I have tried to be open minded about this, and I am always hesitant to take a position on something that I haven’t done all the homework on. I also agree with the point the president’s made that staff, students, and non-tenure-track faculty don’t have enough of a voice, so I’m open to changing what inclusive governance looks like at UK.

This doesn’t seem to me to be it, though. Even without having done all the homework, the president’s arguments don’t land for me, and I don’t see how removing the faculty’s voice gives staff and students more of a voice. Even when the president outlines issues that I can get on board with, the solutions don’t seem to fix those issues. I’m worried about what “nimbleness” might be a euphemism for, and I really don’t want to find out.

One of my favorite academic anecdotes to share in conference rooms and university hallways is for my dissertation defense, two of my committee members were there via telepresence robot. This is less impressive post-2020, when a lot of defenses happen entirely over Zoom, but it’s still different than an online-only defense, so the story still attracts some interest. At any rate, as good as I thought my story was, I got a real kick out of this bit in the prologue to Cory Doctorow’s Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom:

Need to read more on this before I fully understand what’s being proposed and what the consequences will be. I struggle, however, with the argument that reducing the power of faculty is somehow improving faculty governance.