So, if it was an emergency it must have been important, right?

Hmm... no coverage of the yesterday's Emergency Faculty Senate Meeting in the online editions of the Eagle, KBTX, or the Batt.

But we do get coverage of how new Aggie license plates are available.

Anyone have a report? Vision1920 wasn't able to get away from more important things.

Emergency faculty senate meeting today

The Faculty Senate has called an emergency meeting today to formulate their response to the Strategeric Budget Reallocation Plan. The Faculty have this peculiar idea that the process should be open and transparent.

The faculty have tried to give their input on how the budget crisis should be handled before. In the wake of the layoffs of instructors and staff reported last week, Vision 1920 reminds our readers that in a survey over the summer, only 82.4% of the faculty agreed with the following statement:

I am willing to forego a merit raise for one academic year on the grounds that the money saved will be used to reduce the number of faculty and staff terminated.

And only 64.4% agreed to forego raises for two years.

This idea did not make it into the SBR Plan. But if the faculty could be less divided, then maybe the administration would have listened to them. And if you believe that, Vision 1920 thinks you would be an excellent Faculty Senator.

Dear Faculty: please leave

The Eagle covers the Voluntary Separation Plan (VSP), and the details are here (pdf). Eligible faculty get either one or two years of pay to leave. For most colleges it's open to any tenured faculty member who has been at their current rank since 1995.

The application window is also pretty short: August 15- Sept 23, 2010.

The University can reject VSP applications, and VSP applicants can't bail out of their Fall teaching; the earliest separation date will be December. Who is the target demographic for the VSP?

Doug Slack, a wildlife fisheries science professor, said he will apply for the program. He said he's had his dream job for 37 years teaching students at Texas AM and serving the state, but it's time to move on. Though nearing retirement anyway, he said, he wouldn't have decided to apply now if it weren't for the incentive.

"The program enables the university to spend a little money on the front end and save a lot on the back end," said Slack, 67. "It will help with the remaining faculty members, and help our department meet some of its needs."

Slack chaired a search committee whose recommendations were rejected by the Regents, and was critical of the process. Vision 1920 sees the VSP as a great way to encourage senior faculty who have been around long enough so they are no longer looking to the administration for handouts able to lead new initiatives to retire.

Giroir's chicken explained

Previously Vision 1920 was perplexed by this figure in Brett Giroir's presentation. At his open presentation today, Dr. Giroir used it again, and explained what he has against chickens: As explained in this Scientific American article

Today's flu vaccines are prepared in fertilized chicken eggs, a method developed more than 50 years ago. The eggshell is cracked, and the influenza virus is injected into the fluid surrounding the embryo. The egg is resealed, the embryo becomes infected, and the resulting virus is then harvested, purified and used to produce the vaccine. Even with robotic assistance, "working with eggs is tedious," says Samuel L. Katz of the Duke University School of Medicine, a member of the vaccine advisory committee for the U.S. Food and Drug Administration. "Opening a culture flask is a heck of a lot simpler."

One of the goals of the NCTM is to revolutionize vaccine production by moving it out of eggs. This cutting edge idea is a niche in the vaccine industry where A&M can clearly leap ahead of the competition, which only includes the likes of Novartis, Baxter, and Merck.

55-9

No confidence in McKinney passes

Resolution 1 passes

McIntyre's resolution passes 58-5 on a secret ballot.

Blast off!

The Eagle reports on the faculty senate poll:

"My thinking and the thinking of most of the faculty is we're very concerned about the reputation of the university," said Larry J. Reynolds, an American Literature professor who voted to support both resolutions. "Both the decision to hire Dr. Murano and the decision to [remove] her were unprofessional."

Rod Davis, a spokesman for McKinney, declined to comment.

The Faculty Senate will meet in about an hour (3:15 PM CDT) to vote on the resolutions; the poll was advisory. Regent Jim Wilson is expected to speak. Vision 1920 will report on what happens.

Faculty Senate survey

Resolution 1-1,332 responses
Agree 92.5%
Disagree 3.6%
No opinion 3.9%

Resolution 2-1337 responses
Agree 83.5%
Disagree 7.9%
No opinion 8.7%

1337!

Now is the winter of our discontent

...made glorius summer by this son of Centerville.

Part of what made Chancellor McKinney's address to the faculty so memorable was how it was so eloquent and literate. He laced it with signs of his classical education. He gave a lesson from the Bible:

Scripture says in Matthew 18:15 if you have a problem with a brother or sister you must go to them and attempt to fix it, just the two of you.

Here's the King James version

15 Moreover if thy brother shall trespass against thee, go and tell him his fault between thee and him alone: if he shall hear thee, thou hast gained thy brother.

16 But if he will not hear thee, then take with thee one or two more, that in the mouth of two or three witnesses every word may be established.

And he quoted the immortal Bard:

Shakespeare said, “The past is prologue.” I believe the past can be the past if we agree to work together for the sake of the future.

The passage is a paraphrase of Antonio's speech from Act 2, Scene 1 of the Tempest:

...We all were sea-swallow'd, though some cast again
(And by that destiny) to perform an act
Whereof what's past is prologue; what to come,
In yours and my discharge.

He spoke the speech trippingly, on the tongue. Vision 1920 had to look up what this poetic language is about, though. Fortunately we found an explanation online:

"What's past is prologue," then, translates roughly as "What's already happened merely sets the scene for the really important stuff, which is the stuff our greatness will be made on."

The "act" Antonio proposes is that Sebastian murder his sleeping father, Alonso, King of Naples, and grab the crown. All of them are now "cast" on what they believe is a desert island, so Antonio presumes the crime could easily be covered up.

Later, Ariel saves the King:

While you here do snoring lie,
Open-eyed conspiracy
His time doth take.
If of life you keep a care,
Shake off slumber, and beware:
Awake, awake!

Confidence game

In today's Eagle:

At a rally outside the Memorial Student Center before the Board of Regents meeting Monday morning, Bob Bednarz, speaker of the faculty senate, read a statement saying that recent actions by A&M System officials led him to believe that faculty input is neither valued nor desired.

"I fear that the events of the past month have had significant negative impacts on faculty morale, on the academic image of Texas A&M, and, therefore, on our ability to attract and retain the best and brightest people who are recruited to A&M by the faculty.

Attracting and retaining the best and brightest people takes costs money. Vision 1920 is a creative solution to our budget problems. The Ags who went to A&M in the 1920s were part of the greatest generation. By hiring faculty who only have to teach what was good enough for in the 1920s, we can keep tuition low, and we won't have to hire those liberal hippies who want to ruin what makes A&M a damned fine university.