Transparency State University

We support our students and especially our future lawyers.  They do need reliable working technology and it did seem clear that they also needed to have a set schedule for classes.  According to the Instagram video, it appeared that over the summer the law school informed the students there would be online and hybrid classes, but around the beginning of the fall semester, the students were suddenly told in person, face to face classes were now required.    https://www.instagram.com/tv/CUF-i1Pq4pR/?utm_medium=copy_link This created quite a problem on both ends- technology needed to adjust on campus for the sudden expansion of on-campus classes but law students at the forum with Madam President and Dean Bullock informed them that a lot of law students had not made arrangements for housing and had to really scramble to find housing nearby.   Yet it had to be an important enough protest for the Houston Chronicle to show up:  https://www.houstonchronicle.co...

Being a Dean of a school can be enormously lucrative for personal and lavish perks, not including a bigger office and a personal assistant(s).  There is also a nice stipend attached to your paycheck as well.  While we support our deans in the work that they do and especially our students, we do wonder why BOTH deans of SOC and COLABS have to travel to California for a jazz festival and one of them appears to have brought her husband along?   From an objective viewpoint, using state funds to travel for personal and unnecessary reasons seems to be a bad idea.  Perhaps a chaperone was needed but why send BOTH deans?  

In our last post of the SOPA Fundraiser on August 6, 2021 we wrote: https://transparencystate.blogspot.com/2021/08/sopa-fundraising-conflicts-with-new.html Dr. Ewoh went around the fundraising room appearing to demand and shake out money by directly asking the attendees how much they will donate.  It appears that the SOPA fundraiser had about $14,000 in pledges.  Some highlights: Dean George Kieh- pledged $2000 Dr. Andrew Ewoh- pledged $1000 Dr. Rina Majundar- pledged $500 and also said she would establish a book scholarship in memory of late father. Ms. Richelle Jones- pledged $1800 Mr. Chad Sebastien- pledged $2000 Ms. Sheila Taylor- pledged $1000 Dr. Glenn Johnson- Need to think about it- so that means pledge or no pledge(?) Dr. Ashraf Mozayani- pledged $1000 Ms. Terry Phillips pledged $500 An adjunct professor pledged $200 (a bribery-ish attempt to keep his adjunct position?) Ms. Terry Phillips pledge $500  Dr. Baker- pledged $1000. Perhaps he was motivated by being r...

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...

We applaud BIG ideas. But BIG ideas are free and don't accomplish anything.  For example in the email below from Dean George Klay Kieh of SOPA- we wonder- how did he decide to raise a "minimum of $5 million?"  Rumors are that during his job interview he admitted to only raising $5000.  To go from $5,000 to $5,000,000 seems... ambitiously reckless .  Perhaps Dean Kieh is trying to impress our new President?    Did Dean Kieh just make the up the $5 million or was there any thought put into HOW he would raise such a mammoth amount of moooolah?  Usually a great deal of effort and research is put into how much to (realistically) raise.  Committees formed, consultants hired, alumni, faculty, staff, students outreach, polling.  We are not even aware if TSU has ever raised $5 million from anywhere, let alone 1 school having such am ambitious goal.  Let's not talk about King Lane's Maroon and Gray fundraising right? Too often unfortunately, our ...

Seems that email below from Dean Maddox sent to faculty raises our concerns as well.  How bad is our enrollment exactly?   And are the policies being proposed really such a good idea considering the law school admissions scandal in which students were admitted into programs they were not qualified, one student whom may have been the final nail in former Provost Harris's career coffin?  And precipitated King Lane’s ultimate departure?  https://transparencystate.blogspot.com/2020/01/will-king-lane-lose-his-kingdom.html From:  "Maddox,  Gregory H" < Gregory.Maddox@tsu.edu > Date:  July 6, 2021 at 5:17:39 PM CDT To:  "Vanjani, Mahesh" < Mahesh.Vanjani@tsu.edu >, "Adams, Daniel C." < Daniel.Adams@tsu.edu >, "Adams, Michael O" < Michael.Adams@tsu.edu >, "Bailey, Danita" < Danita.Bailey@tsu.edu >, "Baker, David" < David.Baker@tsu.edu >, "Benson, Michon" < Michon.Benson@tsu.edu >...

Confirmed rumors tell us that our fall registered enrollment has plummeted to just 3,000 students registered for the fall semester!  Normally TSU would have almost twice that many registered by now.  As we discussed earlier, our new President has a laundry list of items to tackle- but enrollment is definitely the most important priority now.   https://transparencystate.blogspot.com/2021/06/congratulations-to-our-new-president.html Our enrollment woes continue.....we do wish Madam President the very best of luck to turn this around. Otherwise there is a possibility of cutbacks on services, furloughs, mergers of schools and departments, terminations and layoffs and possibly even financial exigency.  https://transparencystate.blogspot.com/2021/02/enrollment-woes-at-tsu_11.html

Looks like President Young has started to shake things up at TSU. A new organizational chart has been announced :  

  We wish former Provost Harris safe travels in his sudden sabbatical as well!  More changes coming…..?

We want to welcome our 5th President in 13 years and her family to TSU. Welcome Madam President Crumpton-Young!!!  Madam President has a full plate of problems to solve beginning with reopening the campus after Covid-19.  Will we be finally returning to campus this fall?   What about employee morale and employee relations?  The BOR had a presentation by Dr Wu and Mr Snowden on employee morale recently   How about a plan for recruitment of students?  We hear TSU may be as low as 5000 total students!   How about our 5%-10% budget cut from Austin? Will there be a realignment/consolidation or merger of some schools?   And who will be our next Provost?   Congratulations again to our new President and to the First Family.  We wish you a lot of luck this coming year and …..Welcome to TSU! 

Seems that the rumors of the Provost resignation are true, albeit that he is scheduled to have his last day in office on June 30, 2021.   It seems odd, but will the Board be providing the Provost with a "Golden Parachute" in exchange for his resignation?  Perhaps so.  On the Board agenda, we see that the Provost has been approved for tenure (perhaps a re-negotiated contract to keep his Provost salary even after he leaves the position?) scheduled to be voted on at the BOR meeting.  Yet there are curious questions to be raised- https://meetings.boardbook.org/Public/Agenda/2066?meeting=471966 1) Tenure and promotion final decisions are to be made at the August Board meeting- why is the Provost having his tenure decision made at this meeting ?  Is the Provost getting some type of special privilege or favortism, in essence jumping ahead of other faculty waiting for their T&P decisions?   2) Why not complete all the other T&P decisions for the other ...

Some time ago we reported on a Faculty Senate HR survey ongoing.  It seems that yet another survey has been sent out to faculty at TSU in the past week.     https://transparencystate.blogspot.com/2021/01/faculty-senate-hr-survey-ongoing.html We hope the Faculty Senate can use the results to bring about positive and much needed changes in HR especially with our new incoming President. 

  EXTREMELY STRONG RUMORS suggest that Provost Harris has resigned effective today.  Stay tuned for who will be his replacement.....perhaps one of the individuals below will be announced on Monday?   https://transparencystate.blogspot.com/2020/05/vote-who-should-be-next-provost-of-tsu.html

We notice on our campus that we seem to have a few "Interim" senior positions at TSU.  Our understanding by reading the faculty manual is that "Interim" can only be applied for up to 2 years after which the "Interim" position must become permanent or the individual needs to be replaced.   Of course after last summer's SOPA musical chairs fiasco, all bets are off- after all, Dean Kieh deliberately chose to replace only 1 out of 3 Department Chairs, appearing to remove ONLY Dr. Michael Adams but keep on Drs. Baker and Smith despite them being beyond the 2 year limit.  https://transparencystate.blogspot.com/2020/09/the-final-sopa-chairs-decision.html Yet we do wonder- why is it that Interim Associate Provost, Dr. Rasoul Saneifard even almost 5 years of serving the Provost Office continues to sign his name with "Interim"?   We also wonder- why is Interim Associate Dean Andrew Ewoh at the School of Public Affairs (SOPA) still signing his name as ...

 Looks like the Board will finally make a decision on our next President.  A Board meeting has been announced for May 28, 2021 at 10am.   Interviews for finalists scheduled May 26, 27 and 28.....but who are our finalists?   https://meetings.boardbook.org/Public/Organization/2066   Board Business- May 26, 27 and 28-  III.A. Interview Candidates, Discuss and Select the Sole Finalist for the President of Texas Southern University

Governor Greg Abbott has appointed Caroline Baker Hurley and reappointed Mary Evans Sias, Ph.D. to the Texas Southern University Board of Regents for terms set to expire on February 1, 2027. Caroline Baker Hurley   of Houston served as a state district judge for over 21 years in Harris County, and continues to sit by assignment as a Senior Retired State District Judge. Prior to the bench, she was a partner of McFall, Sherwood & Sheehy. She is currently in charge of a MDL, and an arbitrator and a mediator with a certificate from the AA White Dispute Resolution Center. In addition, she has taught several courses as an adjunct professor in Trial Advocacy at the University of Houston Law Center. She is Board Certified in Personal Injury Trial Law and has been elected to membership in the American Board of Trial Advocates, and is a representative from the Houston Chapter to the ABOTA National Board. She has served as chair of the Ethics Commit...

We can't confirm and don't know about the other schools at TSU, but students don't matter or at least their evaluations do not appear to matter for the School of Public Affairs (SOPA) administrators.   Since Spring 2019, there has reportedly not been a single student course evaluation at SOPA .   2 years without student evaluations creates numerous problems for evaluation, testing even budgeting: 1) Necessary for Tenure and Promotion portfolios 2) Necessary for Post-Tenure Review portfolios 3) Necessary for Faculty Excellence Awards portfolios, especially the prestigious McCleary Teaching Award 4) Necessary for Faculty Yearly State-Mandated Evaluations  5) Necessary for considerations of budgeting for allocating finances 6) Necessary for ACTUALLY CARING WHAT OUR STUDENTS THINK ABOUT OUR COURSES AND/OR PROFESSORS.  Are we no longer a TEACHING university?  Again.....will the real Dean of SOPA please stand up? https://transparencystate.blogspot.com/2021/...

Recall that last year in Spring 2020, even though the Faculty Excellence Awards committees finalized winners for the awards, mysteriously the Awards never happened .  There has NEVER been a satisfactory explanation for what happened to the 2020 awards nor has there ever been a university-wide email regarding this explanation for the awards.   Even though the rumors are that due to the pandemic the awards were postponed/cancelled, it made no sense as there were fundraisers, conferences, Zoom meetings and other online events.  So why would the Faculty Excellence Awards NOT be moved online?   Now it appears that in the 2021 Faculty Awards there has been very new and very "interesting" language inserted into the 2021 criteria- Will the Provost deliberately veto and deny certain faculty awards if he personally dislikes a certain professor?   2020- Selection Process Based upon materials presented in the nomination portfolio,...

A Special Called Meeting.....But the BOR just had a meeting on March 27.....Is the Presidential search coming to an the end?  According to the agenda however-  "The Board of Regents will discuss Texas Southern University’s Vision, Mission, Values, and Short, Mid and Long Term Objectives."   This sounds like a very long meeting tomorrow!   https://meetings.boardbook.org/Public/Agenda/2066?meeting=463346 And there's another meeting scheduled for April 15, 2021!     

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...