Transparency State University

Looks like several professors in the Schools of Public Affairs(SOPA), School of Education and Jones School of Business are possibly being targeted by their individual Deans and/or the Office of the Provost(?).  In at least one school- SOPA post-tenure rules were initially claimed to be approved by Interim Chair Majumdar but this appears to be incorrect and they have not been approved.   From: Majumdar, Sarmistha <Sarmistha.Majumdar@tsu.edu> Sent: Thursday, March 18, 2021 4:28 PM To: Adams, Michael O <Michael.Adams@tsu.edu>; Christophe, Antoinette <Antoinette.Christophe@tsu.edu>; Ewoh, Andrew <Andrew.Ewoh@tsu.edu>; Perez-Feliciano, Luis <Luis.Perez-Feliciano@tsu.edu>; Olonilua, Oluponmile O. <Oluponmile.Olonilua@tsu.edu>; Robinson, Carroll <Carroll.Robinson@tsu.edu> Cc: Kieh, George <George.Kieh@tsu.edu>; Majumdar, Sarmistha <Sarmistha.Majumdar@tsu.edu> Subject: Post Tenure Guidelines   D...

We want to congratulate all the award winners- the University Museum, Earl Carl Institute and especially SOPA's own Dr. Henderson and Dr. Bullard .....we received this email on February 2, 2021.   Interestingly enough.....there hasn't been a SINGLE email of congratulations amongst the SOPA faculty, research is keeping them too busy.....or perhaps in 7 months we may see a flurry of emails all over again?   ;-) https://transparencystate.blogspot.com/2020/10/sopa-7-months-to-congratulations-hmmmm.html Texas Southern University receives $4.75M from Houston Endowment Award establishes Environmental and Climate Justice center at TSU, supports University academic, arts and social justice programs HOUSTON (February 2, 2021) - Texas Southern University (TSU) has been awarded funding totaling $4.75 million from Houston Endowment for several academic, arts and social justice initiatives. Grants were aw...

Looks like Interim President and others have headed to Austin this past week to meet with legislators to request funding.  This is going to be an interesting meeting on Monday with the BOR. We wish Interim President a lot of luck- we hope he can get the $157 million he is asking for: https://flipboard.com/article/texas-college-officials-head-to-austin-to-make-funding-requests-from-state-legis/f-07b00950ff%2Fhoustonchronicle.com Texas Southern University’s Interim President Kenneth Huewitt said TSU has felt the pressures of the country’s economic downturn and resulting budget cuts like other colleges. Still, “We decided we’re going to ask for what we need. It’s not a wish list. It’s a needs list,” Huewitt said of Houston’s only historically Black university. Texas Southern University:  Requested $157 million for university enhancements, including renovations to academic buildings to accommodate new projects; $142 million to improve the campus’ infrastructure, and $4.5 million t...

TSU has not released any official information on our student enrollment but all indicators are that we could be below 6000 students.  If this is true, we are in big trouble.  The Texas legislature is meeting currently and rumors are that Texas universities could face budget cuts and possibly layoffs. The President's office hasn't put out any enrollment information, neither the Provost or the Deans have also taken any initiatives on our enrollment concerns and we wonder what the new hire for enrollment is doing to expand enrollment since we depend so much on enrollment- $110,000 is a lot of money for this position.   Why is PVAMU and UHD (our peer institutions) ahead of us with enrollment growth but TSU is suffering from this lack of leadership?  And what about our low graduation rates?  Does no one in TSU administration care about our graduation rate?   Our leadership from the Interim President, Provost, Deans have not taken any ...

Looks like the Faculty Senate is officially interested in the professionalism and competence (or lack thereof) of HR.  Below is an email sent out by the Faculty Senate.  We wish the Faculty Senate good luck on this very bumpy journey! Faculty Senate Transparency Committee Human Resources Department Survey      As voted on by the Faculty Senate during the November 2020 Faculty Senate meeting, a review of the Human Resource(HR) Department and departments under its direction(Payroll, Benefits, Retirement, etc.) is underway. As part of this process, the input of all faculty regarding experiences and interactions with the Human Resources Department and departments under its direction is sought. As State of Texas employees, TSU faculty members receive lifetime benefits that are overseen by the Human Resources Department. Therefore, responses to this survey will have a major, long-term impact on TSU faculty, family members, and other beneficiaries. Please ta...

  Mysteriously however, months later Dean Kieh changed his mind and informed faculty he would conduct a national search for a permanent Associate Dean. We doubt that any university has ever even contemplated such a ridiculous idea.    This type of “search” seemed designed to deliberately keep Ewoh in power indefinitely as possibly a consolation prize for not getting the top job. We suspect that enormous pressure was placed on Dean Kieh to keep Dr. Ewoh on as Associate Dean when Dr. Ewoh’s supporters failed to convince King Lane to make Dr. Ewoh permanent dean.   More interestingly, rumors are that until April 2020, Kieh didn’t even have financial Banner access, a necessity for any Dean to be able to manage school finances. So who was signing all the documents from August onwards if not Dean Kieh? And why would Dean Kieh deliberately outsource his signature? Additionally, in at least 1 emailed instance, Dean Kieh informed the faculty member that Dr. Ewoh ...

Dean George Klay Kieh is the current Dean of the School of Public Affairs (SOPA). He arrived at SOPA in August 2019 as the 5th Dean since 2009. Dean Kieh was the first Dean to be an outsider and not chosen internally. Dean Kieh has claimed that he was a political prisoner recognized by Amnesty International. Dean Kieh also applied for the SOPA Dean position at least twice and possibly 3 times before being hired. Notably Dean Kieh only had 1 year of experience as Dean prior to coming to TSU. Dean Kieh arrived on high hopes to straighten out the colossal mess left behind by the authoritarian regime of Dean Herrington who in one email to the entire faculty, directed that anonymous student evaluations be deposited into faculty personnel files, possibly as a method to terminate faculty, potentially a 6 th Amendment violation. However it quickly became crystal clear that Dean Kieh would not be any different than Dean Herrington and in fact, may have actually made things much worse for ...

 What could it be about?  We find out tomorrow!!  https://meetings.boardbook.org/Public/Organization/2066 http://www.tsu.edu/about/board-of-regents/live-stream.html

  TO:                      TSU Community  FROM:              Kenneth Huewitt, Interim President  DATE:               Tuesday, January 5, 2021  SUBJECT:       TSU Regents finalize Presidential Search Committee  _________________________________________________________________________________________________________   Texas Southern University’s Board of Regents, led by Chairman Albert H. Myres, has begun the selection process to determine who will be the University’s next president. The Presidential Search Committee, appointed by Chairman Myres, will be led by Regent Marc C. Carter. AGB Search,   a higher-education executive search firm based in Washington, DC,   has been recommended to assist in facilitating the process. “Texas Southern Univ...

We came across an article written in 2007 after Slade left our campus leaving a trail of destruction and nearly bankrupted our HBCU. We wonder how eerily similar the current situation is compared to 2007- will we ever rise above our weak, corrupt and ineffective leadership? Will we always put our students last?  Will we always be a prisoner of our history?  These are important questions to ask ourselves as we have a new year and a new opportunity for improvement and changes coming up soon.   https://www.texasmonthly.com/articles/school-for-scandal/

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 Still no updates on the Faculty and Staff Excellence Awards- what is going on?  Still no clarification as to what happened in May 2020.  Why?   We are proud that TSU has been doing the annual fundraising extravaganza- all online.  And we want to congratulate all our students whom we raised money for annual fundrasier- all online..Hopefully this money will be better used on our STUDENTS than spent on King Lane's empty mansion and basketball tickets!  Let's not forget all the issues with the Maroon & Gray fundraising - https://transparencystate.blogspot.com/2020/01/will-king-lane-lose-his-kingdom.html And congratulations to our B.R.A.G. students!!  Kudos to you!! all online!  Will we have our Faculty & Staff Excellence Awards ONLINE this year?  All signs point to.....??? https://transparencystate.blogspot.com/2020/05/faculty-excellence-award-winners.html

What is so secret in the Berkley Report that it hasn't been released yet? Why won't the Board of Regents release the full report?   We have speculated for months what could be in this report.  Will we ever know?   https://transparencystate.blogspot.com/2020/07/still-no-release-of-berkley-report.html

Rumors are confirmed that someone from the Provost Office called several faculty who previously served as administrators and asked what the salary adjustment was (removal of administrator pay stipend) for returning to faculty status after leaving administration.   The unofficial rule for salary adjustment upon returning to faculty status is that the administration plays favorites of course.  Whomever the administrators like, they allow that individual to keep their stipend salary.  But the rumors are that some individuals are not allowed to keep their stipend, I.e. punished.....if the administration doesn't like you.   It seems that someone inside the Provost Office is returning back to full-time faculty.  We wonder who it could be.  Or could it be 2 individuals returning, not 1? We will find out soon.  Perhaps an October surprise may turn into a Christmas surprise?  ;-)

It seems that Ms. Marilyn Square, TSU's decades-long Registrar and the second-most powerful TSU administrator has abruptly retired in August without any recognition or well-wishing from TSU for all her years at TSU. Not even a single email announcing her retirement!   Ms. Square was extremely well-known and recognized for all her hard work on behalf of our students.  Routinely Ms. Square would spend weekends and nights assisting students and faculty to make sure our students were able to graduate on time.   The Registrar is actually more powerful than the Provost and is the only administrator (besides the President) who can over-rule the Provost.  Rumors are that the Provost repeatedly did not agree with the Registrar on certain academic issues and is possibly the reason why Ms. Square has left the university without any fanfare or thanks for her service.   We find it very disappointing that a personal disagreement between 2 administrators has po...

 Emails from Provost Harris confirm that he is trying to remove Chair Wu and Vice Chair Jackson from their positions using a dubious and impotent method of claiming that since they have a reduced workload, it makes them ineligible to serve as Chair and Vice Chair.  Both Wu and Jackson have a reduced workload due to their duties in the Faculty Senate not due to any other reason we can assess.  The Provost seems to be relying on the law school fall modification schedule which ends on Nov 4 for his assessment they are ineligible for their elected positions in the Faculty Senate.  Moreover, by this logic since all of the schools are on a modified work schedule, doesn't this make the entire Faculty Senate ineligible for work?   The Provost seems to be twisting the Faculty Manual definition of resigning as well as trying to involve the General Counsel to back up his desire to remove these 2 professors.  He claims that  his opinion is "aligned with General Co...

 Looks like our enrollment has dropped 22% more than any other university in Houston.  Some of it can be blamed on the pandemic, but not all- some universities actually went up- in fact we hired someone as recently as May for enrollment improvement-  https://transparencystate.blogspot.com/2020/05/why-are-we-spending-110000-on-job.html again.....WHAT IS GOING ON AT TSU????? https://www.houstonchronicle.com/news/education/article/Houston-colleges-enrollment-not-experts-predict-15657866.php

Recall that we posted that a new Title IX coordinator had been appointed after Toni Gray resigned/terminated(?).  Dr. Fisher was appointed in June.  https://transparencystate.blogspot.com/2020/06/new-title-ix-coordinator-announcedon_26.html It looks like someone named Bobby Brown has now been quietly installed as the new Title IX coordinator- no official announcement we can find however they are now listed on the TSU website- http://www.tsu.edu/about/administration/title-ix/index.html WHAT IS GOING ON AT TSU?????

This past weekend we were surprised when a SOPA professor emailed her congratulations to Dr. Ewoh, the Associate Dean of SOPA.  We weren’t surprised by her congratulations…but rather the timing of her congratulations.  It was 7 months late! :-(   Often we joke that SOPA seems to exist in an alternate universe and Covid certainly has slowed us down…..but 7 months to respond to an email?…..the strangest thing was that Dean Kieh jumped on the  same email and offered his congratulations to Dr. Ewoh almost immediately.  Very strange.    Unless of course, this was all planned in advance?  A self-congratulatory, feel-good, group admin pat on the back?  Maybe.    Stranger things have happened in SOPA.    

We want to welcome the 3 new BOR members of TSU just appointed by Gov. Abbott! https://gov.texas.gov/news/post/governor-abbott-appoints-three-to-texas-southern-university-board-of-regents2  And just in time for our Thursday meeting-  https://meetings.boardbook.org/Public/Agenda/2066?meeting=402709 Welcome to TSU!

When Mayor Turner set up the police reform advisory committee, there was immediate pushback and criticism, even as recent as September 16, 2020:   https://www.houstonchronicle.com/news/houston-texas/houston/article/Civil-rights-activists-call-for-police-reforms-in-15573053.php   In July, the CJR set up their own police reform committee while Director Henderson had been placed on the Mayor’s police reform committee:   https://www.houstonchronicle.com/news/houston-texas/houston/article/TSU-assembles-group-of-Black-researchers-to-15394528.php#photo-19649410   While we cannot question the urgency, necessity and desire for police reform, we have to question the potential conflict of interests which exist between the CJR in connection with the Kochs’ and Koch Industries providing supplies to law enforcement as well as the HPD Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) signed between Director Henderson and the HPD in summer 2018.  Although we cannot verify this document is lega...