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Here's the entire letter that they published and sent to the Faculty Senate:

Senate Letter - From UAB School of Nursing

Bravo

Yes!!!

Keep it coming. We are all united in opposition to Ray Watts and the BOT agenda.

Hear Hear!

This is the strongest thing we have to fire him now......That letter overshadows anything a Dean has written or sent out.

Their superiors are in a position to affect each of those students careers yet still they summon the courage to stand for what is right.

THAT is what will win back the UAB of Gene Bartow! Not falling in line and MOVING ON. To HELL with moving on, Watts and his band of rats should be moving on. I WANT MY UNIVERSITY BACK.

Outstanding letter!

More, please.

They are basically saying that this decision and this idea of being great at a few things in the name of fiscal responsibility is against the core values of the university, and I agree. We need to give everyone a chance to compete and produce for UAB. We need to dream big dreams and pursue them, not set our hard work back decades.

We need leaders to communicate and be honest, not secretive and conniving.

I would like to see a string of student organizations put out letters not just condemning the football decision but calling for a vote of no confidence. The meeting is coming soon, so it would take a little bit of a push, but I think that could be as strong (or stronger) than a bunch of individuals emailing faculty senate people.

May be hard to get faculty to join in writing a letter for vote of no confidence, but I think we need every student organization that is against this to draft letters and get participation from their student organizations on this.

Love it.

Outstanding letter. This needs to be sent to the media.

Wow! So much for the medical side of the campus not going along for a vote of no confidence. I wonder if similar letters can be written from other departments to their faultily senators? Maybe a no confidence vote by the faculty senate is possible after all.

However, I think that we need to keep in mind that even if Watts is fired tomorrow, he will simply become the BOT's scape goat and the anger and discontent will quickly dissipate. The BOT's dirty deed will have already been done, we will still not have a football team, the BOT will simply replace Watts with another of their puppets, and the BOT's hobnailed boot will still be on UAB's neck.

The only way forward is trough tremendous financial and political on the BOT and/or reorganization of the BOT itself.

(12-05-2014 04:42 PM)CajunBlazer Wrote:  Wow! So much for the medical side of the campus not going along for a vote of no confidence. I wonder if similar letters can be written from other departments to their faultily senators? Maybe a no confidence vote by the faculty senate is possible after all.

However, I think that we need to keep in mind that even if Watts is fired tomorrow, he will simply become the BOT's scape goat and the anger and discontent will quickly dissipate. The BOT's dirty deed will have already been done, we will still not have a football team, the BOT will simply replace Watts with another of their puppets, and the BOT's hobnailed boot will still be on UAB's neck.

The only way forward is trough tremendous financial and political on the BOT and/or reorganization of the BOT itself.

I agree, but he stills needs to go ASAP.

Remember, they have hired A LOT of presidents that they couldn't control. The next one may be friendlier to us than they believe when they hire him/her.

(12-05-2014 04:42 PM)CajunBlazer Wrote:  Wow! So much for the medical side of the campus not going along for a vote of no confidence. I wonder if similar letters can be written from other departments to their faultily senators? Maybe a no confidence vote by the faculty senate is possible after all.

However, I think that we need to keep in mind that even if Watts is fired tomorrow, he will simply become the BOT's scape goat and the anger and discontent will quickly dissipate. The BOT's dirty deed will have already been done, we will still not have a football team, the BOT will simply replace Watts with another of their puppets, and the BOT's hobnailed boot will still be on UAB's neck.

The only way forward is trough tremendous financial and political on the BOT and/or reorganization of the BOT itself.

So a couple of things to think about: the SON, especially the students, still generally fall on the "undergraduate" side of things. And, this was the students, not the faculty. There was a large group of medical students that signed a similar letter, but that doesn't mean that there aren't large numbers of faculty in the SOM that disagree with them.

And if a new President is the result of this entire process, then things will change. There will have to be an open process that includes everyone, including the football foundation. There is no way that this upheaval happens but the next guy doesn't do anything about it.

(12-05-2014 04:47 PM)mixduptransistor Wrote:  

(12-05-2014 04:42 PM)CajunBlazer Wrote:  Wow! So much for the medical side of the campus not going along for a vote of no confidence. I wonder if similar letters can be written from other departments to their faultily senators? Maybe a no confidence vote by the faculty senate is possible after all.

However, I think that we need to keep in mind that even if Watts is fired tomorrow, he will simply become the BOT's scape goat and the anger and discontent will quickly dissipate. The BOT's dirty deed will have already been done, we will still not have a football team, the BOT will simply replace Watts with another of their puppets, and the BOT's hobnailed boot will still be on UAB's neck.

The only way forward is trough tremendous financial and political on the BOT and/or reorganization of the BOT itself.

So a couple of things to think about: the SON, especially the students, still generally fall on the "undergraduate" side of things. And, this was the students, not the faculty. There was a large group of medical students that signed a similar letter, but that doesn't mean that there aren't large numbers of faculty in the SOM that disagree with them.

And if a new President is the result of this entire process, then things will change. There will have to be an open process that includes everyone, including the football foundation. There is no way that this upheaval happens but the next guy doesn't do anything about it.

Well that's encouraging. You seem to have a good view from the inside and I hope to heck you're right. However, the UAB President only has so much power, and serves at the pleasure of the BOT. So we need to use this situation drive permanent change or we will find ourselves in this same situation on another important issue down the road. There is an old political maximum, "Let no good crisis go unused".

These students have acted with grace, honor, loyalty, and dignity.

Watts thinks he has won. There was a British general, Lord Charles Cornwallis. He was a very good general; he won every battle against the Colonials that he fought except for one. He chased General Greene all over the South; beat his army every time.

But he got to a point that he realized he could not win the campaign since he kept losing support. He ended up losing enough support (but not all of it) and retreated behind the battlements of a place called Yorktown.

About a month later, he sent a drummer boy with a white flag to beat out a truce. 2 days later, the arrogant Cornwallis sent his 2nd-in-command General O'Hara out with the troops to surrender. O'Hara offered his sword to the French General, the Comte de Rochambeau. He refused with a gruff "NON" and pointed at George Washington. He asked where Lord Cornwallis was on this fine day. O'Hara said he was not feeling well. Washington then refused curtly, pointed across the way, saying coldly that General Benjamin Lincoln, his 2nd-in-command, will accept your surrender. Cornwallis stayed in his headquarters until the British shipped out for home.

Every chip of school support he loses will help; lose enough support, not necessarily all of it, and he is done.

Excellent

Why hasn't the USGA gotten the same publicity? Didn't it supposedly do the same thing?

(12-05-2014 04:44 PM)the Dragon Wrote:  

(12-05-2014 04:42 PM)CajunBlazer Wrote:  Wow! So much for the medical side of the campus not going along for a vote of no confidence. I wonder if similar letters can be written from other departments to their faultily senators? Maybe a no confidence vote by the faculty senate is possible after all.

However, I think that we need to keep in mind that even if Watts is fired tomorrow, he will simply become the BOT's scape goat and the anger and discontent will quickly dissipate. The BOT's dirty deed will have already been done, we will still not have a football team, the BOT will simply replace Watts with another of their puppets, and the BOT's hobnailed boot will still be on UAB's neck.

The only way forward is trough tremendous financial and political on the BOT and/or reorganization of the BOT itself.

I agree, but he stills needs to go ASAP.

Remember, they have hired A LOT of presidents that they couldn't control. The next one may be friendlier to us than they believe when they hire him/her.

Interim president (traditionally) would be Dr. Selwyn Vickers. I had the opportunity to have lunch with him earlier this year and he seemed excited about the UAB football team. This was right after we beat Troy and he knew about Coach Clark and the excitement surrounding the program.

I doubt he'd become the new president, considering he's just getting settled into the SOM Dean role, but at least I'm not sure he'd continue to cut programs or such.