{"id":5319,"date":"2017-08-21T13:11:26","date_gmt":"2017-08-21T13:11:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/2017\/08\/21\/warning-to-university-admins-abdication-of-authority-carries-a-cost\/"},"modified":"2017-08-21T13:11:26","modified_gmt":"2017-08-21T13:11:26","slug":"warning-to-university-admins-abdication-of-authority-carries-a-cost","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/2017\/08\/21\/warning-to-university-admins-abdication-of-authority-carries-a-cost\/","title":{"rendered":"Warning to University Admins: Abdication of Authority Carries a Cost"},"content":{"rendered":"

The cardinal virtues are four: temperance, prudence, justice, and courage. Of the four, courage is the most difficult to exercise. So it is no surprise that cowardice is so widespread among university administrators. There is no coward like a university administrator, to cop a line from Dennis Prager.<\/span><\/p>\n

But the cowardice that issues in abdication of authority and the refusal to stand up for the classical values of the university in the face of barbarians and know-nothings comes with a cost, literally<\/em>.<\/span><\/p>\n

The University of Missouri is one of many universities where the administrative pussy-wussies are feeling the pinch<\/a>:<\/span><\/p>\n

\n

Donors, parents, alumni, sports fans and prospective students raged against the administration\u2019s caving in. \u201cAt breakfast this morning, my wife and I agreed that MU is NOT a school we would even consider for our three children,\u201d wrote Victor Wirtz, a 1978 alum, adding that the university \u201chas devolved into the Berkeley of the Midwest.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

As classes begin this week, freshmen enrollment is down 35% since the protests, according to the latest numbers the university has publicly released. Mizzou is beginning the year with the smallest incoming class since 1999. Overall enrollment is down by more than 2,000 students, to 33,200. The campus has taken seven dormitories out of service.<\/span><\/p>\n

The plummeting support has also cost jobs. In May, Mizzou announced it would lay off as many as 100 people and eliminate 300 more positions through retirement and attrition. Last year the university reduced its library staff and cut 50 cleaning and maintenance jobs.<\/span><\/p>\n

Mizzou\u2019s 2016 football season drew almost 13,000 fewer attendees than in 2015, local media reported. During basketball games, one-third of the seats in the Mizzou Arena sat empty.<\/span><\/p>\n

[. . .]<\/span><\/p>\n

This phenomenon isn\u2019t limited to Mizzou. Private institutions like Yale and Middlebury aren\u2019t covered by public-records laws, so they can conceal the backlash. But when public universities have released emails after giving in to campus radicals, they have consistently shown administrators face the same public outrage.<\/span><\/p>\n

Virginia Tech received numerous phone calls and more than 100 angry emails last year after it disinvited Jason Riley, a columnist for this newspaper, from speaking on campus. \u201cWhile we can respond to the people who write to us, we cannot dispel the negative impression created by the media against the president, the university, the dean and the college and the department,\u201d one administrator woefully told his colleagues.<\/span><\/p>\n

Virginia Tech administrators also noted that news of the debacle reached millions on Twitter<\/a>,<\/span> where the reactions were \u201coverwhelmingly negative toward the university and higher education in general.\u201d Once again, a frustrated public vowed to yank support.<\/span><\/p>\n

Universities have consistently underestimated the power of a furious public. At the same time, they\u2019ve overestimated the power of student activists, who have only as much influence as administrators give them. Far from avoiding controversy, administrators who respond to campus radicals with cowardice and capitulation should expect to pay a steep price for years.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

WSJ's Jason Riley, mentioned above, is one seriously black dude.  But he wasn't prevented from speaking because of his race but because he refuses to toe the Party Line: he is a conservative black and therefore, to a leftist shithead, 'a traitor to his race.'<\/span><\/p>\n

This shows that the overpaid administrative assholes at Mizzou and elsewhere have no clue as to the purposes of a university.  You can't reach them with reasons, but they are very sensitive to emolument.<\/span><\/p>\n

Were university admins always cowards?  No!<\/span><\/p>\n

See Three Profiles in Civil Courage Among University Administrators<\/a><\/span> <\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The cardinal virtues are four: temperance, prudence, justice, and courage. Of the four, courage is the most difficult to exercise. So it is no surprise that cowardice is so widespread among university administrators. There is no coward like a university administrator, to cop a line from Dennis Prager. But the cowardice that issues in abdication of … Continue reading “Warning to University Admins: Abdication of Authority Carries a Cost”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[52,498],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5319","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-academia","category-authority-and-its-abdication"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5319","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5319"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5319\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5319"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5319"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5319"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}