[W.F. Lantry]

Bad news today, folks. This is the biggest scandal in DC higher education in the last five years, and that's saying something. God help poets when their University gets a new president. We support E. Ethelbert Miller!

http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/g...-he-isnt-sure/

Thanks,

Bill

[John Whitworth]

It appears your university administrators are as bad as ours. Here is an anecdote. My wife took early retirement. She went into the office of the Bastards and they offered a severance package. She said it wasn't good enough and withdrew her resignation. Without missing a beat the Under Bastard took out another, much superior severance package. The first one was just to see how naive she was.

Administrators in schools are just the same. A bit of beheading would not come amiss.

[Rick Mullin]

It looks like 84 people got the same treatment, no?

[Roger Slater]

Yeah, I don't get why the article is all about this one person out of 84, nor do I get why his being a poet is particularly relevant.

And John, I'm absolutely shocked that someone actually engaged in a negotiation!

[Michael Cantor]

Like several others. I feel that this poorly written article raises more questions than it answers, and that it's short on facts on long on one man's situation. If you're going to trumpet this as the largest scandal in the past five years (actually, I'm not sure if that's the writer's doing, or just you, Bill) some additional information would really help. Were 80 or so others actually fired, and if so how was it handled? The same way as Ethelbert Miller, or with adequate notice and compensation? And what other steps were taken? Most colleges have grown far more quickly in non-teaching/administrative positions and costs than in teaching staff. Were the bulk of the layoffs in the administrative area, or did they focus on academic staff? What other cost cutting measures were taken - or not taken - before this occurred? Doesn't tenure get involved? Wouldn't Miller - there for forty years - have tenure? Did anybody ask the school for a comment?

Sorry. It may indeed be the worst academic scandal in the last five years - or the last fifty years - but it deserves a better written and more thoroughly researched article.

And - when you say "we" - (as in "we support E. Ethelbert Miller") who is the "we". The royal "we"? The Eratosphere "we". Speaking for myself, if the situation is anything close to as depicted, of course I support him - but I prefer to make those decisions on my own.

I should add that I am personally close to a similar situation in that my own college - Cooper Union - is in the same boat. Expenditures have outrun income - and a new President solved the problem by changing the basic nature of what had been a tuition-free college (founded and funded and and aimed at providing a free education - no dorms, no football team, no fringes - just a free and very fine education for those who could not afford college) by charging tuition, and totally changing the nature of the school. Hugely escalating administrative costs and staff - including the President's salary - and poorly conceived new programs weren't touched. The entire process is quite possibly illegal in view of Peter Cooper's founding documents (1857) and intentions, a law suit brought by a large group of alumni and faculty is pending, and I have switched my personal contributions from supporting the school to supporting the people who are fighting the President. So - when I ask whether the bulk of the people being let go at Howard were teachers or administrators - it stems from my own knowledge of what has happened at my school.

[Michael Cantor]

Sorry, Bill, but I got curious and did some googling. I knew nothing about Ethelbert Miller, and a check indicated that he is super-established, very well regarded, and a "player" both as a poet and a mentor. However, it also indicates that he has had particular and serious communications problems with Howard University which go back at least fifteen years. Check out this 2000 article on Miller from the Washington Post. The article is extremely flattering - as a matter of fact, I found it on Miller's web site - but scroll down about 3/4 of the way to the section headed The School. The article makes it clear that - even fifteen years ago - there was a huge gap, and bitterness, between the poet and the university; and you can read whatever hidden messages you want into the statements from all sides. But I think there is a hell of a lot more to this situation than the recent article (also from the Washington Post, but by a different write) you quote indicates.