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University of Akron president is Dr. Scarborough


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Now it's reality check time. The anti-Tressel forces got their wish and the anti-Tressel candidate won. But the anti-Tressel voices on ZN.o never really made a case for Scott Scarborough. It was more like a modern political election where everyone just slings mud at their opponent. In fact, some of the strongest anti-Tressel forces on ZN.o lamented how weak the candidates were, and suggested UA deliberately went after weak candidates to ensure Tressel would win -- not exactly a compelling case for generating excitement about Dr. Scarborough.

When the three finalists were announced, I did a lot of internet searching to see what I could learn about the other two. I didn't find anything I would consider to be exceptional about Dr. Scarborough's accomplishments. I mentioned in a previous post that two consistent trends associated with his professional career have been cost-cutting and privatization of higher education. His sudden suspension and quick departure from DePaul University obviously raise a red flag. But the details were kept secret, so it's hard to judge exactly what went wrong there.

Unlike Dr. Proenza, it's hard to find a lot of love for Dr. Scarborough at Toledo. The Arts & Sciences College Forum, "UT's officially disapproved information source" where "criticisms of administrators are commonplace" offers many negative rants about Dr. Scarborough's performance there. So while I'm hoping for the best for UA, I'd feel better if someone could come up with some positives about Dr. Scarborough's past performance that would encourage optimism about UA's near future. As I said in my last post, I'm willing to give him a chance to prove himself. But I'd add that I'm not willing to give him a free pass just because he has a doctorate and his last name isn't Tressel.

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With all due respect to every one on this board, just for the sake of objectivity:

- When the faculty at UA voice concerns about Tressel becoming a president, no one should listen to those "whiners" and it is a good thing Tressel is coming to set them straight. But an anecdotal rumor about People at Toledo not liking Dr. Scarborough, that is a big strike against him?

- Cheating while doing your job for God knows how long and lying multiple times to NCAA investigators is a "bad judgement" mistake that we should overlook, but being suspended from a job for undisclosed reasons with no charges, no penalties of any sort is unforgivable?

You hit the nail on the head.

But, as GP1 pointed out, they may not be excusing those things away....they just simply act like they never happened.

Like I said previously, where would that kind of record get you when applying for ANY job at a typical employer?

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Now it's reality check time. The anti-Tressel forces got their wish and the anti-Tressel candidate won. But the anti-Tressel voices on ZN.o never really made a case for Scott Scarborough. It was more like a modern political election where everyone just slings mud at their opponent. In fact, some of the strongest anti-Tressel forces on ZN.o lamented how weak the candidates were, and suggested UA deliberately went after weak candidates to ensure Tressel would win -- not exactly a compelling case for generating excitement about Dr. Scarborough.

When the three finalists were announced, I did a lot of internet searching to see what I could learn about the other two. I didn't find anything I would consider to be exceptional about Dr. Scarborough's accomplishments. I mentioned in a previous post that two consistent trends associated with his professional career have been cost-cutting and privatization of higher education. His sudden suspension and quick departure from DePaul University obviously raise a red flag. But the details were kept secret, so it's hard to judge exactly what went wrong there.

Unlike Dr. Proenza, it's hard to find a lot of love for Dr. Scarborough at Toledo. The Arts & Sciences College Forum, "UT's officially disapproved information source" where "criticisms of administrators are commonplace" offers many negative rants about Dr. Scarborough's performance there. So while I'm hoping for the best for UA, I'd feel better if someone could come up with some positives about Dr. Scarborough's past performance that would encourage optimism about UA's near future. As I said in my last post, I'm willing to give him a chance to prove himself. But I'd add that I'm not willing to give him a free pass just because he has a doctorate and his last name isn't Tressel.

Well said. Haven't ready many positives about the guy. Seems like everyone's happy JT wasn't hired, not real excitement over Scarborough being hired. Hope he does well.

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Now it's reality check time. The anti-Tressel forces got their wish and the anti-Tressel candidate won. But the anti-Tressel voices on ZN.o never really made a case for Scott Scarborough. It was more like a modern political election where everyone just slings mud at their opponent. In fact, some of the strongest anti-Tressel forces on ZN.o lamented how weak the candidates were, and suggested UA deliberately went after weak candidates to ensure Tressel would win -- not exactly a compelling case for generating excitement about Dr. Scarborough.

When the three finalists were announced, I did a lot of internet searching to see what I could learn about the other two. I didn't find anything I would consider to be exceptional about Dr. Scarborough's accomplishments. I mentioned in a previous post that two consistent trends associated with his professional career have been cost-cutting and privatization of higher education. His sudden suspension and quick departure from DePaul University obviously raise a red flag. But the details were kept secret, so it's hard to judge exactly what went wrong there.

Unlike Dr. Proenza, it's hard to find a lot of love for Dr. Scarborough at Toledo. The Arts & Sciences College Forum, "UT's officially disapproved information source" where "criticisms of administrators are commonplace" offers many negative rants about Dr. Scarborough's performance there. So while I'm hoping for the best for UA, I'd feel better if someone could come up with some positives about Dr. Scarborough's past performance that would encourage optimism about UA's near future. As I said in my last post, I'm willing to give him a chance to prove himself. But I'd add that I'm not willing to give him a free pass just because he has a doctorate and his last name isn't Tressel.

At this point it's irrelavent of me to go over the specific reasons why I wanted Scarborough over Tressel, however I'll give you some context. The reasons go back to when the Resumes/letters of all candidates. Me and several other of my UA associates printed them off, read them, and ranked the candidates we thought were the best (top 5) and why we thought that. Among us there were common candidates, but we all had Scarborough listed as our top candidate.

For some reason I can't get a link to that info anymore from UA's website; but from what I remember we all selected him because his experience with STEM based programs seemed far above those of the rest. Of course we were relying on what could be research in our limited capacity, but the vast majority of his experience was in operating university functions much like what the "vision" here at UA supposedly is.

Comparing the two candidates, Tressel wasn't (in our opinion) in the same division, league, or (frankly) universe. Experience spoke loader to us then titles, and Tressel's "experience" was laughable. You cannot compare being the Vice-president of blah (I forget the made up title) to Executive Director of The University of Toledo Medical Center, and the respective duties that that entails. Not even in the same universe.

With the personal interaction I had with Jim Tressel, I was not impressed, in fact I was insulted. I conducted an interview with the CFO, Tressel was brought in...basically asked to show off for me and my colleague, where he talked about how "bright and great" students we were...which ate up the rest of the time we had for the interview. He also contributed nothing of substance to the discussion of how UA could get to a $14-million deficit.

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Sounds like a personal beef with JT.

I've still yet to see any great reasons why this guy will succeed. "Because he's not Tressel" isn't a great reason.

I'm also a little sad you didn't ask any of us to get into the presidential bracket challenge :lol:

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Jim Tressel apparently withdrew candidacy for University of Akron president after he was offered presidency at Youngstown State

On Thursday Tressel was offered the job at YSU after its board of trustees met for several hours, said Dan McCauley, a long-time resident and former adjunct professor.

McCauley said Friday he was told by several sources close to the search that Tressel met with his attorneys that afternoon and notified the University of Akron he was withdrawing his candidacy

.

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As I said earlier, people need to be where they're appreciated. Regardless of what the UA Trustees may have thought of Jim Tressel, apparently the professors and students prefer Dr. Scarborough. At YSU, JT apparently has support from the professors, students and management. He was really smart to withdraw his name at UA and take the job at YSU, where he can do his job without having to waste time on internal conflict.

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Scarbrough is Iannello 2.0

I get the same feeling that I got about Ianello when we first hired him. I remember being told to give him a chance, too.

Dr. Scarborough has zero personality to him, and I have a difficult time seeing him doing anything to actually further the institution. And in this environment, if you're not improving and adapting, you're getting left behind

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Homework time. History tells us that one of the things to look for with Dr. Scarborough is the introduction of UA to Academic Partnerships (aka Higher Ed Holdings), the Texas-based for-profit company on whose board of directors Dr. Scarborough once served. He was still on that board when he introduced DePaul University to Academic Partnerships. He did the same with UT after he landed in Toledo. Neither school still has a relationship with the company.

Academic Partnerships is the brainchild of Texas multi-millionare Randy Best, a big financial supporter of George W. Bush who made millions of dollars in profit from deals he got through the Bush administration related to the No Child Left Behind program. Having made all those millions on grade school programs, Best decided to go after higher education money with Academic Partnerships.

There are many national stories out there on this subject, so don't expect to get a full handle on it from a little casual reading. It would take some pretty serious research to understand all the nuances. But here are a few starter stories to get the ball rolling on becoming more familiar with at least a portion of Dr. Scarborough's philosophy on higher education:

ABC News story on how Randy Best made his first millions:

U.S. Reading Program Benefits Bush Friend

Texas Observer story on Higher Ed Holdings (with reference to Dr. Scarborough):

Randy Best Is Going to Save Texas’ Public Universities, Or Get Rich Trying

Forbes article on Randy Best (with reference to how Academic Partnerships is failing at Wright State University in Ohio):

No College Left Behind: Randy Best's Money-Making Mission To Save Higher Education

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Well now this is getting downright silly.

Really? Because you contend that employers (myself included) don't require their employees to be ethical, honest, and forthright? And they don't try to uncover flaws in those areas in someone's history?

Do you know that employers today even look at people's Facebook pages for any indication of a flaw in their character and behavior for the purpose of eliminating them from consideration if other candidates appear to be superior in those traits ?

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From Dave's second article:

Best contends that his model of online education benefits everyone. The schools win because enrollment spikes, bringing in more state funding—often as much as for students attending class on campus, even though online students cost less to educate. Students win because they can earn higher salaries with their degrees, which are cheaper and more convenient to earn online. “Partner” corporations such as hospitals and school districts often subsidize or cover their employees’ tuition and benefit from a better-educated workforce. Look at it this way, and it’s hard to see who loses.

Looks like UA figured out how to fill that budget gap.

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Good luck to new UA President Scott Scarborough. I hope he is ready for the challenges ahead. If past experience means anything, I would expect a lot of cuts are coming to UA.

Good post. There will be and should be some cuts. Made in the right places, the University should greatly benefit. There also needs to be a realignment of priorities away from the building process and towards better research and education.

Best of luck to the new President.

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People need to be where they're appreciated, and it's evident that UA didn't appreciate Jim Tressel. YSU does, and he will feel welcome there and do a good job. If UA prefers Scott Scarborough, then I'm willing to give him a chance to prove himself. It will be interesting to track this over the coming years and see how UA does relative to YSU.

Are you assuming Tressel will be there long enough to warm his seat? His seat was lukewarm at best at Akron.

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Well said. Haven't ready many positives about the guy. Seems like everyone's happy JT wasn't hired, not real excitement over Scarborough being hired. Hope he does well.

You sum my opinion up. If memory serves me correct, Dr. Proenza was a bit of a nobody at the time of his arrival at Akron and think he would get an "A" for his performance.

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As I said earlier, people need to be where they're appreciated. Regardless of what the UA Trustees may have thought of Jim Tressel, apparently the professors and students prefer Dr. Scarborough. At YSU, JT apparently has support from the professors, students and management. He was really smart to withdraw his name at UA and take the job at YSU, where he can do his job without having to waste time on internal conflict.

Maybe desperate people do desperate things. Akron is not desperate. We have a solid foundation of professors producing well educated people.

One more thing. If little Jimmy felt under appreciated after Akron rolled out the red carpet for him, made him head of the Encouraging Department and threw an unusually large sum of money at him for Akron standards, then that's just too damn bad. He shouldn't let the door hit him in the ass on the way out. Maybe some of our Trustees who thought he was a good idea should get the Hell out as well.

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If little Jimmy felt under appreciated after Akron rolled out the red carpet for him, made him head of the Encouraging Department and threw an unusually large sum of money at him for Akron standards, then that's just too damn bad. He shouldn't let the door hit him in the ass on the way out. Maybe some of our Trustees who thought he was a good idea should get the Hell out as well.

I keep trying to point out the same thing. If this is the definition of being "underappreciated", I would LOVE to be underappreciated myself.

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At this point it's irrelavent of me to go over the specific reasons why I wanted Scarborough over Tressel, however I'll give you some context. The reasons go back to when the Resumes/letters of all candidates. Me and several other of my UA associates printed them off, read them, and ranked the candidates we thought were the best (top 5) and why we thought that. Among us there were common candidates, but we all had Scarborough listed as our top candidate.

For some reason I can't get a link to that info anymore from UA's website; but from what I remember we all selected him because his experience with STEM based programs seemed far above those of the rest. Of course we were relying on what could be research in our limited capacity, but the vast majority of his experience was in operating university functions much like what the "vision" here at UA supposedly is.

Comparing the two candidates, Tressel wasn't (in our opinion) in the same division, league, or (frankly) universe. Experience spoke loader to us then titles, and Tressel's "experience" was laughable. You cannot compare being the Vice-president of blah (I forget the made up title) to Executive Director of The University of Toledo Medical Center, and the respective duties that that entails. Not even in the same universe.

With the personal interaction I had with Jim Tressel, I was not impressed, in fact I was insulted. I conducted an interview with the CFO, Tressel was brought in...basically asked to show off for me and my colleague, where he talked about how "bright and great" students we were...which ate up the rest of the time we had for the interview. He also contributed nothing of substance to the discussion of how UA could get to a $14-million deficit.

Fantastic post. The resume comparison was right on. The only thing that got Tressel as far as he did was his name. The resume was a joke. Shame on the incompetents who allowed him to get as far as he did and risking national embarrassment for UofA.
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