In conditions of real injury, in which truth-telling is important, tale-weaving about irrelevant matters is worse than wasteful: it’s a misdirection from the significant to the insignificant. Three recent stories illustrate the critical difference between these approaches. As a truth-telling story, Hope Kirwan of Wisconsin Public Radio reports ‘Students Deserve To Be Heard’: UW-La Crosse…
University
Assault Awareness & Prevention, Education, Ethics, Law, Marketing, Misconduct, Negligence, Nepotism, Official Misconduct, Sexual Harassment, University
For UW-Whitewater’s Administration, Talking Points Won’t Be Enough
by JOHN ADAMS • • 9 Comments
Yesterday, I posted on The Marketing of Misinformation: UW-Whitewater’s Use of a Counterfeit ‘Campus Safety’ Study. Today, here is a look at some of the university administration’s talking points in response to long-standing acts of sexual harassment and assault on campus. (They’re from the new university chancellor’s recorded interview with a local newspaper.) From the video…
City, Education, Fact Checking, Marketing, Mendacity, Public Relations, University, UW System
The Marketing of Misinformation: UW-Whitewater’s Use of a Counterfeit ‘Campus Safety’ Study
by JOHN ADAMS • • 16 Comments
City, Culture, University
Integration of University and Community
by JOHN ADAMS • • 2 Comments
In Whitewater, where a campus of the UW System represents a majority of the city’s residents, the integration of campus and community is an obvious need. One thinks of this when reading Deborah and James Fallows, The Choices Facing Community Colleges. (These authors are describing two-year programs, not a comprehensive four-year program as with UW-Whitewater,…
Assault Awareness & Prevention, City, University
A New Chancellor (and a Fitting Russian Proverb)
by JOHN ADAMS • • Comments
One reads this morning, as might have been expected, that the UW System regents have named Dr. Dwight C. Watson to be the new chancellor of UW-Whitewater. These recent years have seen two failed chancellors at UW-Whitewater. One hopes, genuinely and truly, that Dr. Watson, now Provost and Vice President of Academic and Student Affairs…
Assault Awareness & Prevention, City, Culture, Negligence, Public Relations, Sexual Harassment, That Which Paved the Way, University, UW System
Beyond the Third Investigation
by JOHN ADAMS • • 4 Comments
Some weeks ago, I promised readers a copy of the third investigation report into sexual harassment on the UW-Whitewater campus. That report is linked at the bottom of this post. Read merely alone, the report describes gross intentional misconduct, gross negligence and moral indifference about harassment and assault, as well as separate matters of managerial…
Babbittry, City, Culture, Seven Deadly, University
Coming & Going Depend on Doing
by JOHN ADAMS • • Comments
Originally posted 5.3.19, updated 5.17.19. Although another candidate has withdrawn from the final pool of applicants for a new UW-Whitewater chancellor, conditions that led to the present (stretching over the last two chancellors’ tenure) matter more than the immediate and futile hope that a single appointment will overcome years of the wrong direction. Genuine change…
Assault Awareness & Prevention, City, Culture, Nepotism, Public Relations, Sexual Harassment, That Which Paved the Way, University, UW System
Third Investigation: ‘Up to 10 students, faculty report being harassed by former UW-Whitewater chancellor’s husband’
by JOHN ADAMS • • 5 Comments
Originally posted 4.19.19. One reads today, in a Good Friday records release from the UW System, that Up to 10 students, faculty report being harassed by former UW-Whitewater chancellor’s husband: An investigation into the husband of former University of Wisconsin-Whitewater Chancellor Beverly Kopper found that at least seven and up to 10 students or staff…
City, Enforcement, Government Spending, Laws/Regulations, Local Government, University
Scrounging Through the Junk Drawer
by JOHN ADAMS • • Comments
When UW-Whitewater’s enrollment was expanding, and so student housing was in demand, some residents opposed to more rental properties rushed to local government in a futile effort to hold back the student tide, through zoning or code enforcement. Now that there’s a worry that student enrollment is declining, and rental properties are less in demand,…
Assault Awareness & Prevention, Equality, Harassment, Misconduct, University, UW System
Negative Equality is No Virtue
by JOHN ADAMS • • 1 Comment
After UW-Whitewater’s chancellor, Beverly Kopper, resigned in December, faculty member JoEllen Burkholder objected that Kopper’s resignation would amount to a double standard: Some faculty members, such as women’s and gender studies professor JoEllen Burkholder, questioned the timing of Kopper’s resignation coming before the report’s release. Burkholder said she sees Kopper’s one-sentence resignation letter submitted to…
Assault Awareness & Prevention, City, Harassment, University
A Community Listening Session for a New Chancellor
by JOHN ADAMS • • 3 Comments
UW-Whitewater, a public university in Whitewater, Wisconsin, now seeks a new chancellor, and the selection committee recently held a community listening session to request suggestions about a new campus administrator. (However useful an invitation to a community listening session might be, it’s worth noting that observation, reflection, and commentary answer to a different – and…
Hunger, Marketing, Uncategorized, University
On a Campus with Genuine Hunger, ‘Hungry’ Shouldn’t be a Marketing Tool
by JOHN ADAMS • • 1 Comment
One reads in an announcement from Assistant Vice Chancellor Sara Kuhl (that’s her title, truly) that a marketing firm is looking for students’ opinions, and will provide a free lunch or dinner. They’ve got quite the hook: Wanted: Opinionated and hungry students In a place of genuine hunger, with students using an on-campus food pantry,…
Charity, City, Culture, Local Government, Poverty, School District, University
The Recent Cold
by JOHN ADAMS • • Comments
It’s been unseasonably cold in southeastern Wisconsin this week, and in Whitewater that presents a challenge for the disproportionately large number of impoverished residents (some of whom occasionally lack utilities, even at the most unfavorable times). The three large public institutions in the city – municipal government, school district, and public university – have collectively dozens…
Assault Awareness & Prevention, City, Crime, Democrats, Harassment, Law, Misconduct, Republicans, Trump, University, UW System
Immoral (and Unnecessary) Compromises
by JOHN ADAMS • • Comments
There’s a certain kind of Republican who rationalizes Trump’s many vices because, well, Trump has nominated some conservative judges. (Hugh Hewitt, who’ll rationalize anything to keep a job on the Salem talk radio network comes to mind. See It’s the Supreme Court, stupid.) If there’s an equivalent of this, it’s a certain kind of Democrat…