Surveys, unions and other criminal items in Jacksonville

According to emails forwarded to me by one of my three readers, it's been brought to my attention that tensions are rising between the faculty and our illustrious President Shirley Ann Jackson. The Faculty Senate minutes verify that the situation has degraded below the ambient level of distrust and outrage. All of this stems from members of the Faculty Senate committing the dastardly deed of surveying the faculty about how they feel about the tyrant in the Troy Building (three days a month). Dr. Jackson, who was in Asia at the time, ordered the Provost, G.P. "Bud" Peterson, to have the survey results destroyed and to reprimand the person(s) responsible, on the grounds that they were in violation of human resources policies because three of the questions could be interpreted to pertain to unionization. In a meeting yesterday, members of the Faculty Senate were addressed by Curtis Powell (VP for Human Resources), Chuck Carletta (RPI's attorney known as"Chuck E Cheese" to senior faculty), and an unidentified labor lawyer that the administration flew in from Philadelphia (this, after the faculty members had been told they couldn't have legal representation at this meeting). I'm still working on securing the details, but it sounds like the meeting was the closest you can come to a public flogging when PhDs are involved. A no-confidence vote by the Faculty Senate against the Provost, the man who's supposed to be "advocate of the faculty," is seen as imminent, and there's widespread speculation that Dr. Jackson might be in line for the same treatment.

Batten down the hatches, this is going to get messy.

And if you wanted the actual link to Dr. Jackson's profile, here it is.