The Few, The Proud, The Clowns

This week on Dancing with the Stars: the Puget Clowns do the Charlie Foxtrot.

¶

The plenary meeting of the faculty 19 April 2011 considered new forms for students to evaluate their courses and professors. Among the assembled faculty were

• colleagues who had worked on committees or subcommittees concerned with this issue,
• faculty senators who had consulted with colleagues and committees,
• surveys of the views of students and faculty, and
• others who had acquired thorough familiarity with existing forms and alternatives.

¶

But strains of "Entry of the Gladiators" http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_B0CyOAO8y0&feature=related lofted through Trimble Forum. The Puget Clowns barred grounded inquiry and systematic thinking soon enough. Familiarity with issues and outlooks, attention to detail, and comprehension of the range of interests and contexts disappeared as the Puget Clowns began to speculate and to parse, to grouse and to pontificate, and to posture and to preen.

¶

The faults, Dr. Brutus, lie less in our forms than in our faculty.

¶

The dean warned the assembled that the university invests in reams of forms, so tampering and tweaking are as costly as casual. This slowed down no Clown. I reminded the assembled and the dissemblers that nothing worthwhile was ever drafted on the fly at a plenary meeting of the faculty. Maybe the Clowns kept that in mind[less] as they proposed and disposed at bearkneck [sic] speed.

¶

Deliberation? We don't need no stinking deliberation!

¶

The Clowns plunged recklessly into ad hockery. The Clowns woorded [sic], reworded, and deworded with such brio that the Secretary of the Faculty had to ask one colleague -- a veteran of the Starr Chamber who flabbergasted the Faculty Senate in 2004 when she reported that the Professional Standards Committee interpreted the Faculty Code so often and so quickly that they had no time in which to write down PSC interpretations -- to slow down so that the changes could be recorded. I began to wonder whether my colleagues wrote their syllabi and constructed their courses with similar insouciance. I was thankful that, for most of those present, I need not worry whether they went about their research with similar patience and craft.

¶

Professional Growth? We don't need no stinking professional growth!

¶

As I emerged from the meeting -- "Recalled to Life" [Dickens] -- multiple colleagues who had voted in the affirmative asked me what had been decided. They knew not on what they had voted. Perhaps they had responded to the Chair of the Faculty Senate, who stated his hope that some cloture on this issue would be effected by the assembled. After that, the Chair informed us, we could always repair the evaluation forms over time. This remark, of course, echoed one of the most infamously fatuous remarks by a member of the Starr Chamber: Let's change the Faculty Code today so we can get it done; we always can fix mistakes later.

¶

What rot had the Clowns wrought?

¶

I assured them that nothing had been decided or done. The Clowns were the Clowns prior to the meeting; they remained Clowns in the meeting; the traveshamockery [Woody Allen] of faculty governance continued apace. The faculty made the faculty and the idea of faculty self-governance look bad again [and again and again]. Like drunks in a midnight choir [Leonard Cohen], colleagues testified to what they did not know and could not understand about their students' classes or concerns. And, of course, much of what the assembled endured spoke much more about the speakers than about their subjects [in either sense of "subject"].

¶

Other than to faculty self-governance the outcome made little difference. For here is the central fact that few in the meeting seemed to comprehend: The evaluation of faculty at the University of Puget Clowns suffers far more from shady, shaky interpretations by evaluators than from murky messages from undergraduates or from confusing wording on students' evaluative questionnaires.

¶

As we lose colleagues to departmental snipers and departmental sniping, the Puget Clowns debate the caliber of the slugs that inflict the best head shots and gut shots.

¶

Charlie Foxtrot!

¶

As members of the Faculty Advancement Committee [FAC] fabricate latent -- truly latent, as in "I wish I had not read the evaluations so that I might believe that what you are claiming was actually anywhere therein" -- designs in the students' evaluations to justify decisions on which they have settled for other reasons, the Puget Clowns debate nuances in wording items.

¶

Charlie Foxtrot!

¶

The presiding officer at faculty meetings accepts as a friendly amendment an emendation that is then debated for minutes and passed by voice vote.

¶

Charlie Foxtrot!

¶

Once again a plenary meeting of the faculty devolved into masterful misdirection.

http://ia700103.us.archive.org/13/items/BarnumAndBaileys/Barnum_and_Bailey.mp3

Quo Warranto?

By what authority did the Starr Chamber proceed?

My immediately previous entry in "Rump Parliament" -- for senior faculty, that is the blog you are presently reading -- recalled that the Professional Standards Committee of 2003-2004 [always designated "The Starr Chamber" in this blog but only sometimes "the Professional Standards Cult"] was the worst Faculty Senate committee in my nearly 25 years at this university.

Below I list some reasons why I single out The Starr Chamber for dishonor. I do not list all of the missteps and misprisions of the Starr Chamber below.

In each instance below, I ask whence The Starr Chamber derived its authority. I tried to ask members of the Starr Chamber directly and indirectly, but they spurned me repeatedly. The Senate tried to bring these renegades to account, but the renegades did not care to explain themselves and an ad hoc committee colluded with the renegades to cover up the Starr Chamber's record. On another ad hoc committee four senators courageously noted some of the Starr Chamber's shortcomings; the only answer on behalf of the Starr Chamber came from one senator who relentlessly defended the Starr Chamber as acting other authority higher than The Faculty Code. [This dogged, mulish defender did not specify what higher authority he was invoking. I guess that higher authority is confidential.]

My abbreviated list:

The Starr Chamber took over the evaluation of a member of the faculty and directed a departmental evaluation. Whence did The Starr Chamber get the authority to involve itself in any department’s evaluation?

The Starr Chamber set aside recommendations of a formal hearing board. What discernible authority in The Faculty Code or the by-laws permitted the Professional Standards Cult [PSC] such sway?

When the chair of the hearing board protested The Starr Chamber’s takeover of the evaluation, a member of the hearing board not only mocked his stammering but threatened any member of the hearing board who discussed the remedy directed by the hearing board with anyone except the Professional Standards Cult. Is "contempt of PSC" authorized somewhere aside from the febrile mind of this or that tyrant?

The Starr Chamber, informed that it was overruling a hearing board by inverting the remedies that the hearing board had directed, declared that the hearing board had expired the moment the hearing board issued its directives. Where does the code say that? Was this a formal interpretation? If so, why wasn't the Faculty Senate informed and why weren't the trustees asked to approve? Was this an informal interpretation?

The Starr Chamber declared the hearing board to have completed its work despite the fact that the hearing board had held no hearing. The Faculty Code prescribes that hearing boards conduct hearings before making determinations and directing remedies. The Starr Chamber overruled The Faculty Code based on what higher authority?

Starr Chamber heard a formal grievance almost 60 days after that grievance reached the committee. The Faculty Code allows the PSC 15 days. The Starr Chamber overruled The Faculty Code based on what authority?

The Starr Chamber “interpreted” The Faculty Code to demand that the PSC hear a formal grievance within 15 “working” days rather than the 15 days explicit in the code itself. The Starr Chamber reported this “interpretation” to no one – not the grievant, not the respondent, not The Faculty Senate. Square that with the bylaws or the code, if you will.

Having reinterpreted the code to excuse the tardiness of The Starr Chamber, the committee then convened the grievance hearing more than 15 working days after the committee had received the formal grievance. Yep! The Starr Chamber concocted "15 working days" to excuse the PSC's tardiness, then dallied past its re-imagined code. It seems that for some of its decisions, even the Starr Chamber could not imagine authority.

The Starr Chamber then entertained a grievance that the grievance itself showed to have exceeded the 30 working days allotted by the code. Quo warranto, tyranni et tyrannae?

Having decided against the grievant, The Starr Chamber then issued a report to the President that criticized and characterized the respondent harshly. The Faculty Code authorizes the PSC to condemn anyone whom it chooses?

The President shared the report of The Starr Chamber with grievant and respondent because The Starr Chamber decided that The Faculty Code did not permit or allow The Starr Chamber to share its report with either party to the grievance. The Starr Chamber had shared its report immediately with grievant and respondent in a grievance earlier in that very academic year [2003-2004]. One or the other interpretation might be consistent with the code. It is hard to see how both could be. I am certain the fact that a member of the PSC was the respondent -- the person grieved -- in the first grievance had nothing to do with the differential treatment.

Has this list suggested one reason why the Professional Standards Cult had, over the years and the deans, invoked various sorts of confidentiality not to be found in The Faculty Code or elsewhere?

Do you now see why the staunchest senatorial defender of the Starr Chamber cited only double-secret authority higher than the code?

Did I just pose rhetorical questions?

Quo warranto? By what authority?

My Annual Salute to the 2003-2004 PSC -- The Starr Chamber

As malfeasant as the Academic Standards Committee was 2008-2010, the 2003-2004 Professional Standards Committee was worse.

Reading over my seven posts between 3 and 7 December 2010, you might believe that the Academic Standards Committee between Fall 2008 and Fall 2010 was the worst Faculty Senate committee in my 24.5 years at the University of Puget Clowns. To the best of my reckoning, the nadir for committees still belongs to a committee so malfeasant that it merited designation as “The Starr Chamber” after Kenneth Starr and the English court [“The Star Chamber” – one “r”] renowned for abusing its powers.

As is my annual custom, I salute the Starr Chamber -- the "Professional" "Standards" Committee between September 2003 and May 2004 -- as the worst Faculty Senate Committee of my time at the University.

I begin from an elementary distinction to console the Academic Standards Committee [hereinafter abbreviated ASC] that its performance 2008-2010 did not descend to the depth to which the Professional Standards Committee [hereinafter abbreviated PSC] sank:

The ASC 2008-2010 performed as abominably as it could, but supervision by faculty got in the ASC's way; the PSC 2003-2004 plummeted far deeper because faculty could not even learn what the PSC was doing, let alone stop the PSC's doings.

While the ASC ran amuck in academic years 2008-2009 and 2009-2010, the faculty voted down the impostures of the ASC. By contrast, the Starr Chamber was policed neither by the Faculty Senate nor the faculty as a whole and was directed [in fact if not in theory] by an administrator far more powerful, far more cunning, and far more compromised than any fixture on the ASC.

The ineptitude, inequity, and iniquities of the Starr Chamber were Homeric, so there is no shame in the ASC's falling short. I am certain that individual members of the ASC have sunk and will again sink to the inanity and insanity that individual members of the Starr Chamber sustained in 2003 or 2004. Still, a collective effort demands just the right combination of arrogation and anarchy to produce truly malign results.

I need not in this entry rehearse the missteps and mendacity of the Starr Chamber. My entries in this blog for 11 February 2009 and 9 February 2010 preserve acts and statements of buffoonery and buncombe to which most faculty cannot aspire or conspire. Even in those entries taken together, I did not detail all of the failings and double/multiple dealings of the Starr Chamber.

Even the limited record in this blog establishes, however, the degree to which the Starr Chamber parlayed nonfeasance with malfeasance, audacity with mendacity, and recklessness with fecklessness.

Of course, holdovers from the 2003-2004 PSC, having earned their dubious distinction, then characterized a hearing board as "rogue." Don't you admire colleagues who leave the Caps Lock on when they type hypocrisy?

Five veterans of the Starr Chamber still walk among us on campus, so watch out for them.

Moreover, as I noted in my entry for 5 December 2010 [Why Committees Go Rogue -- An Inventory of Hypotheses III] in 2008-2009 the ASC featured three Starr Chamber veterans.

For those three veterans, for all five holdovers, for the two emeriti, and for the single most malign force on this campus over my 24.5 years here, I pray:

Áve Manía, deduco pléna, Dóminium técum.

Malfeasant or Nonfeasant?

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



Lest we forget, three 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 misbehavior and to make recommendations to prevent violations of the Faculty Code and due process in the future. That ad hoc committee produced no findings, instead insulating the 2003-2004 PSC and insulting the Faculty Senate and faculty. 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.

This 2006 report was one of the most cunning or cowardly or contemptible or clumsy or clownish actions by a committee or subcommittee ever. Was that ad hoc committee truly malfeasant or merely nonfeasant? You make the call!

The resulting communiqué from the Starr Chamber was a marvel of haughtiness and misdirection. Having committed undeniable errors, the Starr Chamber claimed 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 then Academic Dean, himself 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 next grievance hearing 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.

Yes! By their own admission, the Starr Chamber erred once or twice in 2003-2004. Even the senators desperate to fend off any accountability had to admit this fact. Thus, the flimsy acknowledgment of the Faculty Senate merely stated a fact. Was the Starr Chamber in its disparaging the Faculty Senate flat-out malfeasant or merely nonfeasant? You make the call! Maybe you do not mind deceptions from the Starr Chamber. Maybe you expect no better.

The Senate had noted other errors or irregularities that the Starr Chamber could not have denied if the members of the Starr Chamber had spoken to senators or cooperated in any way. No one can dispute that the Starr Chamber conducted a 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 failed of the Faculty Code's explicit deadline.

That was a violation of the Faculty Code, a violation that one hopes was mistaken but may have been deliberate. No one may dispute that violation and argue in good faith. Was the Starr Chamber arguing in bad faith or was it that incompetent? You make the call!

To cover its misstep or mission, the Starr Chamber "interpreted" the Faculty Code to set the deadline at fifteen working days, an interpretation by which the Starr Chamber hoped to negate the mandate in the Faculty Code.

That was another violation of the Faculty Code. If the Starr Chamber believed they could substitute their own deadline for the code's deadline, they compounded their errors. If they knew that they had no authority to overrule the Faculty Code, they deliberately violated the code. Was the Starr Chamber mistaken or misbehaving? You make the call!

It is not only beyond dispute but beyond belief that the Starr Chamber then blew by the "reinterpreted" fifteen working days -- another incontestable violation of its duty. You read that last sentence right: the Starr Chamber disobeyed the explicit mandate of the code [15 days], "interpreted" that explicit mandate to excuse their disobedience [that is, they went to 15 "working" days as the new limit], than failed to hold the hearing within 15 working days.

Was this trifecta of violation merely three mistakes, as the Faculty Senate charitably proclaimed, or was it deliberate arrogation? The Starr Chamber should have thanked the Faculty Senate for calling flouting of authority error.

When the second grievance was eventually heard more than two months after it reached the Starr Chamber, one of the two claims advanced by the grievant turned out to have occurred more than 30 working days in the past according to the grievant's own complaint. That is correct! The Starr Chamber had delayed and delayed hearing a grievance that it could, if even one member of the Starr Chamber could or would have counted to 30, have dismissed in a timely manner. The Faculty Code limits grievances to 30 working days. Despite the code's "statute of limitations," the Starr Chamber at long last entertained that grievance.

Behold yet another violation that senators did not have to investigate or to prove; the grievant's complaint and a calendar proved the nonfeasance or malfeasance of the Starr Chamber.

The Valentine's Day greeting from the Starr Chamber to the Senate in 2007 teemed with still more deceptions. The most inept and/or feckless 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. The Starr Chamber phrasing was thus cunning and misleading in the extreme. The Senate as a whole had not investigated, but the Senate's ad hoc committee had discovered that "mistakes were made."

Was the Starr Chamber's clever phrasing malfeasant or nonfeasant? You make the call!

The recklessness of the Starr Chamber in conducting its proceedings in 2003-2004 made the Starr Chamber's call for careful work as amusing as it was hypocritical. The Starr Chamber then augmented its hypocrisy: "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 multiple standards deployed by the Starr Chamber and its 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 dared to write "due process" without fear that members' tongues would burst into flames?

Was the Starr Chamber's reference to "due process" malfeasant or nonfeasant? You make the call!

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 had 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. This effrontery of the Starr Chamber recalls the classic definition of chutzpah: A son kills his parents then demands mercy because he is an orphan.

Was the Starr Chamber more malfeasant than nonfeasant in claiming that the Faculty Senate did not consult all parties when the Starr Chamber itself refused to be consulted based on a fictitious confidentiality? You make the call!

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.

More malfeasant? More nonfeasant? You make the call!

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.

Malfeasant? Nonfeasant? Pathetic? Embarrassing? You make the call!

Still, the 2006-2007 Senate weathered the whining duplicity and abject 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.

So little genuine supervision or accountability so aggravated the Starr Chamber that I wonder what genuine, routine Senate supervision would do to such popinjays.

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?
  

Coming Next: "Live Blogging the Senate"