Let them apologize personally to the students and faculty who were harmed by ROBERT. Then we might be able to listen to the phrase “U of L” without gagging.

Perhaps the problem with Felner is that he let the sociopathy go to his head, and he thought he could get away with anything? If he had soft-pedaled it a bit and had not become such a public embarassment, he might still be at U of L.

Lots of academics are risk-takers. But leaving a tenure-track or tenured job most often isn’t a risk, it’s professional suicide. Depending on the field, many PhDs never even enter the academy and many others leave either by their choice or not. But I think most academics feel a stronger pull to the academy because their jobs are also their life’s work, in contrast to the push out of the academy because of strained labor relations, which they’re likely to find everywhere. So, we stay more for love of our current work than fear of getting a new job.

You write, “if academics were risk takers, there’d be no need for tenure.” Most of us aren’t risk takers, that is true. But for those of us who ARE risk takers, that’s exactly why we need tenure. There is another debate of course about the ways in which the pursuit of tenure drains the risk-taking out of people, so I acknowledge that tenure is far from all good.

It’s so refreshing to see the values of corporate America being emulated in the academic industry sector.

Despite misgivings, upper management will accept sociopathic behavior as long as it appears to be “progress.”

Sociopaths want you to be afraid — very afraid of them. They feed on fear. Fear glorifies and magnifies its objects.

The sociopath become leader. Just picture him as President of the US. (Or, as CEO of Oracle) — sociopaths can get things done quickly — but at enormous cost. Not even the tissue paper of a constitution threatens a CEO who is “increasing shareholder value.”

Why do such people remain in positions of authority? It takes moral courage to oppose them.

If academics were risk takers, there’d be no need for tenure.

bipolar2

Honestly–I bet most of his lowliest adjunct faculty would have had better judgment than that. In the age of camera phones, MySpace, and YouTube, college hijinx are 1) going to stay with youthful offenders forever in cyberspace, and 2) something that anyone in any position of authority or responsibility would do well to stay away from. So, my take is: dumb, dumb, dumb.

p.s. Did you like your birthday cake? (Scroll down to Sept. 1.)

I would be curious to hear your take on Iowa Central Community College President Robert Paxton getting run out of Fort Dodge. Here’s a guy who was trying to remove a miniature keg of Coors Light from a young woman’s face, trying to help fix the tap on it, trying to do the right thing, and the next thing you know he’s out of a job. Where’s the justice there?