Monday, May 10, 2010

Low Rent

I have to agree with many people, including the Albuquerque Journal Editorial Board, that the action by a UNM professor in asking the UNM President to resign after the President awarded him a raise, new title, and a plaque honoring him is a strictly low rent thing to do.  He left the plaque and took the money and title.  We went to a large diverse dinner party yesterday and everyone agreed it showed little class.

It seems that the whole situation might have been a set up because the media never covers such honors awards at UNM.  The Journal had a reporter and photographer there who had probably been forewarned of the fireworks to be seen.  The Journal wisely chose not to make a front page article out of it.

I don't know if the faculty at UNM has lost it's common sense or just it's manners.  Academe, as my sister Carlota has pointed out to me many times, is often a mine field of back stabbing politics.  This time is was more like a shot between the eyes.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

"I don't know if the faculty at UNM has lost it's common sense or just it's manners"
In this sentence you conflate the actions of a single professor with a consensus of all faculty at UNM. I know that by acting so visibly, this professor risks such associations, but I do tend to expect more of you. When you make the faculty's common sense synonymous with this particular act, you do a great disservice to the many who work responsibly for improvement of the University.
More generally, by focusing on the lack of tact or class of a single participant, we risk confusing a mere issue of personality with the real and extensive conflicts at hand. The problems at UNM predate this debacle, and until substantive changes are made, they will continue.