Transparency State University

We haven't seen or heard from Interim Associate Provost Rasoul Saneifard since Provost Harris resigned in late June. He appeared to be MIA at the Opening Faculty meeting on August 18.  There haven't been any emails signed by Dr. Saneifard in a few weeks.  Rumors are that Provost Poats removed him from his position recently.    Perhaps Interim does not really mean permanent? https://transparencystate.blogspot.com/2021/05/does-interim-mean-permanent-at-tsu.html

With our President and Provost now replaced with new leadership, we now turn to our Deans of the 8 schools.   Rumblings are imminent that some or all of the Deans may be replaced very soon.  Anytime a new President enters a university, there are always administrative changes.    Which Dean will step down first?  Your vote matters!  http://www.quiz-maker.com/QB2ZJJT3A   Deans at TSU seem to have a very short career life span.  Our very first blog post discussed the newly appointed business school dean who stepped down after just 7 weeks in October 2018: https://transparencystate.blogspot.com/2018/10/the-case-of-disappeared-dean.html

Seems that the August 12 BOR meeting was suddenly postponed. No new date announced yet. But why postponed? 🤷🏽🤷🏽 The August meeting is possibly THE most important meeting of the year because of tenure & promotion decisions and the upcoming budget.  Is it possible our enrollment numbers have been so low that the administration needs to redo the budget  and meet later this week?  We wonder after having seen this TSU announcement sent yesterday seemingly begging for students to enroll..... The other fear is that our Texas Dems have fled to DC and our traditional belt of legislative budgetary support to fight for us isn't around and possibly the Republicans may cut our university budget even further.  While we heavily applaud our Texas Dems for standing up for our voting rights, it may have come at a much higher cost of our university allocations for the next 2 years.  If we needed that Austin money and we don't get it because our supporters are in DC, ...

We wonder.....now that Provost Harris has resigned as Provost and has left the university on some type of indefinite sabbatical.....where is he now?  Will he return to campus to teach?  https://transparencystate.blogspot.com/2021/06/the-provost-golden-parachute-bor.html Or perhaps, will he be teaching online unable to return to campus for the rest of his career due to rumors of inappropriate and unprofessional conduct as Provost with our male students and/or staff/faculty?   Recall that in 2020, we had 3 different Title IX directors on campus- that seems a lot of turnover even during a pandemic.  Rumors were that there were complaints by male students towards the Provost as well as several other HR complaints filed as to the unprofessional and vindictive attitude by the Provost towards faculty and staff.  Provost Harris was sued at PVAMU raising uncomfortable allegations about his working relationship with women:  https://www.leagle.com/decision/infdc...

Rumors are that the new President is not happy with SOPA Fundraising plans.  It seems that the new administration considers the SOPA Fundraiser competing directly with the President's rumored launch of a multi-year, multi-million dollar fundraising campaign expected to be announced very soon.  There was likely no coordination of fundraising efforts.  This confuses our alumni and donors.  Why would alumni donate twice to the same institution in the same year? We are not surprised by these rumors, considering that Dean Kieh subjectively interprets the faculty manual any way he wants to, so why bother to coordinate with the President's office?  After all, this is the same dean who subjectively removed 1 department chair (Dr. Adams), but kept on 2 others (Drs. Smith and Baker) even though the 2 year time limit in the faculty manual expired for everyone.   https://transparencystate.blogspot.com/2020/09/the-final-sopa-chairs-decision.html Meanwhile, Dean Ki...

Looks like Lonestar College will be competing with us for recruitment of students and plans to offer a 4 year bachelor's degree in Emergency Management which would directly compete against SOPA's EM program.  Lonestar already offers 3 bachelor degree programs, now expanded to 5.  SOPA's EM program has floundered with low enrollment for years and Lonestar may vanquish the EM program permanently. https://www.yourconroenews.com/neighborhood/moco/news/article/Lone-Star-College-set-to-expand-its-degree-program-16271976.php Still no word on any type of university-wide recruitment plan to increase our fall enrollment.  Rumors are that we are currently around 5,000 students but possibly 15%-20% have not made final payment, therefore those students may not actually attend.   We've had issues with enrollment in prior years, but usually by July we would have 6,500-7,000 enrolled students.  Certainly Covid has harmed our enrollment but other schools have moved more agg...