Name the Faculty Club, Bub

What Should We Call the Faculty Club?


A little birdie told me that hierarchs of The Faculty Club would like to name The Faculty Club.  This, of course, perplexed me.  I thought "The Faculty Club" was the name of the establishment.  A plaque on Niwa House lists when "The Faculty Club" was established.  Moreover, "The Faculty Club" is a dandy name: somewhat accurate, elegant, and easy for faculty to pronounce.

Hence, my entry in the contest will be "The Faculty Club."  Gee, I hope I win!

I hope the contest is open to all present and future members of "The Faculty Club."  Maybe members of the staff could suggest "The Staff & Faculty Club."  Staff who would like the prize should put the faculty first.  "The Faculty & Staff Club," anyone?  Staff who seek an edge in the contest should keep faculty sensibilities in mind:
       "The Faculty & Staff Club" might do the trick.

Perhaps, however, the hierarchs meant a contest to rename "The Faculty Club."  If so, faculty and staff should follow the habits of the administration at the University of Puget Clowns (© Susan Resneck PieRce 1996):  Name the club and its major features after the highest bidder(s).

I reserve to myself the naming of the bar, for I lent it to the club.  However, I am open to offers to rent or lease the bar—with the bidders' funds going to me.

"The Faculty Club" as a whole might be renamed controversially—"Whitey's Place" would comment on the diversity of the faculty, for example—but I do not like the prospects of "Club Notochord" or "The 39 Stepfords" to triumph.

Now "Greene Acres" might have a chance.

Commencement Speaker Fallout

"Enhanced Commencement Techniques" was the winning comment.

In response to my 27 February 2013 post "Commencement Speaker," the best comment was that Dr. Zimbardo might speak on "Enhanced Commencement Techniques."  Nyuk!  Nyuk!

Will Dr. Zimbardo get an honorary degree?  He has a Ph. D. in Psychology.  Perhaps the university could bestow a degree in Criminal Studies.  If the university is so eager to soil its reputation, my duty is to help out.  Thus:  "Philip George Zimbardo is awarded a doctor of criminal studies dedeci causa nunc pro tunc ["awarded now on account of dishonor then]."


The University of Puget Clowns [© Susan Resneck Pierce  1996] -- no matter how cynical you get, you cannot catch up.

Commencement Speaker

Before I could delete a communiqué about commencement 2013, I saw that Dr. Philip B. [sic] Zimbardo would be the commencement speaker. The announcement noted among other accomplishments Professor Zimbardo's " ... groundbreaking research, The Stanford Prison Experiment."

I suppose the Stanford Prison Experiment could be called "groundbreaking."  I should prefer "heartbreaking," but why quibble?  To refresh your recollection of that experiment, please see 
http://www.prisonexp.org/ and/or http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sZwfNs1pqG0.

I'd like to host a list of the best responses to this announcement.  Please reply to this posting, anonymously if you wish, with your response(s).

For example, you could respond with snark:   "Springing Bernie Madoff [or Jerry Sandusky or Charlie Manson -- suit your taste or lack thereof] for our commencement would be difficult."

Or you might note that "Dr. Zimbardo probably paid UPS to be rehabilitated as commencement speaker."

Or be sanguine: "It won't be boring."

Or turn a lemon into lemonade: "It's great to hear from an inadvertent founder of Human Subjects committees."


What is your response to Philip George Zimbardo's speaking at graduation this year?

Lest We Forget Too Soon

Five or more colleagues hope that we each and all forget the Starr Chamber -- The "Professional" "Standards" Committee of 2003-2004.  I reprint the following post so that we do not let the worst Faculty Senate committee ever escape infamy into oblivion too quickly.

Wednesday, February 11, 2009

The St. Valentine's Day Massacre, 2007

On 14 February 2007, a mostly bygone Professional Standards Committee soiled itself over the slightest imaginable supervision by the Faculty Senate.



Lest we forget, two years ago the Professional Standards Committee from academic year 2003-2004 [hereinafter, the Professional Standards Committee will be abbreviated "PSC" and the PSC for the year 2003-2004 designated "the Starr Chamber" to commemorate the secrecy of their proceedings and decision-making and the inequity of their methods and reasoning] sent the Faculty Senate a mewling memorandum.

The Faculty Senate, by the barest of margins, had passed a resolution in which the Senate took responsibility for mistakes made by the Starr Chamber in its annus horribilis 2003-2004. The Senate, deciding to exercise oversight just to see what it might be like, had appointed an ad hoc committee to investigate recent PSC [mis]behavior and to make recommendations to prevent violations of the Faculty Code and due process in the future. That ad hoc committee produced no findings. I do not know whether to attribute the ad hoc committee's misprision to cowardice, collegiality, collusion, cunning, cleverness, or some other word beginning with "c." What I do know is that the ad hoc committee insulated the 2003-2004 PSC and insulted the Faculty Senate. When seven senators responded to the absence of findings by acknowledging the errors and misjudgments of the Starr Chamber, that was entirely too much for the Starr Chamber [and for its chronic, conniving apologists on the Faculty Senate].

The communiqué from the Starr Chamber was a marvel of haughtiness and misdirection. Having committed undeniable errors, the Starr Chamber, like mafiosi, pointed out that the Senate had not proved the errors. Even that subterfuge was not quite true. For one thing, senators had noted that the Starr Chamber had proceeded in very different ways to deal with two grievances, one in Fall 2003 and one in Spring 2004. When the Academic Dean, a member of the Starr Chamber, was the respondent regarding a grievance, he and the grievant received the report of the Starr Chamber at about the same time that the President received it. The Starr Chamber after the second grievance sent its report to the President but denied the report to the second grievant and to the second respondent. Logic dictated that at least one release had to be contrary to the Faculty Code, which had not changed in the interim. Senators therefore concluded that the Starr Chamber had committed at least one mistake.

Pesky, punctilious senators! Why can't they mind their own business? Why do they oversee the Starr Chamber when they could be banning Pass/Fail or addressing plagiarism? Don't they know with who [sic] they're messing?


The Senate had had noted other errors or irregularities that even the Starr Chamber could not have denied had members of the Starr Chamber deigned to speak with senators. It cannot be disputed that the Starr Chamber conducted the second grievance hearing more than fifteen days after it received the grievance from the Dean of the University. It is beyond dispute, therefore, that the Starr Chamber tarried past the Faculty Code's deadline. That was a first violation of the Faculty Code, a violation that one hopes was mistaken but may have been deliberate. To cover its mistake or misstep, the Starr Chamber "interpreted" the Faculty Code to set the deadline at fifteen working days, an interpretation that negated the mandate in the Faculty Code. That is a second incontrovertible error or evasion. It is not only beyond dispute but beyond belief that the Starr Chamber then blew by the "reinterpreted" fifteen working days -- a third incontestable violation of its duty. When the second grievance was eventually heard, one of the two claims advanced by the grievant was more than thirty working days in the past according to the grievant's own complaint. Despite the code's "statute of limitations," the Starr Chamber entertained that grievance. This fourth violation senators did not have to investigate or to prove; a calendar proved that nonfeasance or malfeasance.

Senators may be able to count, but they do not count. The Starr Chamber is far too important to be bothered with calendars or duties or instrumentalities of lesser beings, especially when the Starr Chamber dispenses justice and rights wrongs and picks favorites and follows decanal directions. Besides, for all outsiders know, the Starr Chamber interpreted thirty working days as thirty-three working days because thirty-three made a prettier number and allowed the grievance to be entertained.


The Valentine's Day greeting from the Starr Chamber to the Senate featured other deceptions. The most inept PSC in recent memory objected that the Senate had not carefully investigated mistakes. As noted above, the Senate's ad hoc committee had investigated mistakes and malfeasance, so the mistakes of the Starr Chamber were carefully investigated. Because that ad hoc committee issued no findings, neither senators nor members of the Starr Chamber could know what the ad hoc committee might have found. Senators knew that each member of the ad hoc committee admitted before the senators that he or she had discovered mistakes, however. The Starr Chamber phrasing was thus cunning but misleading. The Senate as a whole had not investigated, but the Senate's ad hoc committee had discovered that "mistakes were made."

"Mistakes were made!" That passive construction does not hide agents effectively enough. The Starr Chamber deserves greater camouflage. Maybe senate proceedings should be confidential.

The recklessness of the Starr Chamber in conducting its proceedings in 2003-2004 made the Starr Chamber's call for careful work ironic and amusing, not to say hypocritical. The hypocrisy followed: "In our opinion, the Senate passed its motion without exercising due process, without gathering evidence from all parties involved, and without assuring itself that it had received an impartial and complete account of events." Shall we peel this onion and weep at the double standards employed by Starr Chamber apologists?

• The Starr Chamber violated due process repeatedly in 2003-2004 beyond what I have listed above. For one thing, the Starr Chamber so constructed a list of charges that an accused colleague had to prove her innocence rather than the accusers having to prove her guilt. The Starr Chamber's product passes for due process but the Senate's motion does not?

• The Starr Chamber repeatedly insisted that a confidentiality found neither in the Faculty Code nor in the bylaws prevented them from speaking with the Senate about their activities despite the Senate's oversight capacity and duty. Hence, those who protested that evidence had not been gathered were themselves parties who refused to provide the evidence that they then said had not been accumulated. [Please consult the very first posting in "Rump Parliament" to see that two members of the Starr Chamber had explicitly informed the Faculty Senate that no member of the Starr Chamber would break confidentiality to speak to the senate or to its ad hoc committee.] Having obstructed the investigation, the Starr Chamber then protested that the investigation was incomplete. The effrontery of the Starr Chamber recalls the classic definition of chutzpah: A son kills his parents then demands mercy because he is an orphan.

• A final hypocrisy: the little information the Starr Chamber had released was partial and incomplete, not to mention every bit as misleading as the Starr Chamber's Valentine's Day memorandum.
  
  Let senators have their truth. The Starr Chamber will settle for arrogance and presumptuousness. All hail the Starr Chamber! The Few, the Proud, the Unelected Elect. By appointment to the Dean, Chief Privy Attendants!
  
  Had anyone with even the slightest common sense counseled veterans of the Starr Chamber, he or she would have noted that defensive over-reaction to the merest hint of oversight and accountability did not become the Starr Chamber. It did, however, show what the Starr Chamber had become.
  
  Senators are just jealous. Senators must work in open meetings and must account to faculty for their decisions and activities. The Starr Chamber, like President Dubya, answers to a Higher Power. It does not account for itself or its actions to ad hoc committees, to the Faculty Senate, or to hoi polloi. The Starr Chamber transcends mere faculty governance and accountability. The Starr Chamber rules!The Faculty Senate drools!
  
  
  Still, the 2006-2007 Senate weathered the whining duplicity and hypocrisy of the Starr Chamber. Thus, the Senate was steeled when the 2006-2007 PSC was found to have issued a major interpretation that it had sent forward neither to the Senate nor to the trustees. The Faculty Code requires the assent of the trustees to a major interpretation. It also requires that the Faculty Senate be notified of the interpretation. The PSC once again had ignored or forgotten elementary demands of the Faculty Code, just like the Starr Chamber.
  
  Faculty Code? Bylaws? Authority? Due Process? What were those to the Starr Chamber? What are those to any elect on a mission from God or the Dean, to cite a distinction of which the Starr Chamber proved incapable?