financialissues23

(January 24, 2009) Time for a Center Swap The College of Business (CoB) has two Centers: The Center for Financial Services (CFS) and the Center for Economic Education (CEE). The CFS is really a “Peripheral” for Financial Services (PFS) because it is a black hole that sucks money and other resources while providing the CoB nothing in return.

(January 26, 2009) BREAKING NEWS Jackson Lets It All Hang Out – CoB's Current Budget Situation Bad, Very Bad LONG BEACH – In a 26-Jan-09 e-mail to SAIS faculty, SAIS director Steven Jackson uncovered what was discussed at a day-long CoB management team meeting from the previous Friday, 23-Jan-09. And, Jackson's e-mail conveyed just how bad the CoB's budget situation is becoming. According to Jackson, for the remainder of the year (i.e., until 1-July-09), the CoB's overall budget is frozen.

(February 3, 2009) 31st & Pearl A Spoonful of Budget Cuts Helps ECO Go Down There are .. . . no sacred cows. when it comes to cutting USM.s budget, or at least that.s what USM provost Robert Lyman told the USM Faculty Senate in late Jan-09. One of those cows, according to Lyman, is academic programs, and as far as academic programs go, the CoB.s economics major is one of the more bloated the institution has ever known. About a dozen faculty for the dozen or so economics majors -- it doesn't get any fatter than that. And it.s not just the inflated faculty ranks in ECO, it's also the salaries there.

(February 6, 2009) The Former Dean’s Teaching Load The CoB has 2 former deans: Bill Gunther and Harold Doty. Both teach only 2 classes per semester. It is true that Doty taught 3 courses in the fall, but he has only one class this semester. He has nothing else, especially in the way of research. Gunther has the BBER that apparently exists to kill one teaching day a semester for him. He has not published anything in the manner of quality research since his Alabama days (if then). Since both draw salaries in the $125,000 range, what are the taxpayers getting for their money?

(March 4, 2009) Special Report Sorry Lot An Investigative Report on CoB Attendance on the Council of Chairs Our earlier Special Report entitled Too Cool for School focused on the administrative service dereliction of EFIB chairman George Carter. That particular Special Report indicated that Carter attended only 22.2% of the meetings of USM’s Council of Chairs occurring from 11-Aug-05 to 4-May-06. Combined with tourism management chair Cheri Becker’s lackluster attendance record of just 66.7%, CoB chairs (Carter and Becker) attended only 44.4% of the 2005-06 CoC meetings.

(March 9, 2009) 31st & Pearl Unstreetable Kettle & Pot The recent USMNEWS.net reports and editorials on William Gunther's opining, in his official capacity as director of the CoB's Bureau of Business & Economic Research, for $800 billion economic stimulus proposals has us pining for the days when former CBA dean Tyrone Black closed up the Bureau the first time around. Black knew what former CoB dean Harold Doty didn't, and what current dean Lance Nail appears not to, and that is that any business bureau in USM's b-school is a use (waste) of resources meant only to cushion the existence of favored CoBers. In this case it's Gunther, and his associate Ed Ranck.