Is there a general academic angst thread?

[paddington_bear]

Asking for a friend.  I don't know where this should go, so mods can delete or move it if they choose.

Paddington U. is in double-digit million dollar deficit. We have borrowed money from the state system (we're a state school, so that tells you what our funding is like). Our enrollment falls every year.  Last year our senate was going to propose a vote of no confidence for our president. She decided to retire.  We have an interim president this year and are supposedly beginning a search for a new one soon. We requested that someone from the state system send in a "team" to evaluate our problems. Our provost wanted to restructure, combining departments, recreating "schools," etc. (This was after our president tried to implement other cost-saving measures.) Many people didn't like the restructuring idea. Provost has just gotten a new job, so they're leaving. People who didn't like her will be happy. But I'm just waiting for all the complaints about  how, if she new she was leaving, why did she try to do all of this reorganizing? One of our deans retired, but because of the planned restructuring, they aren't going to be replaced. But if the architect of the reorganizing is leaving, maybe we'll need a dean after all?

I feel like everything is imploding. Or maybe this is all just normal? (Envisions that gif where the dog is typing - or something - and everything is ablaze behind him.) Regardless, I probably need to try harder to get out of here.

[mamselle]

I just posted to larryc's thread about administrative issues/credibility.

Smaller scale, (it's an NP with a strong academic side to it) but many similarities.

And I do the QuickBooks entries so I KNOW where we stand financially.

I'm doing very selective searching until the Board meeting in late October, then I'll be doing a full-out "get out of Dodge" scene.

No sense fiddling while (like the dog you describe) things are going up in flames around you.

M.

[downer]

Sympathies to you PB. Sounds stressful.

I'm not sure there is a general academic angst thread, but it might make sense to have one devoted to faculty and struggling and failing schools, given that so many are these days.

There are questions about tactics, politics, and faculty power when dealing with incompetent administrators and trustees.

There are also questions about when to panic, or at least, when to give up trying to save your school and focus on your Plan B.

There are BIG questions about what to tell students who ask whether you are sure the school will be there in the future.

And there are questions about how to stay sane when people around you are going mad.

[paddington_bear]

There are also questions about when to panic, or at least, when to give up trying to save your school and focus on your Plan B.

******

And there are questions about how to stay sane when people around you are going mad.

Definitely. I guess it's never too late to panic, but it's hard to know if/when it's too early. When enrollment in our department took a dip, a department colleague - who has since retired - said that these things are cyclical and enrollment will bounce back. Now that the campus enrollment continues to slide, the college-age population in our region is dwindling, and our retention rate is slipping as well, it's hard to tell whether we're in a wave that we just have to ride out, or if Paddington U. will at some point be non-existent. I did a very limited search last year, but should probably take a wider approach this year. I'd rather leave Paddington U.  because I want to rather than because I have to.