I got an e-mail from one of my co-workers in Thailand. She firstly hinted that there were some "serious" problems in my faculty. Again, curiosity always kills "a cat" like me, I asked her what were those so-called "problems"...
Her answers kicked me from the bed... I was fully awaken with surprises and disappointments. Personally, I'd never thought that the situations would negatively progress into this fashion.
My intention is that this school would be the only and last workplace of mine.... My loyalty has been lied here only, nowhere else.
My grim suggestions were made... I didn't expect that any of these would be implemented. However, these were my personal opinions upon the issue which I would be directly or indirectly involved sooner or later.
The following essay is my response to her kind e-mail;
First of all, I recalled our current dean's remarks when the president would like to promote him from his old position to the dean position; "That would kill me".
Secondly, I strongly suggest you to read 2 of my blogs one in Reflection Series (Opportunity Lost) and one in Professional Life (An Art of Saying No).
Thirdly, after you've read these two writings/silly talks (yet serious), you would find that my following comments are all about "my hypothetical suggestions". I have no intentions what-so-ever to "participate" in any of these administrative jobs/positions prematurely.
OK, here they are;
I believe that faculty members, all resources, supporting staffs, written goals, and money should be inter-connected to achieve our goals in this task of human resource development. This task is not for ourselves, nor our school legacy, nor our university. It's about something, something too abstract--- quality of our students... This quality should be able to sustain their ability to support themselves, their family, their community, and environments surrounding them where-ever they are or whatever they do for the rest of their natural lives.
If this was a common, simple, yet prime philosophical goal among us, the faculty members. We should get our major goals towards that direction.
From my outsider's point of view, first of all, we overtly utilize our scarce manpower into administrative jobs/positions. If I could do something, I would;
1) Cut the number of associate/deputy dean down to 2 positions; deputy dean in research affairs and deputy dean in educational affairs. Smacking down deputy dean in admin. and student affairs. Yet, the dean and someone in the main office would take responsibity/jobs from assoc. dean in admin. While deputy dean in educational affairs took care of the remainder from assoc. dean in student affairs.
By this, we saved two faculty members and some money from their positions. Both of them could contribute themselves into academic-related works. (don't forget to pull and drag (if necessary) those guys in the President's Office to join the club!!--- if the enjoyed to work there permanently, to be fair with the faculty, the President should allocate more budget/money for the "missing" manpower).
2) Promote the faculty to a research-based school. At the end of the day, I would like to see all of the faculty members succeeded in their professional career. Teaching alone would never achieve this goal. Anyway, didactic lecturing and undergrad workloads would be supported at the same levels. Budget and other kinds of supports must be allocated for this.
Money, money, and money.... and a wise yet efficient administrative approach would be the only way to make these materialized.
We need more money to do research and our researchers/faculty members need more time in proposal writing/grant hunting/working in the lab, but they had to teach. evaluate, and so on.
Money from the federal budget and money from research funding would be spent for; -Offering more scholarships (including stipend) for graduate students -Offering more tutor jobs for 5th- and 6th-year students This extra-manpower would be allocated to help the faculty members out while they were hunting for external funding.
3) Promotional consideration must be based solely upon measurable academic productivity of the faculty members. We could not allow (or afford), any person whose got lower productivity to have more benefit than those whose got higher productivity. But, at the end of the day, those hard workers only would be promoted to full professor position, anyway. So, in short, the admin must support hardworking people in short, intermediate, and long run in their careers.
These would be the first three comments that I would like to give... There might be more than these... but, at hands, I think these are the most important elements to attain the goals in human resource development for our country.
The next dean?
I don't mind a person from outside.... I don't think that any of us was qualified (in my standard) yet. If any, he should be Mr. ABC. Others should do their academic jobs until they've achieved the highest level in our career before thinking about this dean position! :)
Have a nice weekend, A.T.
P.S. This is not confidential statement.Thus you may share it to anyone... I don't care about what people would think of me before or after they read these sincere comments of mine. If there are more people asking me about this situation, my comments will be the same anyway. =================================================
================================= Note: My life has been intertwined with works and many others. New responsibility has emerged, resulting less and less time for my ordinary life. Although, a love to write is still intact... But having less time is related to having less imagination.... Therefore, I could not come up with new writings for quite some times.
It might be a good time for me to leave this forum for moment.... Please take it as Mr. A.T. is having a sabbactatical leave or something like that....
As noted above, my love to write is still the same... and will not be changed. Sometimes somehow, I hope I could come back and give some thoughts in this blog once more.
Cheers, Mr. A.T. June 6th, 2008
=================================
Hello,
My pen-name in Pantip is amatuer translator. Actually, I'm a lousy translator with lame translation. My pen-name is somewhat misleading, I have no background in linguistics what-so-ever. Anyway I love to read, write and communicate with people...
Reading is my most favorite hobby. I read everything from shopping bags to articles in theoretical physics. I do research and teaching for my living. So, reading, writing, thinking and doing research works are my everyday routine.
I would like to define myself as a person who is accepting new ideas and adopting those into my way of life.
I believe in power of knowledge/education. I think every society can be a better society with knowledge. Ignorance can be dispelled by it. Humanity can live sustainably and harmoniously with each other along with its biosphere with understandings in the nature surrounding it.
Apart from my philosophical thoughts reflecting who I am, I can tell you something I like or love in particular;
I love dogs.... Particularly, labradore retrievers.... One day, I would like to spend my time and life with them as a big part of my family.
Zhuge Liang is my hero. With his wisdom and faithfulness, he led a tiny army to a mighty and formidable kingdom. He left his humble residence with a hope to come back. But, sadly, he had never returned and died far far away from home in a horse carriage in a battle field. If I could choose where I would, I would say where-ever my lovely wife was nearby.
I value happiness and my family as my first priority. My profession and my philosophy come in the second. Pursuit in wealth has never been in my desire.
I'm glad to be your friend, and look forward to seeing you around krub.
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