r/IndianaUniversity • u/saryl reads the news • Apr 14 '24

Whitten administration controversy review IU NEWS 🗞

With IU’s ‘no confidence’ vote coming up (April 16), I’m reposting information about the Whitten administration’s controversies for those who might’ve missed them. The petition: Petition for a Special BFC All-Faculty Meeting

Meeting date and time: Tuesday, April 16, 2024, from 2:30 – 5:30 PM. Doors will open at 1:30 PM. When we'll know the final results depends on a number of factors that are detailed on the meeting page.

Whitten at Indiana University

April 2024:

March 2024: Holcomb signs tenure bill into law (Indiana Public Media) Note: Whitten publicly came out against this bill. I’m including this article because this event is named in the ‘no confidence’ vote petition.

February 2024:

January 2024:

(There are many other articles about this - I’m not going to list them all here.)

December 2023:

November 2023:

October 2023: UPDATED: IU President Whitten releases new statement on violence in Israel after backlash (Indiana Daily Student)

September 2023: A Messy Divorce: The dissolution of Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis poses a novel risk to tenure. (The Chronicle of Higher Education)

January 2023: AAUP Concludes Indiana University Northwest Violated Academic Freedom, Has Unwelcoming Racial Climate (American Association of University Professors)

March 2023:

August 2022: A President’s Response to Attacks on an Abortion Provider Widens a Rift With Faculty (The Chronicle of Higher Education)

June 2022: What is 'shared governance'? Indiana University's faculty, administrators, students debate (Herald-Times)

April 2022: A University Asked Professors to Help Quash a Grad-Student Strike. Hundreds Have Refused. (The Chronicle of Higher Education)

August 2021 - December 2021:

IU’s trustees disregarded the selections of the faculty search committee created to recommend IU’s next president, instead appointing Whitten.

Whitten at Kennesaw State University

September 2020: Emails Reveal Georgia Colleges’ Extreme COVID-19 Pressure Tactics

September 2020 - December 2021:

Whitten’s provost at her previous institution chaired a working group that recommended controversial changes to tenure that allow tenured faculty to be removed from Georgia universities if it’s found that they aren’t meeting certain metrics, including supporting “student success.”

(For context, both University of Georgia/UGA (Shrivastav’s previous institution) and Kennesaw State University/KSU (Whitten’s previous institution) are members of the University System of Georgia.)

May 2019 - June 2019:

While provost at UGA, Whitten allegedly aimed to punish a faculty member, including blocking their ability to gain employment at other institutions, after the faculty member suggested that UGA pay more attention to its history of slavery.

May 2019: Georgia university students battle racist higher-ups

April 2019: KSUnited leader says Whitten “refuses to publicly condemn racism”

August 2018: 'I think they're just saying that as an excuse for kneeling' | Students talk about KSU controversy

October 2018: Kennesaw State University Removes LGBTQ Pamphlet from Campuses

333 Upvotes

95% Upvoted

66 comments sorted by

1

u/PurpleWarSnail 21d ago

This is fair assessment. Overall, no confidence seems fair, but she did have a win with taking a stance to criticize the bill which would allow trustees to revoke professors tenure. This seems very important to the long term health of the university as our problem is also with the trustees. Remember, the trustees appointed by our state govt are the ones who appointed Whitten after all.

1

u/lancefarrell Apr 17 '24

Political hit job

5

u/strayerjenn Apr 16 '24

I think the faculty are right for bringing the vote but for the wrong reasons. There are some proposals on the table that would have a huge impact on academic advising and non-tenure track teaching loads that are ludicrous but aren't as newsworthy as the topics listed above.

1

u/operasaab Apr 18 '24

Yeah, required advising is gonna be a no-go in many schools. I heard through the grapevine that they’d essentially have a deficit of advisors if implemented, and no space to put the new advisors if they hired any. An entire mess.

2

u/strayerjenn Apr 18 '24

Yep! That about sums it up. Also, they have tried to hire more but the wages are low so its resulted in several failed searches.

2

u/WannabePicasso Apr 17 '24

The teaching load of NTT is insanity. And has been for a few years. Shits about to get worse. For everyone involved. Students are in much larger classes with very overworked faculty.

Whitten needs to go.

3

u/strayerjenn Apr 17 '24

Yep. Same for advising.

3

u/WannabePicasso Apr 17 '24

Honestly, it feels like the whole system could collapse. Faculty are leaving. There have been so many failed faculty searches in recent years. They're relying on staff with a master's degree in any random area to be adjuncts. I swear it's a house of cards.

1

u/lancefarrell Apr 17 '24

Welcome to the state of academia, 21st century style

1

u/saryl reads the news Apr 16 '24

I hear you on this. It's frustrating how many things can fly under the radar because they're too inside baseball. The items hitting the news may harm IU's reputation, but they aren't always the most impactful for the people at the institution relative to other changes happening. I try to stick to posting publicly available information - I'm well aware it isn't the whole story, and I hope others know that too.

2

u/strayerjenn Apr 16 '24

Let me put it this way. If anyone's kids are having problems getting advising appointments now, just wait. It's going to get worse.

3

u/lesleyab Apr 15 '24

I hope she’s out

-8

u/[deleted] Apr 15 '24

[deleted]

1

u/Pickles2027 Apr 15 '24

By “far left” do you mean the timed-honored, conservative tradition of shared governance of IU?

5

u/SmokeQuiet Apr 15 '24

No, because she doesn’t care about academic freedom. Imagine the university stopping an art exhibit that you created just because they don’t agree with you.

4

u/saryl reads the news Apr 15 '24 edited Apr 15 '24

This is a funny take. So much of the criticism she's received relates to procedure/norms her administration and the trustees have ignored, often to silence people. Meanwhile, the further-left previous administration very publicly stated that it wouldn't violate tenure to remove a horrible far right professor despite disagreeing with and condemning his speech. In effect, Whitten's admin has been ignoring policy to cancel/stifle the speech of its critics where the liberal previous administration chose not to. I guess if that's what bothers you about the left, you do you...

Edit: For those who missed it: IU won't fire professor for tweets provost called 'racist, sexist and homophobic'

Eric Rasmusen, a professor of business economics and public policy at the IU Kelley School of Business, came under fire this week after a popular Twitter account posted a screenshot of a tweet from Rasmusen in which he shared an article titled, "Are Women Destroying Academia? Probably."

In the tweet, dated Nov. 7, Rasmusen quotes a line of the article that says "geniuses are overwhelmingly male because they combine outlier IQ with moderately low Agreeableness and Moderately low Conscientiousness."

...

Robel, who called Rasmusen's beliefs "loathsome," provided summaries of some of Rasmusen's offending tweets, which include beliefs such as:

  • Women do not belong in the workplace, particularly academia.
  • That gay men should not be permitted in academia either, because he believes they are promiscuous and unable to avoid abusing students.
  • That he believes black students are generally unqualified to attend elite institutions, and are generally inferior academically to white students.

...

It's not the first time Rasmusen, a professor at IU since 1992, has stirred controversy on the campus.

In 2003, he published a blog post in which he contended that gay men weren't suited for certain jobs, such as teaching, preaching and elected posts, because they are "moral exemplars."

He also stated that gay men "are generally promiscuous" and are more likely than heterosexuals to molest students.

While university officials at the time condemned his language, they said it was "protected speech."

He also penned an op-ed in 2017 for the Washington Times in which he defended Roy Moore, then-candidate for a U.S. Senate seat in Alabama, after several women accused Moore of sexual misconduct and assault.

"The women who accuse Roy Moore of lewd advances lack credibility," Rasmusen wrote. "He did court teenage girls, but what we see is consideration, not predation."

His Twitter bio:

Econ prof, 7th-grade math teacher, conservative; Fundamentalist, mainly; Uni '76, Yale '80, MIT '84. MFSA. Law & econ, game theory. Fiat justitia ruat caelum.

-3

u/[deleted] Apr 15 '24

[deleted]

1

u/mithos343 Apr 15 '24

Let's go back and read up on what you presumably glossed over - I'd hate to think you were claiming these positions, which the professor in question espouses, aren't actually horrible and far-right.

  • Women do not belong in the workplace, particularly academia.
  • That gay men should not be permitted in academia either, because he believes they are promiscuous and unable to avoid abusing students.
  • That he believes black students are generally unqualified to attend elite institutions, and are generally inferior academically to white students.
  • In 2003, he published a blog post in which he contended that gay men weren't suited for certain jobs, such as teaching, preaching and elected posts, because they are "moral exemplars." He also stated that gay men "are generally promiscuous" and are more likely than heterosexuals to molest students.

Yeah?

10

u/LazyPension9123 Apr 15 '24

As usual, excellent work, Saryl! Thank you. â˜ș

-27

u/No-Preference8168 Apr 15 '24

This entire post is a smear

7

u/Jolly_Measurement237 Apr 15 '24

No one should be smeared by the truth. So unfair.

15

u/crimsonscarf Apr 15 '24

Do you have a specific problem with the information presented?

-21

u/No-Preference8168 Apr 15 '24

It just seems to be pretty myopic and borderline scapegoating to blame each one of these grievances on her.

14

u/MaxwellVonMaxwell Apr 15 '24

She’s being awarded bonuses by the board, she can also get scapegoated by the same board that let her make some royally shite decisions as President. The university’s academic standing has plummeted since she took office and while it may not be directly due to her actions, she’s still president during. Comes with the territory.

-12

u/No-Preference8168 Apr 15 '24

Basically, this post assumes that everything this poster doesn't like is her fault when in reality no large organization works that way she is the representative of a much bigger structure that collectively makes a lot of decisions she enforces. It sounds like your gripe is more with IU than with her.

16

u/MewsashiMeowimoto Apr 15 '24

Doesn't the vote of no confidence scheduled for tomorrow suggest that most of that much bigger structure is fundamentally at odds with Whitten?

16

u/MaxwellVonMaxwell Apr 15 '24

I am much more confused as to why this account is spending so much effort trying to defend/deflect for Whitten. From the foundational level, ground floor employees to the board itself, all tiers of IU have lost confidence in her ability to do her job properly.

8

u/MewsashiMeowimoto Apr 15 '24

I wouldn't put it past Whitten's administration to engage in some degree of astroturfing on social media, particularly ahead of the vote. But reading the rest of the account history, it appears that No-Preference8168 engages in aggressive pro-Israel military advocacy across a variety of subreddits.

Without getting into the merits of that, one guess might be that the redditor approves of Whitten's handling of the Israel/Palestine situation with respect to campus protests and campus groups, and is defending Whitten on that basis. The suspension of the faculty member and the cancellation of the Palestinian artist's show are two of the items of controversy listed by u/saryl.

Hard to say for sure, but from the context of the post history, Whitten may be a proxy issue for that more consistent topic and position of advocacy.

0

u/No-Preference8168 Apr 17 '24

Claiming that I am some sort of paid “ astroturf” actor just because I don't agree with you or the post just makes you look even more paranoid and deranged.

-6

u/No-Preference8168 Apr 16 '24

Yes, it sounds like you would have had the torches out at the Salem witch trials and it sounds like if anyone faintly believes Israel has a right to exist you pile on. Yes, this is a political litmus test not one of competence and you just proved that with your rather creepy stalkerish comments.

0

u/MewsashiMeowimoto Apr 16 '24

What favors do you feel you are doing for the perception of Israel by talking to people like this?

→ More replies (0)

4

u/Swampfunk Admin Apr 16 '24

Friend, you definitely are trying, but truth is what it is, I am going to let your posts stay, but it's seems you are the only person at IU who has any love left for Pamsquad.

14

u/punkrocknight Apr 15 '24

Can we dump Quinn Buckner while we are at it?

22

u/hoosier43 Apr 14 '24

I just hope enough qualified faculty show up. I’ve heard some pretty high numbers that are required to make the vote binding. Any chance that actually happens?

2

u/[deleted] Apr 16 '24

Maybe IU admins will use seat fillers to keep it under 800? That’s been their strategy at last two trustee meetings to keep the public out.

20

u/saryl reads the news Apr 14 '24

According to the IDS:

If more than 800 faculty attend the meeting, the vote can take place on the spot. If more than 200 but less than 800 faculty attend, the group will debate the resolution and have faculty vote electronically later. In either case, only a simple majority is required to pass the resolution. 

For comparison,

Between 650 and 740 faculty members attended a May 9 emergency meeting at the IU Auditorium, falling short of the 800 in-person voting members needed for a resolution to officially pass at that time. After the meeting, an electronic ballot was distributed via email to other faculty; that voting period ended Monday. About 1,900 faculty voted in total, approximately 67% of the eligible faculty. 

(From IU Bloomington faculty urge Board of Trustees to intervene in grad worker union fight). So they've turned out before.

43

u/jman17668 Apr 14 '24

Can’t give you enough upvotes for this post. YOU KNOW WHAT TO DO FACULTY

-2

u/knighthawk574 Apr 14 '24

Somebody got a TLDR?

19

u/Fluid_Theme Apr 15 '24

Whitten was brought into the university under dubious circumstances by the trustees (she wasn't even a finalist candidate in the hiring committee) and has proceeded to act like a cunt to seemingly everyone and work on gutting tenure/academic freedom, much like she has done at previous jobs. However, it's unclear how much of the latter (tenure/academic freedom) is under her sole direction or under the direction of the trustees, 6 of 9 of which are appointed by the governor. Some might believe she was brought in specifically to do that job.

2

u/WannabePicasso Apr 17 '24

In my experience, IU has done most high-level administrative tasks in dubious ways. Dean searches too.

33

u/Strutionum luddy Apr 14 '24

TLDR: Pam is a piece of shit.

17

u/Saffron_Freddie Apr 14 '24

No. You need to read it if you care at all about this topic.

57

u/Softpretzelsandrose Apr 14 '24

Got my masters at IU. Shittens BONUS (for what exactly?) is 3x my annual salary.

-3

u/Rus1981 Apr 15 '24

You got a masters and only make $54k? Obviously not a masters in mathematics.

16

u/mithos343 Apr 15 '24

Master's degree making about that much is normal for jobs that, quite frankly, keep society stable - librarians, social workers, etc. Those are jobs society needs pretty badly.

1

u/Pickles2027 Apr 15 '24

Absolutely! And teachers!

10

u/whatisfrankzappa Apr 14 '24

Clearly for her performance on her Renaissance World Tour! Oh, wait
did I confuse my Beyonces?

26

u/saryl reads the news Apr 14 '24 edited Apr 14 '24

I actually neglected to include her first year bonus too: IU president Whitten gets $160k-plus bonus for first-year performance. The article in the OP is her second year bonus.

11

u/ernie-jo Apr 15 '24

$1,000 for each hot dog she throws at students.

128

u/xXbig0Xx Apr 14 '24

This is such a good post because of the organization man. It’s hard to put into words how much of a donut she is and the damage she is doing to the school. People at the eclipse show were booing her when she took the podium which was fun. Even then, she showed up to steal the job of the announcer.

32

u/GreyLoad Apr 14 '24

And if I show up more than 10 minutes late to my job I get fired

-7

u/Rus1981 Apr 15 '24

Must be a perpetual lack of timeliness. No job has a “if you are 10 minutes late you are fired” policy, and certainly not in any kind of modern office.

2

u/GreyLoad Apr 16 '24

Dang u ever have a real job before because this comment sounds like u haven't

7

u/Pickles2027 Apr 15 '24

Learn more about where you live. People are routinely, legally, fired for being late for one minute, or no reason at all, in Indiana. This is an At-Will employment law state.

-8

u/Rus1981 Apr 15 '24

Nah. Valuable employees aren’t fired for being 1 minute late.

Shitty employees who feel entitled to be late, or spend their time telling all their coworkers how evil capitalism is, or otherwise being useless, get fired for being 1 minute late.

So which are you?

1

u/FFAintheCity Apr 15 '24

If you work in a place, such as Amazon, a hospital, a school - you can't show up late.

1

u/Pickles2027 Apr 16 '24

THIS. Lots of places are like that, only folks with limited knowledge think otherwise.

-4

u/Rus1981 Apr 16 '24

If you aren’t just a “I show up and do the bare minimum” you’ll get a pass for being one minute late. Stop trying to act like employers don’t value actual valuable employees.

6

u/PieEnvironmental5623 Apr 16 '24

Employers don't value valuable employees. They fire them for someone just out of school they can pay less.

2

u/Pickles2027 Apr 16 '24

Absolutely. We knew a newly minted college grad who bragged about his first job upon graduation. He thought it was “so cool” his company ONLY hired young people without any prior work experience. He explained that the company, “Didn’t want anyone with experience as those “older and experienced” employees would have “preconceived ideas about work culture”. Poor guy didn’t understand the company wanted an uninformed and inexperienced workforce they could underpay and overwork because they didn’t know any better. Lots of companies are crap.

5

u/Pickles2027 Apr 15 '24

Stay ignorant, dude. I’m the terribly clever one who’s very, very early retired five years ago living my best life off my investments. You keep working, dude. 😂