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Added Later: Response from Chris Coughlan-Smith:

5/5/2011

• Group: University of Minnesota Alumni Association (UMAA)
• Discussion: Is UMAA censoring submitted posts?

Hi, Professor Gleason. I can assure there is no effort to suppress discussion on this community. We have a policy in place on the approval of discussions, filtering commercial and promotional items to the correct area and deleting only profane and offensive material.

An error appears to have been made over the weekend and our policy has been reiterated with all who moderate the discussions.

I've personally approved Mr. McNabb's comments in the past and will continue to do so. I wish one of you would have asked someone in this office for a clarification. Thank you.

Chris, group founder and owner

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Image Credit: Wikimedia Commons

Recently I learned of yet another attempt to stifle criticism at the University of Minnesota. It is sad, indeed, that the administration and the alumni association are engaging in the tactics of censorship and intimidation. 

I sincerely hope that the next president will not tolerate this kind of activity at our university.
 
From my friend and fellow alum, Michael McNabb:

The University of Minnesota Alumni Association has a LinkedIn web site for posts submitted by alumni.  I have sent several single sentence posts with links to essays in The Periodic Table, such as:

On The Cost of Administration Part II 

and

State (and) University

See the attached My Activity section of the UMAA site.

On April 30 the UMAA site blocked the submission of a single sentence post [Administration seeks to stifle criticism of research] with links to these posts:

Freedom Means Restriction? 

Constitutional Law

When I scrolled down to the end of the My Activity section I saw the following question:

Are you sure that you want to permanently remove, block and delete all contributions from this member?

Then I checked the main section of the UMAA site and saw that my previous posts had been deleted.

The mission statement of the Alumni Association states that it is "dedicated to connecting alumni, students and friends in lifelong support of the University of Minnesota and each other." 

See the UMAA web site.

It appears that the Alumni Association considers the current administration and the University to be one and the same for it excludes any perspective that challenges a course of action undertaken by the administration.  (It is far easier to exclude than to allow alumni to hear different perspectives and to engage in an exchange of ideas.)

A "guiding principle" of the Alumni Association is that it "represents the independent voice of the alumni."  See the UMAA site above.  By excluding different perspectives of alumni the Alumni Association acts as the representative of the administration to silence the independent voices of those alumni.

Goneril and Regan from King Lear

Image credit: Wikimedia commons

I have earlier written about this matter. See University of Minnesota General Counsel: Is Defamation Protected by Academic Freedom for some background.

Since that post there have been further reactions to the situation at Minnesota, including articles in the Chronicle of Higher Education, Inside Higher Education, and the Bioethics Forum at the Hastings Center.

The time for weary negligence in this matter has long passed.

Today a nationally respected professor of Law and Philosophy at the University of Chicago posted a strongly worded piece on his widely read blog, Leiter Reports: A Philosophy Blog.

From his post:

The University of Minnesota Clinical Trials Fiasco and the Apparent Attempt to Silence Faculty Critics

A clinical trial of an antipsychotic medication at the University of Minnesota in 2003 resulted in the death of a patient; bioethicist Carl Elliott at Minnesota investigated, concluding that the patient should not have been enrolled, and that the clinical trial itself was run by doctors with financial ties to the drug manufacturer sponsoring the clinical trial, and that many such trials are really aimed at marketing the drug, not testing its safety:

Professor Elliott and others appealed to the University's Board of Trustees to investigate.   Now the University's General Counsel is trying to stop faculty from pursuing this matter!   This latest development--a quite brazen attack on the core of academic freedom.

This blog also offers a useful timeline of the recent events :

 

November 23, 2010.  Eight professors and bioethicists submit a letter to the Regents requesting an independent investigation into the death of Dan Markingson while he was participating in a clinical trial at the University.  See Faculty Letter at http://ptable.blogspot.com/2010/12/university-of-minnesota-faculty-letter.html#links.

December 10, 2010.  General Counsel Mark Rotenberg meets with the Regents regarding the request.  See U of M Attorney at http://ptable.blogspot.com/2010/12/dan-markingsons-suicide-u-of-m-attorney.html#links.

February 7, 2011.  Regents deny request for independent investigation.  See Regents Play Innocent at http://ptable.blogspot.com/2011/02/regents-play-innocent-regents-are.html#links.

February 24, 2011.  General Counsel Rotenberg submits to the FCC [the faculty council] the following question:  What is the faculty's collective role in addressing factually incorrect attacks on particular U faculty research activities?  FCC refers the question to the AF & T Committee.  See the February 24 report of the FCC at http://conservancy.umn.edu/bitstream/101836/1/11_02_24FCC.pdf.

This is a case where the University President needs to exercise some real leadership, including, at a minimum, instructing the General Counsel to back off.  This whole episode is also indicative of how important tenure is to protect faculty whose research adversely affects corporate interests.

 

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Oliver Twist asking for more

Image Credit

In the University of Minnesota's mad scramble to stop the bleeding a provocative op-ed has appeared by my esteemed colleague, history professor Giancarlo Casale.  I urge people to read his important post.

[Prior to the Casale post, I had earlier examined this hypothesis in the post  Subsidy for Education and Related Expenses - 2008 data - for 50 Flagship Universities.  The data is behind a firewall unless one is a paying subscriber so I have transcribed it below.]

In this Star-Tribune op-ed Casale asks a provocative question that I believe has to  be answered in the negative: Minnesota seems to be abandoning its commitment to flagship university. Is it really the case that we Minnesotans now value college education less than the rest of the country?

In order to start a discussion on the matter - in which I will not participate because of the recent intellectual equivalent of drive by shootings - I offer the following:

March 13, 2011

Education Financing for Major Public Universities: Which Ones Get the Most and the Least

The Chronicle chose one large public research institution per state—often the flagship—and examined its subsidy for education and related expenses per student in 2008, the most recent year for which those data have been reported. This figure is the share of educational spending not covered by tuition. For many but not all flagships, state appropriations finance a significant portion of this subsidy. 

There is something very wrong here, although the interpretation of the numbers is complex and this was pointed out in a subsequent article.  But the trend is clear and Minnesota is far from the lowest in state support for higher education.  Even President Bruininks has admitted this. For fiscal year 2011 state monies provided for higher education in Minnesota were: $1,381,065,000. This ranked ~18/50 for all states. The comparable number in Wisconsin is $1,363,029, 136.  [The last I heard UW-Madison is cleaning our clock both in academics and in other less important matters such as football and basketball.  One might ask why but that is a different topic.] Again it is clear that the claim that Minnesota values higher education less than the rest of the country is false. Nitpickers may find fault with any set of numbers I might provide, but the evidence is overwhelming. To argue that Minnesota is worse than any state in the nation has about as much credibility as climate denialism.

In the op-ed we found a disclaimer: "I am not an expert on state finances or budgetary policy." It behooves some of those on the faculty at the University of Minnesota to start asking some serious questions. A history professor  is certainly capable of understanding basic economics.

Whining without justification simply is no longer acceptable. This is one of the main problems of the current university administration.

Playing Oliver Twist and asking for "More?" is a failed strategy. Hard  facts about the cost of education, how unreimbursed research costs are funded, and the outrageous costs for administration need to be provided. Minnesota citizens have a right to expexct that tuition increases are used for educational purposes and not to support unreimbursed research expenses, the cost of new - and unnecessary - buildings, or grandiose schems for the University of Minnesota to become one of the top three public research universities in the world [sic]. Once Minnesotan's are made aware of the actual cost of education and assured that this is, indeed, our first priority, will we be in a position to ask for "More?" Unreimbursed research expenses and the source of funds to pay for them must be made explicit. Since even the current majority party seems to believe in research and development, explicit funding for these activities should be sought at the legislature.   The bloated cost of administration is beyond dispute.

Trying to pin the blame for this situation on Minnesota citizens, because they don't properly value  education, is an unfair and losing proposition. The citizens of the state, some of whom are literally -  not figuratively - hungry, will not be very sympathetic.

Au contraire...

 

"Alabama's fiscal year 2011 cuts to higher education led to 2010-11 tuition hikes that ranged from 8 percent to 23 percent, depending on the institution. "

An excerpt from the Board of Regents meeting of  March 11, 2011 is given below. The full video is available to view at the University of Minnesota Board of Regents web site.

 +++

Mr. Michael McNabb again provides here an interesting and very topical guest post. He has previously contributed the series: University Inc., and University Inc., Part Two. These have received national attention by those interested in the financial situation at the University of Minnesota.  Matters in this area are in disrepair and need the attention of all Minnesota citizens.

At the Higher Education Committee hearing on February 22, 2011, President Bruininks told the state representatives that the annual salary of the new president is within market range for the position.  

This is the same justification used to pay tens of millions of dollars in annual bonuses to Wall Street executives. As if the market were a God to whom homage must be paid. The "Masters of the Universe" who are the chief executive officers of those Wall Street firms have an unwavering confidence that the market always makes the correct determination in economic matters.  This unwavering confidence combined with greed to bring our national economy to the brink of chaos.

So what compensation is necessary to attract good people to positions of leadership in public service today? Let us compare the annual salaries of senior administrators at the University to those of the leaders in state government.

The State of Minnesota attracts numerous qualified persons for its positions of leadership. Is there any reason to believe that those positions are less demanding than comparable positions at the University of Minnesota or require less intelligence or less skill? Is there any reason to believe that the University could not also attract qualified persons who are dedicated to public service to its positions of leadership at salaries comparable to state pay?

 

The source of the annual salaries listed above is the Pioneer Press web site for Minnesota Public Salaries at http://extra.twincities.com/car/salaries/default.aspx.

There is more information of interest on the web site. If you enter the title of the position at the U of M, the site displays the annual salaries for all the persons with that title.

The 9 provosts have annual salaries in the range of $124,479 to $342,310.

The 18 chancellors have annual salaries in the range of $68,278 to $256,530. (Only five chancellors have an annual salary less than $98,000.)

The 40 vice presidents have annual salaries in the range of $117,580 to $481,500.

The 112 deans have annual salaries in the range of $84,000 to $606,000. (Only six deans have an annual salary less than $100,000.)

From fiscal year 2007 to fiscal year 2011 the state appropriations for the University declined from $709 million to $591 million. See p. 3 of the March 10, 2010 report Financing the Future at http://www1.umn.edu/regents/docket/2010/march/boardhandout1.pdf. 

 

Yet the costs of administration did not decline. Just the opposite. The amount for "institutional support" (also known as costs of administration) exploded at the University from $196.6 million for fiscal year 2008 to $234.3 million for fiscal year 2010. The 2010 institutional support included $173 million for compensation and benefits and $61.4 million for supplies and services. See Section 3 of University Inc. Part II at http://ptable.blogspot.com/2011/02/draft-as-university-transforms-itself.html#links.

The University is a non-profit public institution whose leaders are supposed to be dedicated to public service and not to the enhancement of their own private wealth. This year the state legislators can impress this point upon senior administrators by making the grant of state appropriations subject to the condition that the budget of the University must include a reduction in the total compensation of administrators to the 2008 level at a minimum.

It is the public service of a non-profit organization that qualifies it for tax-exempt status. See section 501 of the Internal Revenue Code. The IRS is currently reviewing the compliance of non-profit colleges and universities with the statutory requirements. The compensation paid to senior administrators is part of this review. See Figure 65 on p. 58 of the Interim Report on Non-Profit Colleges and Universities Compliance Project at http://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-tege/cucp_interimrpt_052010.pdf

As Mark Yudof said at his inauguration as president of the University  of Minnesota:

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. . . . Without authority invested where the real work of this University is done, the light of excellence will only grow dimmer.

University of Minnesota Alumni Association life member