renege on the promise of U2000 for undergraduates.

But at what cost? To save so little and destroy so much? I will not support such efforts. Any short-term gain to research or graduate and professional programs occasioned by cutbacks to the core will be self-defeating.

The result will be a decreased level of public support for the entire University enterprise. There will be less to share. The University is built on its undergraduate program, though it rightfully aspires to and has achieved much more. If the foundation cracks, the whole edifice is in jeopardy.

At an inauguration there generally is unbridled optimism for the future and a sense that all is possible. I am honored by your confidence and good will. But I also am reminded of what Clark Kerr once said of university presidents:

The university president in the United States is expected to be a friend of the students, a colleague of the faculty, a good fellow with the alumni, a sound administrator with the [regents], a good speaker with the public, an astute bargainer with the foundations and federal agencies, a politician with the state legislator, a friend of industry, labor, and agriculture, a persuasive diplomat with donors, a champion of education generally, a supporter of the professions. . . , a spokesman to the press, a scholar in his own right. . . a devotee of opera and football equally, a decent human being, [and so on]. . . .

No one can be all of these things. Some succeed at being none.

At the crossroads of expectation and reality, human fallibility and aspiration, individual will and institutional inertia, I hope that you will forgive my inevitable lapses, take joint responsibility for the nurturing of values and goals, and find comfort in the progress we make together.

God bless all of you and God bless the University of Minnesota.

Amen - Bonzo

"Don't squander good will," lawmakers tell BigU

MINNEAPOLIS - The University of Minnesota is jeopardizing its support in the Minnesota Legislature by not reaching a fair settlement with striking workers, lawmakers said Tuesday.

At a news conference held at AFSCME strike headquarters in Dinkytown, three state legislators urged a quick end to the strike by clerical, health care and technical workers that began Sept. 5. They are the second group of lawmakers in as many weeks to speak out about the dispute. "I am incredibly disappointed with the administration's actions," said state Senator Patricia Torres Ray, DFL-62, adding that having a "world class university" means the administration needs to "treat our workers as world class workers." State Rep. Frank Hornstein, DFL-60B, was equally direct. "We don't want the leadership of this institution to squander the goodwill they now have . . . . We don't want the strike to last a day longer," he said. "I speak for many of my colleagues in demanding that the collective bargaining process resume and the university come back to the table."

The 2007 Legislature boosted the university's appropriation in part to fund increases in compensation, said state Senator John Marty, DFL-54. "We didn't expect the pay raise would be dished out so that the people at the bottom of the pay scale get the least. But that's what's happening here.

"President Bruininks, I appeal to you and the Board of Regents. I think it's time to get back to the bargaining table."

Currently, no talks are scheduled.

The legislators said they are concerned the growing gap in compensation between frontline workers and top university administrators is mirroring practices in the corporate world, where CEOs earn hundreds of times the pay of the average employee.

"We cannot have that in a learning institution, in an academic institution," said Torres Ray.

The horse, Bob, time to get down. The longer you stay up there, the worse you are making things. I don't think you are going to be able to go over to St. Paul and ask for a whole lot of goodies after this.

If you can't even pay your lowest paid workers a decent wage, what makes you think the legislature will bankroll your ten year march to become "one of the top three public research universities in the world [sic]?" For the sake of the workers, the students, the faculty and staff, for you own credibility, please think about this.

An alumnus and faculty member - Mr. Bonzo

11 students stop eating to support U strikers

The university calls "unfortunate" a decision by students to go on a hunger strike in solidarity with clerical, health care and technical workers. A professor and a U employee joined the students.

By Jeff Shelman, Star Tribune

Last update: September 17, 2007 – 8:45 PM

Phyllis Walker, the president of the local representing the clerical workers, said some of the AFSCME strikers are uncomfortable with the hunger strike.

"I was worried about them at first, but they are adults," Walker said. "This is important to them, they're making their own decisions, and we're really honored. ..."

This is wrong on so many levels. AFSCME membership is not honored and should immediately call for an end to the student hunger strike.

The union says the university's contract offer of a 2.25 percent annual raise for clerical and technical workers and a 2.5 percent raise for health care workers isn't sufficient. The U's position is that when combined with step raises for experience, most AFSCME represented employees will receive raises of at least 8.5 percent for the contract's two years.

This is where Carrier math finessed things in the blanket email commented on earlier this evening.

On Friday, the union turned down an offer in which workers would have received a $300 lump sum during each year of the contract while keeping the base increases the same.

"Our members have told us many times that lump sums don't have any lasting impact on their wages," Walker said.

AFSCME has said that if the university bumped the salary increases to 3.25 and 3.5 percent, the strike would likely end.

Wolter [University spokesman] declined to comment when asked why the university would not apply the money for the lump sum toward increases in base pay.

Something is rotten in the state of Denmark

The Carol Carrier missive to BigU employees
concerning the AFSCME strike

As momo has pointed out in the comments section of the previous post there seems to be something strange about the email that both of us (and apparently most other BigU employees) received from Ms. Carrier this afternoon, selections of which are now quoted:

Carol Carrier

to me

show details

4:41 pm (3 hours ago)

University of Minnesota Faculty and Staff:

We have brought a variety of solutions within our parameters to the bargaining process. Each time, AFSCME has rejected our proposal.

It's important to highlight the contract proposal we put forward on Friday, Sept. 14. It included recurring increases to wages of 8.5 percent for clerical and technical workers, and 9 percent for health care workers, and added lump-sum cash enhancements for all workers.

Specifically, the offer included $300 lump-sum payments in each year of the contract for 94 percent of AFSME employees who receive step increases (equaling $600 total additional dollars), and lump-sum payments of $600 in each year of the contract for employees at the top of the range (or $1200 total additional dollars).

These additional lump-sum payments were offered in order to settle the contract dispute. Unfortunately, AFSCME did not accept the offer.

The University's proposal is fair and competitive in the marketplace. It is comparable to compensation packages offered to other University bargaining unit employees.

The strikers somehow don't see the offer the same way, Ms. Carrier.

Back at the church after a couple more hours picketing, we cheered warily as our grave, stooped negotiating team members filed in. When the lead negotiator started talking, we knew why they all looked so wrecked: the University's settlement offer was exactly the same as what they offered the night before the strike began. The only difference I could discern was that the U. was offering a one-time cash payment slightly higher than their last offer – this was memorably described by one of us as a "sweater in a box".

Some of us shouted, some wept with exasperation, some glared off into space, but soon we focused on our proper target: the University administration. All the bile and rage just augmented our collective energy, forcing the negotiators to call a caucus. When they emerged an hour later, they too were furious, and ready to rejoin us for this fight. This insulting "settlement offer" was roundly rejected, by everyone. The administration's attempt to turn the striking membership against its own negotiating teams absolutely failed, and I doubt the U. will ever forget our reaction in the coming days. The strike is on. This is war.

What exactly is going on here Ms. Carrier?

From what I understand, you have offered the Teamsters a higher percentage increase as well as the step increases. Do you think AFSCME is easy pickings and that you can make them settle for less? Are you including the step increases in the percent increase calculated above as well? If so, you know that this is misleading. Please put the numbers down for all to see, rather than making it difficult for us interested bystanders to understand this situation.

Is the offer to AFSCME the same as the Teamsters? If not, why not?

As a good human resources person, I am sure you don't want to offend striking workers with arguments that don't give the whole story. You also should not insult the intelligence of people to whom you addressed your email by not giving them enough information to understand the situation. Trying to make AFSCME look bad in this matter is not going to help you with employee relations in the long run.

The administration should not be using the email system as a bully pulpit in this strike. I also object to the administration spending "university" money on an advertising campaign in this matter. You certainly don't speak for me, even though I am an alumnus and faculty member at this great university.

Sincerely,

Mr. Bonzo

Comments of John Marty
On Employee Strike at BigU

State senator John Marty has a lot to do with funding for BigU at the Minnesota state legislature. I am sure that OurLeader is aware of this. When he makes his next sack cloth and ashes trip over to the legislature, I hope he keeps Marty's recent remarks in mind.

16 September 2007

The current University of Minnesota strike is typical of labor disputes around the country. The workers say they need and deserve better wages, management says they cannot afford them.

Regardless of how one talks about the increases, when inflation is factored in, a new clerical worker starting at the University today makes about 5% less than someone taking the identical job in 2003.

These are not highly paid employees; they include some of the lowest paid workers at the University. They really need more money. The average clerical, technical and health care worker makes $34,000 per year. That is the average; starting workers make much less. One striking employee said that even after working at the U of M full-time for 11 years, his family of four qualifies for food stamps.

Ironically, many of these people who work for the University of Minnesota could not afford to send their own children to school there.

The employees point out that the Legislature appropriated funding for 3.25% increases, but the university says that it cannot afford that much for the AFSCME workers. President Robert Bruininks said, "We believe we have a fair offer out there, and we believe we have to run the University in a way that is responsible to all of its employees."

Last year, the university president's salary was $384,000. That is more than the average striking worker makes in a decade.

On top of that, his compensation package included an additional $150,000 that he receives in deferred compensation, for a total of $539,000.

Everybody expects the University President to receive good compensation. But this year, his salary increased by $39 thousand, and his deferred compensation jumped an additional $25 thousand, bringing his total compensation to $598,000. That works out to be a 12% increase this year. Just the increase in his compensation, $64,000, is almost double what the average striking worker makes in a year.

This does not meet Bruininks' own criteria that the University be "responsible to all of its employees." It is easy to see why the AFSCME workers feel they are treated unfairly.

President Bruininks and his administration are paid to make some big financial decisions. It is sad that they appear blind to the impact of their actions on the lives of their own employees.

John Marty is a state senator representing District 54.

Another pair of important state legislators that OurLeader has annoyed by his intransigence are Tom Rukavina [Chair, Higher Education and Work Force Development Policy] and Mary Muphy [Chair, Education Finance and Economic Division] who have written him a letter about the situation.

Continuing to ignore the problem is not going to lead to a solution. OurLeader needs to get off his horse and start good faith negotiations for the sake of any remaining credibility the University might have in the social justice area. Do we really aim to be one of the "top public research universities in the world [sic]" on the backs of our lowest paid employees?

By the way, I hope OurLeader and Joltin' Joel are enjoying the football season after spending roughly five million dollars to do a coaching swap.

Ciao, Bonzo

How the Big Boys Do It
The Pitt and Penn Medical School Models

BigU med school is all atwitter over recent developments. St. Thomas and Allina are contemplating starting their own medical school. The College of St. Catherine has a School of Health planned. A wasteful and duplicative children's hospital arms race is in progress. Various hospital ratings are a matter of concern. The Vice President of the Academic Health Center has charged the Dean with coming up with a plan to move BigU’s med school into the top twenty – perhaps based on NIH funding, depending on how you read the charge. These actions inspired by the University of Minnesota administration’s proposed ten year long march to greatness: “to become one of the top three public research universities in the world.” [sic]

So let’s take a step back and have a look at a recent JAMA article on how Pitt and Penn – two Big Boys- one public and one private – have played the game. Maybe there are some lessons here for BigU?

Excerpts from JAMA (The Journal of the American Medical Association):

JAMA, June 13, 2007—Vol 297, No. 22

Clinical Revenue Investment in Biomedical Research

Lessons From Two Academic Medical Centers

Marjorie A. Bowman, MD, MPA
Arthur H. Rubenstein, MBBCh
Arthur S. Levine, MD

Penn has been among the top 10 institutions in NIH rankings of research awards to university faculty since 1985. Pitt moved into the top 10 in 1997 and has maintained that position since, a shift in rank that occurs only rarely. Life sciences comprise 80% of Penn’s research dollars and 87% of Pitt’s. Without their medical schools, Penn’s ranking would decline from 6th to 48th in National Science Foundation total research rankings; Pitt’s ranking would decrease from 13th to 30th.

Institutional Comparison

Although Penn is a private institution and Pitt is state-related, the schools share a number of characteristics. Both have strong undergraduate and graduate medical education programs; support robust basic science portfolios but also emphasize clinical and translational research (both received 1 of the inaugural 12 NIH Clinical and Translational Science Awards); and are associated with large, profitable hospital systems.

Additionally, both academic health systems include large clinical practice plans, are major transplant centers, and began significant expansions of facilities, services, and programs in the mid-1980s emerging as large, stable enterprises, despite marketplace challenges.

Differences between the institutions include the University of Pennsylvania Health System (UPHS) having 4 hospitals, 15 000 employees, a 2006 fiscal year revenue of $2.4 billion,anda service area presence as academic health centers in Philadelphia, while the University of PittsburghMedical Center(UPMC)has 19 hospitals, 43,000 employees, a 2006 fiscal year revenue of $6 billion, and it is the only academic health system in western Pennsylvania.

Penn and Pitt also share financially challenged urban environments and austere support for higher education from the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania. Over the last 5 years, one asset that has offset this otherwise modest support has been Pennsylvania’s use of 19% of its funds from the master settlement agreement with tobacco manufacturers to support biomedical research. Through this legislation, Penn and Pitt each receive $9 million to $10 million per year based on their share of Pennsylvania’s total NIH funding.

The major difference between the 2 academic health systems is their organizational models. In the mid-1980s, when the universities faced heightened concern about the potential financial risk of their large health systems, the organizations responded differently. At Penn, UPHS was retained as part of the university but with rearrangements in report- ing and board structures.7 At Pitt, UPMC became a separate corporation but remained closely linked to the university, including a substantial number of shared board members and formal contractual relationships that defined UPMC’s longstanding financial support of the medical school.

Strategies for Success

Despite their differences, the success of Penn and Pitt in sustaining research productivity rests on the decision of both institutions to adopt a growth strategy centered on 1 principle: In an academic health center, research and clinical success are synergistic and interdependent.

A strategic collaboration between the clinical and the academic enterprises will enhance the success of both beyond what would occur with an investment in either alone.

For both institutions, the starting point for making this philosophy operational was to invest clinical income in research infrastructure, including facilities, equipment, and investigator start-up packages.

At Pitt, clinical growth was led by organ transplantation— but this growth began with a substantial investment in research. In 1981, university leaders recruited Thomas E. Starzl, MD, PhD, when liver transplantation was still a controversial concept. Starzl assembled an interdisciplinary team of surgeons, immunologists, pharmacologists, and other clinicians and expanded his previous clinical and laboratory research.

The US Food and Drug Administration’s approval of the immunosuppressant cyclosporine in 1983, based largely on Starzl’s clinical experience with the experimental drug, greatly improved graft survival and long-term outcome. In 1986,UPMC invested $230 million to expand the transplantation program and to provide space for its fledgling cancer institute and other research initiatives. By 1988, more than half the world’s liver transplantations were performed in Pittsburgh, generating exceptional clinical revenue.

Activities Promoting Research

and Clinical Success

Each institution bolstered its investment of clinical revenue by creating mechanisms to impel new research initiatives, including technologically rich core facilities for use by multiple investigators.

These core facilities were developed in the areas of genomics, proteomics, bioinformatics, clinical research computing, DNA sequencing, transgenic and chimeric animals, diagnostic imaging, microarrays, and others.

Other research-support resources include technical assistance in grant preparation, financial and protected time incentives, pilot and bridge funding mechanisms, and active guidance in technology commercialization. With this focused resource commitment, faculty at both universities were able to translate this revenue into successful grant applications.

The ensuing faculty success in reporting research findings, especially those related to significant clinical advances, promoted the visibility of each institution’s medical school, affiliated health system, and of each entire university, which has led to the increased clinical volume and robust financial performance that is the cycle’s entry point.

In Pittsburgh, UPMC created Stentor, a start-up company based on medical imaging technology developed collaboratively by university andUPMCresearchers. In 2006, Royal Philips Electronics acquired Stentor for approximately $280 million, giving UPMC a $36 million gain from its research investment and providing the medical school with nearly $11 million. UPMC’s Strategic Business Initiatives division was subsequently launched, in part, with the profit from this deal to create and manage small companies, many based on faculty-developed technologies.

Pitt established a formal Office of Academic Career Development to offer guidance, assistance, and mentoring to faculty.

Both institutions preferentially hired basic scientists whose research themes foster translational research, focusing on platform disciplines such as structural and computational biology, pharmacology, developmental biology, and biomedical informatics.

The expectation is that close relationships between MDs and PhDs, such as having MDs in basic science departments, PhDs in clinical departments, and more MD/PhD faculty, will stimulate collaborations that lead to tangible bench-to-bedside outcomes.

Financial Resources

In addition to health system transfers and federal funding, both institutions have had access to endowment and philanthropic support. Penn has a larger endowment, whereas Pitt has a strong local philanthropic tradition for current-use gifts. However, by far the most important reason for the success of the 2 academic health centers has been the transfer by UPHS and UPMC of significant funds to their respective medical schools.

Sustaining Success in Biomedical Research

A combination of strategic investments and initiatives has enabled 2 Pennsylvania universities to achieve and sustain an NIH ranking among the top 10, even during periods of health care financing turbulence.

In all cases, the hospital system’s financial and philosophical partnership was the most critical factor in fostering research success. These investments should help the institutions overcome the current regressive NIH budget climate.

Institutions should invest in long-term research expansion strategies when finances are conducive. An influx of wisely invested clinical revenue will strengthen the entire enterprise—research and clinical—for the longer term and far beyond that which would occur with an investment in either alone. For example, UPMC’s investment of clinical revenue in transplantation research eventuated in an exponential clinical return, fostering its rapid growth. The heightened research success enhances both the reputation of the parent university and the stature of the hospital system, enabling it to accrue sufficient market share to remain financially successful, even during periods of market instability.

This overall success will enable the health system to continue to invest in the medical school—the starting point of the strategy for success.

Mr. B. has fond memories of Pitt and Pittsburgh and he is proud to see them prosper. His first scientific job was in the microbiology department at Pitt in the med school. The chairman of the department was Niels Jerne, who had not yet received the Nobel Prize. Wonderful man and outstanding teacher, he was a favorite of the med students who gave him the golden apple, clearly demonstrating that research and teaching are not incompatible. Good times, good times.

Leadership does, indeed, make a difference...

Ciao Bonzo

(click to enlarge)

Rankings of Minnesota Hospitals (2007) in US News

Mr. B. loves Blogger, but unfortunately this system makes it difficult to insert tables. Therefore I place a link here to a downloadable pdf document posted on the Best of Bonzo site.


The good news is that the citizens of Minnesota have some pretty good places to go for healthcare. Some of them are the best in the US.

The bad news is that if you are BigU hospital the competition is pretty stiff. As can be seen, Abbott Northwestern is improving every year and now has eight specialties in the top fifty, following closely BigU's nine.

Other players are Hennepin County Medical Center, Children's Hospital of Minneapolis, and - kudos to them - St. Cloud Hospital!

The elephant in the operating room is of course Mayo. They are very close to the top medical operation in the country, scoring high in almost all specialties. Mr. B. notices while flying on planes the advertisements for the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center. That's great for them because they are basically the only game in town.

However, if you were to travel to Minnesota for medical care from out of town, how likely is it that you would go to BigU hospital rather than Mayo? There are actually a couple of programs at BigU where it would be wise to go to Minneapolis rather than Rochester. But for most things, Mayo wins. This makes it very difficult for BigU to compete for those out of town referrals that the big boys can use to fund their operations.



Ciao, Bonzo

Another Indication That More NIH Funding Is Not Necessarily Going to Solve BigU Medical School's Problems...

Mr. B. has posted previously on the apparent lack of understanding of the implications of the NIH funding situation at BigU. See for example: "If You Build It, Grants Will Come."

Today Mr. B. downloaded a commentary from Nature with the intention of posting some excerpts, see below. He discovered, though, that the good folks at the Pioneer Press had already beaten him to the punch. It is hard to compete with pros.

From Nature:

Commentary

Nature 449, 141-142 (13 September 2007)

Universities and the money fix

Brian C. Martinson1

1. Brian C. Martinson is at HealthPartners Research Foundation, Minneapolis, Minnesota 55440-1524, USA.

Funding woes plague US biomedical researchers. But calls for more funding ignore the structural problems that push universities to produce too many scientists, argues Brian C. Martinson.

What is it that poses the most potent threat to the future of biomedical research — a lack of resources, or our failure to manage the level of competition for available resources? The answer to this question is vital if society is to gain maximum benefit from the public money invested in biomedical research.

In my view, it is time to ask the biggest beneficiaries of NIH largesse — the universities and academic health centres — to find ways to balance supply and demand that better reflect their obligations to researchers and society.

The doubling of the NIH budget between 1998 and 2003 was intended to increase success rates in obtaining NIH grants3, which have been declining since the mid-1970s. Yet, the budget rise did not have its intended effect, and by 2003, grant-application success rates were slightly worse than before. What happened? The budgetary increases were swamped by an equally large escalation in the number of NIH applicants and applications (see graph, below)4. In 1998, there were about 19,000 scientists applying for competing awards; in 2006 there were approximately 34,000.

Even before the doubling in funding, the Bayh–Dole act of 1980 created incentives for universities to grow their NIH workforce by permitting employers to own the inventions their employees created with federal funding.

The average age at which PhD scientists earn their first independent support from the NIH has increased steadily6, from 34 in 1970 to 42 in 2006.

With academic faculty members seen as revenue generators, they are encouraged in subtle and not-so-subtle ways to expend greater effort on lucrative activities: this has made research a preferred activity over teaching or patient care. It also means they must spend a substantial amount of time writing grants. This arrangement generally works in the universities' favour, but the downsides of the dependence on NIH funding are becoming harder to ignore.

For too long now, financial incentives to the universities have been aligned to promote unlimited growth in the number of biomedical researchers seeking funding from the federal government, despite the realities of finite resources.

We need to look at both the supply and the demand sides of the NIH funding equation. Most who worry about these issues have focused on the size or distribution of the pool of NIH dollars. Far fewer have given consideration to the size or dynamics of the population of biomedical researchers living on NIH funding. Few have overtly asked the question — are there too many biomedical scientists?

In the short term these arrangements may benefit universities, but in the longer term, such extreme levels of competition for funding are unsustainable. And they may already be doing harm. Difficult funding decisions are increasing ill will, perceptions of injustice, and eroding the bases of ethical behaviour among academics.

The imbalance between the supply of NIH funding and the potentially unlimited demand for grants threatens the future of US biomedical science.

Calls for further increases to the NIH budget are a facile response from institutions overly dependent on NIH dollars. But they are an incomplete, and potentially dangerous, answer to the problems of excessive competition. And although short-term NIH budget increases to make up for inflation-related declines since 2003 seem reasonable, further increases risk fuelling, rather than reducing, demand.

Universities have benefited handsomely from the efforts of senior faculty members in securing NIH grants during their careers, perhaps those same universities could now return the favour by taking full responsibility for paying these faculty salaries in their later years. This would serve the dual purpose of getting them off the NIH dole, and encouraging them to share their knowledge with their younger colleagues through more teaching.

This won't be easy. Given the levels of dependency on NIH money, it is akin to asking an addict to give up an easy fix.

An implicit assumption underpinning the current system of funding is that having more biomedical scientists automatically leads to greater innovation and more breakthroughs. Yet what is needed is not necessarily more people, but more time, space and freedom for existing researchers to ask questions in new ways, to be willing and able to take risks, and to innovate rather than simply writing safe, incremental grants. The excessive competition for NIH funds discourages this kind of risk-taking, and ultimately reduces opportunities for the sort of creative thinking that leads to major scientific breakthroughs.

Say It Ain't So, Bob...
The AFSCME Stike Continues - Let 'em Drink Coke!

From today's Daily:

September 14, 2007

Letters to the Editor

To the president

Dear Bob,

I can no longer just sit here fuming about your behavior toward your employees without writing to you. I worked very closely with you for almost four years - I read your mail, I wrote your letters, I corrected your grammar and spelling, I sat in your office and discussed folk music and James Taylor - in short, I considered myself to be on an equal footing with you as a human being.

I understood your mission to be one of supporting K-12 education and providing the most educational opportunities for the greatest number of people. I met amazing and talented people in your office, people who, like you, had altruistic and selfless goals for our community. I stood at your side as you handed out community service awards to those very people, and at your side I learned how important the little people behind the scenes can be.

When I hear people talking about you or your practices in a negative way, I have always stood up and spoken on your behalf - my description of you has always been "he's a stand-up guy." But I can't do that anymore. This current strike is no mere misunderstanding - you are insulting 3500 loyal employees by not giving us the money that we have worked so hard to attain. The very money that we asked the Legislature to provide for our salary increases.

Please show us that you are still a stand-up guy. Give me a chance to go back to American Federation of State, County and Municipal headquarters and tell them that I was right - you wouldn't treat us as peasants while you are raking in hundreds of thousands of dollars every year.

Marjorie Magidow Schalles

University employee

Lack of appreciation

I have been a University employee for 23 years now, and am not on strike. However, I must agree that the University does not appreciate its employee's experience based on its negotiations with AFSCME. Adding step increases together with cost-of-living increases to equal the rate of inflation demonstrates this.

I would add that the rate of inflation is highly debatable. On many items for a worker making $30,000 a year, it is not 4 percent annually. Gasoline was $1.50 a gallon four years ago. For University employees the out-of-pocket cost of health insurance for a family has gone up 300 percent in four years.

For several years University employees received cost-of-living increases below the rate of inflation when the budget was tight. Now, the question is: Can someone live in the Twin Cities on $30,000 a year?

Steve Wietgrefe

The 'U' and politics

Tuesday's article "Franken shows his support for campus strikers" included a quote by University spokesman Dan Wolter taking a political cheap shot at DFL Senate candidates Al Franken, Mike Ciresi and Jim Cohen for supporting our striking workers. In doing so, Wolter, a former GOP staffer, started the University on a slippery slope toward partisan politics, an arena in which the University does not belong.

If this is how President Bruininks' administration handles governmental relations, it is no wonder we have so much trouble getting sufficient funding.

Insulting political candidates, their supporters and the supporters of striking workers is a foolish and self-destructive move for this institution. Wolter and Bruininks should apologize to the candidates and to us.

David L. Liebow

Data Enters the Picture

Best Children's Hospitals

Mr. B. has previously posted on the local medical arms race involving children's hospitals as has a faculty member in the School of Journalism. This new US News ranking breaks with past ones in that more than just reputation is taken into consideration. Two institutions in the state of Minnesota are ranked: Children's Hospital and Clinic of Minnesota (Minneapolis) and the Mayo Clinic. Congratulations to them for this well deserved recognition.

US News 2007 Rankings:

U.S.News & World Report Ranks America's Best Children's Hospitals

By (BI) Michael Worringer

WASHINGTON, Aug. -- In a further extension of its "America's Best" series, U.S.News & World Report unveiled its first stand-alone "America's Best Children's Hospitals" issue, featuring a detailed ranking of the finest pediatric facilities in the United States.

The exclusive data will be published in the magazine's Sept. 3 issue, on newsstands Monday, Aug. 27, and is available online at health.usnews.com/pediatrics.

Topping the 30 hospitals listed for 2007 is Children's Hospital of Philadelphia, followed by Children's Hospital Boston and Baltimore's Johns Hopkins Hospital. While, in the past, pediatric hospitals have been ranked based on reputation alone in the magazine's annual America's Best Hospitals issue, this expanded children's hospital ranking is based not only on reputation, but also on data and statistics about hospital performance and quality of care.


1. Children's Hospital of Philadelphia
2. Children's Hospital Boston
3. Johns Hopkins Hospital, Baltimore
4. Children's Hospital, Denver
5. Rainbow Babies and Children's Hospital, Cleveland
6. Texas Children's Hospital, Houston
7. Cincinnati Children's Hospital Medical Center
8. New York-Presbyterian Univ. Hosp. of Columbia and Cornell
9. Children's Hospital and Regional Medical Center, Seattle
10. Lucile Packard Children's Hospital, Palo Alto, Calif.
11. Children's National Medical Center, Washington, D.C.
12. Columbus Children's Hospital
13. Children's Hospital of Pittsburgh of UPMC
14. Children's Healthcare of Atlanta
15. St. Louis Children's Hospital
16. UCSF Children's Hospital, San Francisco
17. Childrens Hospital Los Angeles
18. Primary Children's Medical Center, Salt Lake City, Utah
19. Duke University Medical Center, Durham, N.C.
20. St. Jude Children's Research Hospital, Memphis
21. Mattel Children's Hospital at UCLA, Los Angeles
22. University of Michigan C.S. Mott Children's Hospital, Ann Arbor
23. Vanderbilt University Medical Center, Nashville
24. Long Island Jewish Medical Center, New Hyde Park, N.Y.
25. Children's Memorial Hospital, Chicago
26. Miami Children's Hospital
27. Children's Hospitals and Clinics of Minnesota, Minneapolis
28. Children's Medical Center Dallas
29. Mayo Clinic, Rochester, Minn.
30. Children's Hospital of Wisconsin, Milwaukee

So what does it all mean? It would appear that Children's Hospital and Mayo have a leg up on BigU and that their operations are well regarded. Milwaukee is not that far away. As will be seen shortly in a post, the University of Minnesota Hospital does not seem to have its pediatrics operation where it should be - at least by these measures, which a lot of people consider. Perhaps the money (is it $150 million?) planned to be used for a new building could be better spent bucking up the pediatrics operation? But to be fair, since BigU has sold its hospital to Fairview, they may have less to say about this than when they were in full control

Ciao, Bonzo

Win Some, Lose Some
Money, Politics, and the
Law School Deanship at UC Irvine

update 9/17/07

UD reports (LA Times) that the Marriage has been saved.

Law school politics is very interesting. Such a small group of people. So much money. And the profession is very portable. Put your brain in its case and trundle off to the next watering hole. No lab to pack up... But these law faculty are very bright and interesting. Look at their blogs. Like a moth to the flame Mr. B. is drawn.

While doing some digging into things at the BigU law school, Mr. B. stumbled upon an interesting development at the new establishment at the University of California, Irvine. He let UD, his favorite academic blogger, know about it and she has now posted an interesting commentary.

Executive summary: High profile law prof offered dean job. Impeccable credentials. Liberal. Explosion. Job withdrawn. Even people at Pepperdine say this is a near fatal mistake. UD post more juicy and interesting.

Off to another day of violating picket lines. My teaching will be over on Tuesday, to resume only near the end of the semester when, hopefully, the strike will be over. I feel dirty. Really not easy to move my show off campus. Envy English teachers. Incredibly bad moves on the part of the Administration. Any incremental good will generated by "Driven to Discover," which cost BigU multiple millions of dollars, will be wiped out by this avoidable disaster. Settlement costs will probably be a lot less than DtD.

Ciao, Bonzo

(click for a larger view)


Time Course (2005-2007) of University of Minnesota Hospital Specialty Rankings by US News

Because of limitations of Blogger in handling tables, a link to a pdf of the document is also provided.

The spin doctors always seem to manage to make each year's ranking look like an improvement, and this year is no exception. However, the jaundiced eye might look at the above trends and come to other conclusions.

The number of specialties in which BigU's hospital is ranked in the top fifty has declined from last year. The number of outstanding programs, highlighted in yellow, is three. The number of good programs numbers six. And the number of programs that are of concern is eight. Some of these would seem to need improvement given our state's population, e.g., orthopedics, rheumatology, geriatrics, rehabilitation, psychiatry, ophthalmology, and gulp, pediatrics.

The first step to improvement is to admit that you have a need for it. This seems to be difficult in a state where all the children are above average.

This stuff matters. See Atul Gawande's "The Bell Curve" wherein BigU hospital gets an "attaboy" for outstanding work in cystic fibrosis.

Ciao,

Bonzo

Barack to OurLeader:

Be Reasonable, and Soon

Another politician "using the strike to shop for votes" ?

Dear President Bruininks,

I write today to strongly encourage you to support your frontline health care, technical, and clerical workers who are represented by the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees. I am moving a campaign event I had scheduled at U of M for this Saturday off of University grounds in solidarity with the strikers.

The workers’ requests are simple and reasonable. Their real pay has dropped over the last few years as the cost of living has increased.

Workers who dedicate themselves to the University of Minnesota and provide essential support to its core educational mission deserve a wage that allows them to raise a family and plan for retirement.

I strongly encourage you to take the steps necessary to end this strike and make the University of Minnesota a place that respects all of its workers. I will continue to monitor this situation, and I look forward to your favorable reply.

Sincerely,

Barack Obama

Time to get off the horse and negotiate?

Ciao, Bonzo

A Voice of Reason?
The AFSCME Strike at BigU Continues

A University of Minnesota faculty member has written an opinion piece on the strike that appeared this morning in the Strib, excerpts of which are given below:

In labor markets, economists theorize that employers reward productivity gains with wage and salary increments that also cover inflation. This year, the University of Minnesota won funds from the Legislature for an overall 3.25 percent annual salary increment. U administrators awarded faculty and other professional employees raises of 3.25 percent and higher. Left to the last, the clerical and technical workers were offered only 2.25 percent and health-care workers 2.5 percent, not even enough to counter rising costs of living.

The university contends publicly that its offer is 4.25 percent, a figure achieved by folding in the normal step increases to which workers are entitled. Step hikes reward productivity gains that come with experience. They encourage and reward longevity, saving the university considerable training and ramp-up costs from turnover. The equivalents of step increases for faculty members -- the large salary jumps involved in moving from assistant to associate to full professor -- are not computed into annual increases. Gov. Tim Pawlenty agreed to raises of 3.25 percent in addition to step increases for state employees. The 4.25 percent claim is misleading and disingenuous.

The university's resistance sends the message to our support staff that their skills and commitment are not valued and that they are replaceable. Most faculty and professional workers on campus understand the key role that clerical, technical and health-care colleagues play in advising students and solving problems; in time-dependent grant and payroll work, and in events operations, alumni interface, patient care, technology monitoring, bill paying and much more. They have had to learn and implement many new technology systems. Their institutional memory, knowledge of university rules and procedures, and networks of relationships inside and outside the university are central to the viability of our educational, research and outreach activities. They deserve a productivity increase comparable to that given to the rest of us.

Ironically, it costs the university much less to give a 3.25 percent raise to clerical and technical workers than it does to give the same increase to faculty and administrative staff, most of whom earn much higher salaries. We're not talking large sums here. Raising the offer from 2.25 percent to 3.25 percent for a striking worker who makes $30,000 a year would cost just $300, while a comparable 1 percent for a faculty or administrator who makes $80,000 would cost $800. We're not talking about much more than a million, a small fraction of the U budget.

For efficiency, equity and affirmative action's sake, the university should offer the union 3.25 percent as quickly as possible. The strike is causing considerable disruption to our teaching, research, outreach and financial activities. The longer it goes on, the more good workers we will lose, because the best will leave when they aren't treated well. Why go through all this for such a tiny share of the university budget?

Ann Markusen is professor and director of the Project on Regional and Industrial Economics at the university of Minnesota's Humphrey Institute of Public Affairs.

Meanwhile on another planet, Al Franken visited the U in support of AFSCME and some excerpts from an article in yesterday's Daily follow:

Franken shows his support for campus strikers

The politician said fair wages and treatment are important factors in motivating workers.

By Elizabeth Graca

Franken is "not the only candidate using the strike to shop for votes," said University spokesman Dan Wolter. "(It) is part of the political process."

[Dan Wolter is a mouthpiece for BigU's administration.]

Wolter also expressed the administration's hope that Franken will continue to address higher education in the future.

Franken said higher education has been a concern of his before the strike, and it would continue to be after the dispute is resolved.

"Students here need to know, they need to be reminded what unions and what labor is about," Franken said. "The unions gave this country a middle class. The unions gave this country the weekend."

"Imagine that, a learning moment at a University," he said.

In the same issue of the Daily, the aforementioned mouthpiece reports the good news that:

Fundraising and construction move forward

By Jake Grovum

The financial plans for the stadium call on the University to raise $86.5 million in sponsorships and donations, University spokesman Dan Wolter said. The University has raised just over $60 million so far and has less than $25 million left to locate.

Social justice anyone?

Two interesting quotes - guess where they came from before you hit the link.

Investing in "human capital" is one of the most important values of any society and one of the most effective means to promote democratic understanding and social justice.

The question arose, “why public work?” as a distinctive, different framework, compared, for instance, to the more widespread understanding of civic engagement that focuses on educating students for civic virtue, or an approach focused on the pursuit of social justice in a world of grave injustices.

(It is not hard to find things like this on the BigU website and I didn't even try to locate the most outrageous. But then some pigs are more equal than other pigs.)

In Praise of Alex Johnson

Former BigU Law Dean, now at UVa

Mr. B. is a little behind the curve. This is the first of a couple of related posts. I have no special knowledge, other than the web, of BigU's Law School, but some things that have been written by former faculty members and deans may have general applicability to the situation at BigU.

First, Brian Leitner reports:

August 22, 2007

Johnson, former Minnesota Dean, to Return to UVA Faculty

Alex Johnson (critical race theory), who served as Dean at the University of Minnesota Law School for four years, is rejoining the law faculty at the University of Virginia, which he left to become Dean at Minnesota.

Jim Chen is a prolific former law school faculty member at BigU who is now Dean at Louisville. Law school faculty are heavily into blogging. At last count there are 307 of them - you could look it up. Even OurProvost, E. Thomas Sullivan, a former law school dean, 2x, is going to start posting a blog. Jim Chen participates in numerous blogs, but the one of most interest to Mr. B. is MoneyLaw wherein he writes:

No person in legal academia has taught me more, or been more generous with his time and political capital, than Alex Johnson. He earned -- and deserved -- the fierce loyalty of his lieutenants. The name of this forum, MoneyLaw, owes its origins to long discussions we had about the careful stewardship and effective deployment of our law school's resources. Our shared passion for legal education, baseball, and the University of Minnesota defined the four years I was privileged to serve on a law faculty led by Alex Johnson.

Alex served all too briefly as dean at Minnesota. During those hundred fortnights in which he presided, however, Minnesota accomplished extraordinary things. As detailed in Virginia's press release, Alex "recruited and hired 19 faculty members to 'reinvigorate the faculty and the enterprise.'"

Even more remarkably, Alex posted this phenomenal record during a period of brutal budget cuts. The University of Minnesota slashed the law school budget on his arrival. The University and the state continued slashing, each year Alex served as dean. Alex responded by "revamp[ing] the alumni relations office" and "ramp[ing] up on our annual giving campaign." The bottom line? "We were actually able to not only cover the shortfalls, we were able to increase the budget and hire all those faculty members."

What once was allegory must now be stated explicitly:

There was a . . . dean . . . whose effective tenure was devoted to making the school's stakeholders brave and dignified and good . . . . When he left the people burst into tears in the halls and their minds wailed, "What can we do now? How can we go on without him?"

The allegory referred to is perhaps Jim's best piece on MoneyLaw, "On the Three Deans." This post is very provocative and can easily be generalized to department chairs.

There are many new hires at the BigU law school. As Alex Johnson himself has pointed out elsewhere, high turnover is the norm at law schools. Let us hope that the new crop contains people of the caliber of Jim Chen and Alex Johnson.

I see UVa law school is looking for a new dean. Hmm….

Mr. B.

The Play "Redshirts" Needs Work
But Is Well Worth Seeing

Mr. B. is obviously not the person to do a proper review of the play "Redshirts" put on by the Penumbra under the direction of Lou Bellamy. This is the first performance of the play and it is produced in cooperation with Roundhouse theater of Maryland. Briefly, the play deals with academic cheating and the big-time athletics/academics interface. People at BigU should be very familiar with this topic given its recent recapitulation by Sports Illustrated.

Full Disclosure:

Mr. B. has had some long time involvement in matters related to this play. He taught at a very good liberal arts college during the seventies. It had the highest minority enrollment in the state at that time. His students struggled mightily, and some of them succeeded. He was unfortunate enough to observe a cheating incident involving a minority student who happened to be a prominent student politician. Lately he has served as the chair of the student scholastic standing committee in a BigU program that has the highest minority enrollment in the University. The good news is that we have the opportunity to give out a lot of scholarships; the bad news is that we have to deal with academic probation, dismissal, and, yes, cheating. Since we have a high proportion of minority students in our program, some of these cases involve minority students. Mr. B. is also a great admirer of Lou Bellamy as an artist and teacher.

Saturday night Mr. and Mrs. Bonzo stepped out to see the play. It opened on Thursday evening and reviews were available from both the Star-Tribune (Strib) and from the Pioneer-Planet. They were not very enthusiastic and I had read them quickly but not attentively. Reviewing in GemCities can be a bit uneven and I often find myself in sharp disagreement with reviews, although in this case there was much I agree with.

Therefore, I am going to quote sections of both of them accompanied by some additional remarks.

From the Star-Tribune:

By Rohan Preston, Star Tribune

Last update: September 07, 2007 – 10:45 PM

There is a pivotal scene in "Redshirts," Dana Yeaton's ripped-from-the-headlines drama about a cheating scandal in a university athletic program. Cocksure running back Dante Green (James T. Alfred) confronts the accusing professor, played with regal steeliness by Regina Williams.

"You've got issues," he says forcefully to her. She agrees, but not precisely in the way he's implying. In the play's best moment, she lists the price that African-Americans have paid -- including braving snarling dogs and water hoses -- so that someone like Dante could have such a college opportunity.

Both the stern professor and the cavalier star athlete are moved by the encounter, each breaking their façades. Unfortunately, that poignant moment is exceptional in Yeaton's earnest, misshapen and sometimes facile work.

"Redshirts," directed by Lou Bellamy, has its own dramaturgical issues; it doesn't really seem to believe in itself as anything but a topical after-school special. Despite the iconic, slow-motion entry of the suited-up actors -- an opening scene that suggests something almost epic -- the play begins and ends with a strange listlessness, unsure of what it is or wants to say.

The symmetry of the play with the epic beginning needs to be matched in the end. It isn't. Drop the gladiator stuff.

Still, amid this crisis of confidence, it has a strong, solid middle.

If "Redshirts" is worth seeing, it's for both the veteran and new talent onstage at Penumbra. Williams delivers a finely drawn professor, both stern and sympathetic. James Craven's coach is nuanced and likable. As a student-athlete who has had a concussion, Ahanti Young is an almost lobotomized figure on the blink. Alfred, who is making his Penumbra debut, invests Dante with a curled, almost sneering lip and a lot of unruly testosterone.

This guy is really good. Although I did not like the ADD counselor bit, there was a scene during which the guy was absolutely supercharged, with one of his legs visibly twitching with pent-up energy.

But the script needs work.

Absolutely. With some work the play could be much better. Leave out the stuff that is irrelevant and sharpen it. Kill the ADD business. Develop the love interest or drop it. Develop the concussion business or drop it. There is just too much on the table to focus. You can't slay all the dragons at one sitting.

In one particular playwriting convention, the action freezes and Dante steps out of the tableaux to act the role of Greek chorus, delivering rhymed asides -- raps, really -- to the audience. An interesting technique, but it does not further the narrative.

I liked this. My only complaint was that Dante's rap was sometimes hard to understand. Needs more work on ENUNCIATION.

What "Redshirts" does show is a world of people with hardened perceptions, including a tutor who believes, deep down, that the football players are glorified animals. The play shows the players being caught between many forces as they get chewed up.

The tutor is badly done and too one-dimensional. She is apparently intelligent and good at her job. But no one with experience would help these students in the way she did, practically inviting the professor to go after them for similarities in the papers that she helped them write. This didn't seem credible to me. And she certainly didn't seem to think that all of them were animals at least not for the whole play. She may have come to that conclusion after a brawl near the end when a fight between the players resulted in another concussion for the unfortunate Clarence.

Ironically, that may mean an opportunity to truly learn something that they have a hard time getting into, like, say, the poetry of Robert Frost and Claude McKay.

There are a couple of really great poetry sessions. An English professor might not think so... But you can imagine how football players might react to the word nosegays or the Frost poem about stopping in the woods on a snowy evening.

The second review, from the Pioneer-Planet, is a quite good commentary on the play. Mr. B. will not mar it by making additional inane comments.

From the Pioneer-Planet:

BY DOMINIC P. PAPATOLA

Theater Critic

TwinCities.com-Pioneer Press

The subject matter has the potential to be the stuff of gripping drama, especially here in the Twin Cities, where memories of similar scandals at the University of Minnesota remain relatively fresh.

But Yeaton, in his laudable effort to write a thoughtful play instead of a sensational one, has created a work with no tension, no conflict and, consequently, no traction.

Everyone at Yeaton's fictional Tennessee Southern University has an understandable, defensible position. The football players, in the words of cocky redshirt freshman Dante Green (James T. Alfred, playing the role with a coiled-spring intensity), are just "trying really hard to do something really hard" in balancing scholastic work and the pressures of Division I football.

On the other side is the first-year poetry professor (a rigidly proper but passionate Regina Marie Williams) who notes the obvious similarities among the players' papers. A black woman, she decries the fact that the previous generation of African-Americans fought and died for the right to use the library at southern universities, and that these guys probably have probably never been there.

The assistant coach who tries to mediate the dispute (James Craven, reliably biting off and spitting out his lines like a plug of tobacco) was himself a beneficiary and a victim of the old-school college sports system that robbed student athletes of an education. He doesn't want his guys to get special treatment, but he doesn't want to lose his entire backfield, either.

The closest thing the play comes to an antagonist is the unseen head football coach of the Swarming Hornets, who pulls down a $2 million-a-year salary and opts for obfuscation in the face of the scandal.

But that scene comes almost at the end, and, for the rest of the time, Yeaton's script drifts among abortive romantic encounters, half-considered questions of race and class and shorthand character sketches - the secretly-smart jock; the wisdom-issuing, dumb-but-lovable guy who might have fallen out of the pages of "Of Mice and Men"; and the token white kid who gave up small-school scholarships to play big-time college football.

And after straining so hard to write a complex and nuanced play, Yeaton allows his script, in the end, to turn on the most obvious and least interesting question: Did they or didn't they cheat?

Yeaton has a flair for language, a decent ear for dialogue and his finger on some knotty issues. What his script lacks is a propulsive device, a reason for the play to exist and to move forward.

Without that, about the best that director Lou Bellamy can conjure on the stage is a series [of] almost-questions, sort-of perspectives and a promising premise left unfulfilled.

Bonzo Summary

Staging: A+

Lighting: A+

Acting: A-

The Play: B-

The set is very clever. About twenty yards of football field. The goalpost area has back projection of games, and other scenery. The weight room - to the left - and the players apartment front - to the right - work seamlessly. As do the roll in offices of the English professor, the ADD evaluator, and the tutor.

OurLeader, Joltin' Joel, ET, Tubby, the new football coach, and the faculty reps should all go to this play. Together. Then they should go over to Mr. B.'s beer-drinking establishment of choice for thirty-eight years, the Big Ten, and have a nice long talk about what they are going to do here at BigU to address the issues raised.

In the hope that what doesn't kill us makes us strong. Bonzo

The Man in The Middle

Steven Hunter is both a University of Minnesota regent and an AFL-CIO official.

We are in the midst of a strike at BigU. It is easy to sit around and make pompous declarations about how the world ought to be run, how Abu Ghraib is a scandal, Bush is an idiot, pop rots your teeth, whatever.

But some of us fairly ordinary people occasionally are placed in very bad positions from the ethical standpoint. Mr. B. can only be sympathetic and respectful of them.

From today's Strib comes the following excerpts:

Steven Hunter knew the third day of the dispute between striking clerical, technical and health care workers who are members of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees could bring his position as a regent into conflict with his day job.

Hunter's primary occupation is secretary/treasurer of the Minnesota AFL-CIO. Before that he was the political action director in the state for AFSCME.

As a result, Hunter spent part of Friday morning trying to calm the protesters. In the process, he called for the university to return to the bargaining table.

While the rest of the regents left the room, Hunter stayed and talked to the students and activists.

"I know tempers are hot," Hunter said. "But let us do our best. There are regents on this board who support the cause. Keeping the board from meeting could cost some support."

After about an hour, the regents returned to the room and Hunter was given the floor. He urged the university to get back to the bargaining table with AFSCME for the first time since late Tuesday.

"We've spent a lot of time since I've been on the board focusing on getting it right in terms of benefits for our administrators and our faculty," Hunter said. "We know we have a problem competing for top faculty and administrators to do those jobs. That's appropriate because those people are the engine that drives this university towards our aspirational goals. But the support staff is the oil that lets the engine run. If you've ever tried driving a car without oil, you'll find out what happens.

"We have a problem right now. Our support staff is not happy, they're not working -- it's hurting them, it's hurting the university. It's a necessity to get back to the table."

While Hunter said he didn't think the university's offer to AFSCME workers would be enough to get a contract, he didn't offend Bruininks.

"He's in a very awkward spot," Bruininks said. "I think he spoke emotionally and passionately for what he thought was an important message and that was that we should get back together and work on these issues."

"We want to get this settled," Bruininks said. "We believe we have a fair offer out there, and we believe we have to run the university in a way that is responsible to all of its employees. That will be our position, and it will continue to be our position no matter what the level of noise is on the university campus."

Hunter is not the only one in an awkward spot. OurLeader is in no position to argue that money is not available to treat these workers fairly. And his position of no further negotiations is certainly contradictory to his statement that he wants to get this settled. Let's get off the dime, Dr. Bruininks.

One sad Bonzo

Paula Rabinowitz, a BigU Faculty Member

Who Walks the Talk

We have a strike here at BigU. Mr. B. does not want to go into the details of who is right and who is wrong. That is not the point. One of Mr. B.'s colleagues is mentioned in a Strib article from which some material is quoted below. Faculty members like Paula Rabinowitz make Mr. B. proud to be at BigU.

University of Minnesota English Prof. Paula Rabinowitz stood in a Baptist church sanctuary just off campus Thursday afternoon, knowing school administrators wouldn't be happy as about 200 students filed in and plunked themselves down on piano benches and pews stacked with hymnals.

But in a show of support for striking union workers Rabinowitz, chairwoman of the English Department, defied university administrators and moved her class to the church across the street from the school's boundary. She is among several instructors who challenged a direct order to keep classes on campus or face disciplinary action.

"My work is to talk to students," she told the class. "Where it happens is not an issue."

In a letter to faculty members, teaching assistants and teaching staff dated Aug. 29, Provost E. Thomas Sullivan made it clear that classes should not be moved off campus.

"Every faculty member, graduate assistant and employee who is scheduled to teach, is expected to hold their classes, and to hold them on campus as originally scheduled," he wrote. "University employees who refuse to report to work as directed are considered under state law to be engaged in an illegal sympathy strike and are subject to discipline."

Rabinowitz said talk of discipline for relocating classes was "contradictory" to the university's intellectual mission.

Sullivan's directive to stay on campus is similar to instructions that teaching staff received during the 2003 strike, Sundin said. But the 2003 instructions did not invoke the Public Employment Labor Relations Act, which gives the university a legal basis to discipline, she said. The act requires university employees to report to work in the event of a strike by another union, Sullivan wrote in his letter.

"This year it's a less-veiled threat," Sundin [an AFSCME member] said.

"I didn't really mind because I respect what my teacher is trying to do," Erickson [a student] said as she left Rabinowitz's class. "[Strikers have] raised a lot of awareness. I respect them for it."

Said Rabinowitz: "The university has always said the university is not its buildings. It's amazing the amount of work you can do without a building."

Mr. B. is disappointed, but not surprised, at BigU's ham-handed handling of the strike and the predictable reaction of some of the faculty members who feel bound to act in accord with their conscience and principles. What is a university after all?

Driven to Distraction
Question of the Week

Q: Is it possible to make a silk purse out of a sow's ear?

A: If you charge enough for it then people will think that you have!

(This also applies to university presidents and football coaches..)

Not coincidentally, the University of Minnesota Golden Gophers lost their opener yesterday to Bowling Green. As in academics, it's hard to be humble at BigU once you've bought into greatness.