Steve1981
Heisman
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I Root For: UMass
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RE: Idaho Dropping To FCS... Has a Trend Started?
The 'F..ck Max Page!' comment deserves some explaining. He is a professor, who has waged a war against Football for the past 4 plus years. Page has put it on the agenda for this month faculty meeting and note his 3 year adhoc committee was dissolved.
Here is a report from Dec 11, 2014, Springfield Republican, Daniel Malone.
Quote:As has become a yearly occurrence, the UMass Faculty Senate was presented Thursday with its Ad Hoc Committee on FBS Football's interim report.
The committee was formed in 2011 "to monitor and evaluate the costs and financial impacts of FBS football" according the the Faculty Senate's original founding motion.
Co-chaired by Max Page, a professor of Architecture and History at the university and a long-time vocal opponent of the Minutemen's move to the Football Bowl subdivision, and Nelson Lacey, a professor in the Isenberg School of Management, the committee convenes once a semester to present its findings on the football program's financials.
After relatively quiet proceedings last year, Thursday's meeting, thanks to the outspokenness of UMass Chancellor Kumble R. Subbaswamy, was decidedly more eventful.
Essentially, the Chancellor's stance boiled down to this – he's grown tired of battling his own faculty over the issue of football. The decision to move to the FBS wasn't his, but Subbaswamy has been at the forefront of the move's defense and it's apparently begun to wear on him.
In responding to the statements of Page – who again questioned the move, describing the past three years as a "sunk cost' – it was clear that Subbaswamy was becoming annoyed as he spoke.
"This is at least the fourth or fifth time I'm hearing Senator Page speak on this subject," he said. "Even today, his intentions are very clear."
Page hasn't exactly hidden his anti-football intentions over the years, but Thursday it appeared things were coming to a point for the Chancellor.
When a motion was put forth midway through the session to determine whether the Rules Committee should be requested to poll the university's faculty to determine the level of support for FBS football, Subbaswamy responded in an uncharacteristically animated fashion, reaffirming that he holds the final say on the situation because "Ultimately, the decision is not up to the Senate."
"Whatever it is that you find out from that poll is non-binding and does not have any impact on what I decide to do or not to do about FBS football," he said. "I will eventually always make the decision that I think is in the best interest of this campus based on all the information I have available. And so, this process of gathering information is, in my opinion, more harmful than helpful."
Subbaswamy posed a question to the Senate asking if a faculty survey "really serves any purpose" before making a personal plea to avoid splintering within university ranks.
"Do you want to make your chancellor, who is working so hard to make this campus a top-20 academically-recognized campus, into someone who is in a war with his own faculty? Is that an accurate depiction?," he said. "That is what the (Boston) Globe will write, which is what The Republican will write, which is what everyone will write because, of course, they are hungry for these stories. Do you really want that to be the story for the next six months?
"That's your call. I will continue to work hard no matter what. I will try to work against the negativity that will be written about because of this vote. Nothing else, but because of this vote. If you want to do so, that is your prerogative. I urge you not to do so. I fully understand that it your prerogative. No matter how you vote, I'm going to work day and night to advance this campus."
Subbaswamy spoke twice during the session. When Page rose to question deliberations over whether a faculty poll should be requested, the Chancellor quickly packed up and left in a hurry. He could not be reached for further comment.
Even so, the Chancellor's plea was heard. When the poll question was finally brought to a vote, it failed to pass (but only after a standing count was made). At that time, Page packed up and left.
Page said the request for a faculty poll on FBS football was a "perfectly legitimate thing for the Faculty Senate to discuss and one way to find out more what the faculty thinks."
"I will admit I’m surprised that there’s such terror about getting information. I don’t quite get that. The notion that if we know more, that it somehow undermines (the Chancellor), that doesn't make much sense," he said, adding that Subbaswamy "clearly feels strongly" about the situation.
"I respect that he feels we're on the move, which we are in a lot of ways, and he doesn't want any sense of opposition. If I were an administrator, I would also not want opposition, I would not want ripples," Page said. "And I want to be very clear, this is not opposition to him. He would not want waves of discontent, I respect that. That's not the job of the Faculty Senate. The Faculty Senate's job is to think about what to debate and what's of interest to the campus.
"So when we start to say 'All right, let's check in with the Chancellor and see if he likes us to even talk about this issue,' that undermines the idea of the university democracy, where you have faculty debating issues."
http://www.masslive.com/umassfootball/in..._late.html
(This post was last modified: 04-27-2016 07:24 PM by Steve1981.)
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Idaho Dropping To FCS... Has a Trend Started?
