Gator Faculty Bites Bush
CNN says: University of Florida squabbles over snub to Jeb Bush
University officials said they could not recall any precedent for the Senate rejecting the nominees put forth by the Faculty Senate’s Honorary Degrees, Distinguished Alumnus Awards and Memorials Committee. The committee determines whether nominees deserve consideration according to standards that include “eminent distinction in scholarship or high distinction in public service.”
“The committee endorsed him,” [UF President] Machen said. “It is unheard of that a faculty committee would look at candidates, make recommendations and then [those candidates] be overturned by the Senate.”
No one could have imagined that faculty members would be annoyed with the problems that face the state’s higher education system and do something about it.
The problem is that John Ellis Bush has done nothing particularly good for the University of Florida, and a few things that many people consider bad. If you don’t pass the test, you don’t get the degree, just like JEB’s reliance on the FCAT, which he has shown he can’t pass.
3 comments
Gator Faculty Bites Bush…
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Apparently the Gators president has been wrapped in cottonwool for all of his academic life. Hell, at my institution it would be a miracle if the Faculty Senate (and/or the University Council) didn’t ignore the recommendation of one of its committees at least once a semester. And IIRC, that has applied to candidates for honorary degrees, too. (Once, again IIRC, the body that objected was the Board of Trustees–and since they’re the ones that actually confer the degree, there can be no doubt that they have the right to turn down a candidate for one.)
Hell, we were lucky if we had a quorum for a faculty senate meeting, and based on the numbers, UF was close to not making it.
When the football coach makes $2 million a year in total compensation and most faculty haven’t seen a raise in the last 5 years, they were lucky the senate didn’t lynch someone on general principles. Nobody brought up tenure, or there would have been a lynching.