posted February 28, 2002 11:19 AM            

I am also attending a meeting with the faculty members tomorrow morning to discuss issues related to the MBA program and services offered, among other topics that will be discussed. I will have more news and updates to all of you tomorrow night regarding these issues.

Again, PLEASE make sure you attend this event. It is rather important to come together at this time and hear the words from the sources invovled in the current events, instead of spreading rumors or unnecessary panic. Things like this will get out of hand and this is for sure not in the interest on anyone at Medaille, faculty, admin. or students.

I look forward to seeing you tomorrow night at 6. Remember to , please, prepare any questions you might wish to ask Dr. Savarese or the faculty members who will attend. If you have any questions or concerns please feel free to call me at 316 - 3791. Please do not listen or respond to any rumors until we meet tomorrow night and have the opportunity to talk with and hear Dr. Savarese's words.

Have a good day all. See you tomorrow.

Amr Abbas

[This message has been edited by King Tut (edited February 28, 2002).]

posted February 28, 2002 06:31 PM            

Shiela and any other MBA student: there is no need to get personal. I will not respond to any personal or childish attacks because it is so uncivilized to do so. You all have my cell number which I posted many times, whether here or in classes, and you got my email. If you had any questions all you had to do is call or email me. For those who do not have this info, my number is 316 - 3791 and email is : kingtut101973@aol.com

Please feel free to contact me should you have any concern or question. There is no need to get personal. We are NOT hiding. I am aware of what is going on, attended the AAUP meetign last week, in constant contact with Doug Anderson, attending a faculty meeting tomorrow morning to discuss the events and other MBA related issues and also invited Dr. Savareses to come to our event so that we would have the chance to answer our questions.
So, obviously, the MBASO is not hiding away in the dark. We have been involved yet very few students responded to our calls, emails or invitations to our events. I am sure we could do better with more support and involvement from the students. So, if you have ANY questions or concerns please call me anytime, it does not matter how late it is. You all had my email address and I never closed any doors for communication, or not responded to anyone of you who had a concern.

I look forward to hearing from you and seeing you tomorrow night. PLEASE be prepared with questions to the faculty and Dr. Savarese. No need to be afraid to ask questions, and if you are concerned about asking your questions then give them to me I will ask them on your behalf. We are students as well, please do not forget this simple fact. Your concerns are ours, we do not have a different agenda or goals than any other student at Medaille!

Enjoy your night.

posted March 01, 2002 10:26 PM            

No MBA student came to us and requested to meet with the admin. or to resolve an issue with a professor has been let down by the SO. There is no need to claim that the SO or myself are not aware of what is going on at Medaille now. If anyone is interested in finding out what the SO has done since the article hit the papers please email or call me and I will be more than happy to detail out what I have done on behalf of the MBASO since last week when the events occured. The last thing I did today was personally inviting Dr. Savarese to our event tonight to come and answer your questions, and he kindly accepted and came and spoke. So the SO did something else by bringing one from the Admin. to speak and answer questions and whether you were satisfied by his answers or not it is your own opinion. The point is the SO did what it's supposed to do and brought you and the MBA students the opportunity to speak with Dr. Savarese and ask him anything you wanted. I did not see any other individuals at Medaille succeeding at presenting the admin.'s opinion or bringing them to us as we, the SO, have tonight. So obviously we are active and we have been since the article hit the papers.

Finally, the claim that the SO has been inactive is totally false and not supported because the SO could present anyone with evidence (students) who had concerns and approached the SO and we facilitated meetings with the admin. and/or faculty. Again, if anyone is interested in knowing what did we do since the events occured please email or call me and there is nothing to hide from you. If certain individuals (not pointing out specifically) have interests in presenting and claiming a bad image about the MBASO then I have nothing to tell them because I am not in the business of managing kinder garten or he said she said games. This weekend and Monday I am meeting with more faculty members on a one on one basis to get more facts from them. We know what we did and doing and we could support it, as simple as that.

Claims should end up here. The MBASO has done its job since the events occured and before within the information and capabilities provided to us, as well as the students' participation. Again, we are students before anything else. We have the same concerns and goals like any other MBA student at medaille. We do not have a different agenda than yours. Being divided or running after personal interests or personal claims will not help our case as students. We need to come together and act like MBA students, adults, not kinder garten because all of us are respectful and responsible adults. It is easy for anyone to claim that the SO did nothing for the students or has been inactive than to support these claims. We do not want to just talk. We want to give you the best service that you deserve, as simple as that, which I hope you saw last night we did by finally and successfully bringing Dr. Savarese to address us and hear the admin.'s opinion.

Have a good night all. Please email or call me should you have anymore concerns or questions.

[This message has been edited by King Tut (edited March 02, 2002).]

posted March 01, 2002 10:57 PM            

All students, alumni and faculty/staff are all welcome to join us when we next meet this Sunday (see below).

The primary issue to be addressed at this time has become preparing for the Medaille presidential candidates arriving at the school for all of us to review and comment on this week. Click on the link below for dates and times. There will be comment forms for all attending to fill out. A school Trustee I’ve been in contact with has explained to me that each and every comment will be read and weighed before the final decision is made.
http://riccistreet.net/riccigreen/bistro/Forum22/HTML/000040.html

A second issue will be a discussion on tonight’s event with Dr. Savarese and the concerns of students, alumni, faculty and staff alike. I welcome each person’s perspective.

NEXT MEETING:

When: Sunday, 1pm til ???

Where: Second Floor lounge, Sullivan Student Center

I look forward to seeing you there.

-Christopher Gengo

posted March 02, 2002 08:36 AM            

I was not able to attend the last MBASO meeting for the preparation of this event due to working a bit late then having to study for a Calculus exam the following night. However, the rest of the officers did a perfect job. Thank you guys for planning this out.

I would also like to thank Dr. Savarese for accepting my invitation and coming to last night's event and answering our questions. Whether we agreed with what he said or not, at least he gave us the respect and came and addressed us as he did. Thank you Chris Gengo for coming and speaking.

Overall, I believe the night went well. It was a collaborative effort from all the MBASO officers and the students that made it a success. We had a very good turn out.

I hope to see you Sunday at 1. Till then, enjoy your weekend.

posted March 02, 2002 08:50 AM            

Your feedback is rather important. Please let me know as soon as you can. Thank you.

Amr Abbas

posted March 04, 2002 12:52 AM            

Here's the take away from Friday night:

When asked about the reputation the Medaille MBA graduates will have in the business community, we were told that the school had no bearing on our education but that we (students) were reflections upon the school. It's the same thing we've heard at points in our lives--it's not where you go but what you do with your education that matters.

When asked why certain faculty members are leaving, specifically Al Guffrieda, we were told it is because he wants to go to a school that focuses more on research (this is contrary to what we have been told by various faculty members).

When asked about the AAUP and why the College didn't abide the "due process" rules as set forth in the faculty contracts, we were told that the College does not recognize the AAUP's guidelines. Further to this was that we were told that the faculty should be well aware of this "fact". However, this does not appear to be correct since the AAUP guidelines are worked into the contracts.

The basic sense that we seemed to have gotten from the evening was that Dr. Savarese was trying very hard to be a mediator. He was very welcoming of the students' questions, although we somehow felt that we didn't get any actual answers. What we did get out of it was more along the lines of what wasn't said. It appears that the communication barrier that exists at the school currently is very much so a part of the current power structure.

I hope this will answer some of your questions. if there is anything additional, please let us know.

Thanks

posted March 04, 2002 10:36 AM           

He spoke at length about his life, his career, his vet practice, and his qualifications, about the difficulty of being dean, how he learned to be unpopular with faculty when he was a high school principal, and how he doesn't have much power even though people think he does. Just as the MBA program is new, so his vet program was once new, and people judged its reputation by its graduates more than by its faculty or the College's reputation.

Several times, Dr. Savarese stated that academic freedom had nothing to do with the situation. Nor did the situation in turn affect the department, its chances for full accreditation, the faculty searches, or the quality of the students' education. It was strictly a personnel issue. He described what happened to the dismissed faculty in general, vague terms with no clear indication of what they actually did that was wrong enough to get fired. In administering the personnel policy, he and the president had made sure they scrupulously followed every bit of the faculty handbook.

When asked about why the three MBA faculty are leaving .... Al Guiffrida is leaving because his career goals take him elsewhere. The other two are leaving because a body called the Tenure Promotion Committee, a jury of their peers, decided that they would no longer be at Medaille. Medaille, in fact, is often the training ground for faculty who get their PhD's and then move on to other types of institutions and lines of work.

AAUP American Association of University professors at aaup.org is a union trying to organize Medaille's faculty. They put out anonymous "fact sheets", which are really opinions, because they don't have the courage to stand up for what they say. Dr. Savarese said that AAUP enrollment is growing for one of two reasons: 1) unhappy faculty are joining in droves or 2) representatives of the overwhelming majority of faculty supportive of the acting presdient are joining so that as AAUP members they can outvote the unhappy ones. He made it very clear which reason he thought was obvious.

Dr. Savarese asked, "What is due process?" MBA SO President Amr Abbas answered with the AAUP idea that only faculty can make a tenured faculty and only faculty can unmake one. Dr. Savarese replied that the AAUP has a lot of idealistic principles that don't make sense in the real world. What they call due process is not what Medaille understands as due process, and Medaille isn't bound by the AAUP's definition. AAUP will censure Medaille and it wn't make any difference to accreditation or faculty recruitment. AAUP means well but they don't espouse practical, real-world principles.

Dr. Savarese said that the Bus Dept hasn't been run properly, which is why there's a new chair every semester. For example, courses aren't offered according to any plan. They are just thrown out there. Dr. Savarese is taking it upon himself to do a "degree audit" where there will finally be a reason to offer courses.

After Dr. Lillis was removed, there "wasn't anyone qualified to be chair" or something to that effect.

Accreditation is on-track and not a problem. Dr. Savarese went to an IACBE (International Association of Colleges of Business -- iacbe.org) outcomes assessment program, and he checks everything with the IACBE to make sure there won't be a problem.

Communication has been poor. Dr. Savarese agreed that the students don't learn about things they think they need to know. The program doesn't have an official director, but if students have problems, they go to Doug Anderson and he acts like the program director even though he isn't into job titles and "laurels". But in fact, Pat Johnson, as chair, can sign things and make decisions, etc. Doug told me that if he was really chair, that things would be very different.

The search committees are on-track. He recommended to the president that they get out the checkbook and pay top dollar for PhD's.