I asked my friend Cait if she would write a post about FSU selling out to the Kochs. She is, to put it mildly, pro-“all things FSU.” And she’s pissed. Here’s why:
I’m 5’2, and a deadly combination of Irish and Cherokee, masked under the hospitable guise of a southern accent. I look deceptively perky and pleasant.
But you wouldn’t like me when I’m angry. And the overt commercialization of higher education makes me terrifying angry.
I graduated from Florida State University in 2001, and since then have remained active in the Alumni Association, Boosters and overall area club leadership. In 2009, I helped created a Seminole Club here in my beloved New Orleans (no, really, eff you, BP), and have turned my garnet and gold obsession into a full-time passion.
Seriously, my future child will know the chop (yes, the chop) before he or she is able to walk. Fortuitously, propaganda exists sheerly for such important early childhood education.
That’s how much I love my Noles.
This month the value of my degree has taken a significant hit with the announcement that two politically-minded, skeazy billionaires obsessed with spreading their narrow point of view The Charles G. Koch Charitable Foundation, in 2008, gave $1.5 million to the University’s Economics Department in a manner that effectively curtailed academic freedom—meaning that my beloved alma mater has sold out for a very low price. From the St. Petersburg Times:
A conservative billionaire who opposes government meddling in business has bought a rare commodity: the right to interfere in faculty hiring at a publicly funded university.
A foundation bankrolled by Libertarian businessman Charles G. Koch has pledged $1.5 million for positions in Florida State University’s economics department. In return, his representatives get to screen and sign off on any hires for a new program promoting “political economy and free enterprise.”Traditionally, university donors have little official input into choosing the person who fills a chair they’ve funded. The power of university faculty and officials to choose professors without outside interference is considered a hallmark of academic freedom.
Whoa, now. Public universities in this country are in crisis mode—rising rates of applicants, slashed state budgets and lower endowments are creating a maelstrom of financial hell for the average Insert State University. Florida State is no exception, having watched a legislature run by The Other School continuously and petulantly dismiss the State University System (SUS).
I get it. It’s hard out there for a prof. And the golden parachute seemingly offered by the Koch Brothers seems attractive to an academic department struggling to tread fiscal water. But allowing a donor to dictate hiring policy and syllabus content creates some serious ethical questions about academic freedom and the sanctity of higher education.
The decision to accept politically-motivated funding limits the marketplace of ideas that makes higher education so special—that differing viewpoints are not only accepted as critical to discourse, but even cherished.
I fear that this is next:
Predictably, the University has responded, bewildered – not by the topic, but rather by the timing:
[Eric] Barron, FSU’s president, wrote an open letter to FSU faculty, donors and alumni that detailed inaccuracies in the newspaper story. He also spoke with editors at the St. Petersburg Times, Associated Press and Chronicle of Higher Education.
“First and foremost,” Barron wrote, “Florida State University absolutely did not — and would not — sacrifice academic freedom in order to receive a donation of any kind. The Times story stated that the Koch Foundation exerted undue influence over the hiring of new professors in our economic department … This is simply not the case.”FSU used money donated by the Koch (rhymes with Coke) Foundation to hire two professors in the economics department. Under the shared governance model employed at FSU, faculty in that department voted to approve the new hires. In addition, Barron noted, the faculty selected two professors who were not on a list recommended by a three-person advisory committee made up of one Koch Foundation appointee and two FSU economics faculty.
“Clearly the Times story chose to be sensational, when it is clear that FSU faculty were the decision makers at every level,” Barron wrote.
I want to go on record stating that Barron, who came on board as FSU’s President in 2010 (well after this conditional gift was made), is a wonderful man and administrator, and I think incredibly highly of what he has accomplished with limited means during his tenure thus far.
But let’s slow our roll and review. The deal was inked in 2008, yes? When the first round of hires swung around in 2009, “Koch rejected nearly 60 percent of the faculty’s suggestions but ultimately agreed on two candidates.”
I am admittedly confused as to the timing of the controversy. Why weren’t we outraged three years ago, again?
But regardless of the timing and the lingering resentment that has suddenly created a media nightmare for Florida State, the ethical questions remain. I’m still waiting for someone to answer those questions.
And I’m outraged now. Oh, FSU. Couldn’t you have at least gone the route of Belle de Jour (incidentally, a Florida State alumna) rather than selling out like a $1.50 crack heaux?
[Cait is a friend and a former co-blogger. (The first time I met her in real life was two years into our friendship, at her wedding.) Oh yeah, and she sort of likes the Florida State Seminoles, too — when she has time. If you want righteous anger, check out her post on the BP oil spill — it’s a barn-burner. To see more of her blog stylings, click here. -ABLxx]
[cross-posted here in Nole Territory]
Emma
I’m a graduate of FSU too — and I’m writing my letter tomorrow!
Mike in NC
As was reported on BJ last week, the Koch Brothers own the entire faculty of the Economics Department at George Mason U in Fairfax, VA. So now they’re working on FSU.
How many other schools are in their cross-hairs? Some day they’ll be cranking out McMegans by the boatload.
piratedan
for a mere 1.5mil they sold out their ethics, talk about buying wholesale…
arguingwithsignposts
What I want to know is how the president explains the quotes from the econ dept. head (or was it the humanities dean)? Were those just “taken out of context”?
Bostondreams
Who cares about a clown college? Couldn’t happen to a nicer school. Go Gators! (chomps)
Errr…that out of the way, I do hope that this stays away from UF. With Lex Luthor in charge of the state, however, it is almost inevitable that the education budget cuts will lead to this sort of thing..
And I do apologize for the opening comment. It’s a natural reaction. We do sort of have to stick together at this point.
Calouste
Somewhat related via TPM:
What Hamilton of course should have done is give $500,000/year in taxpayer money to the university in exchange for them giving Atlas Barfed to every student, and then ask the Koch brothers for $40,000/year for his efforts. He wouldn’t even have to pretend to go to the university to do some work, and no one would have known of it.
TooManyPaulWs
I’m a graduate of the University of Florida, and I totally sympathize with every ‘Nole alumnus/alumna who are opposed to the Koch brothers dictating academic discourse and censorship through this kind of extortion.
I hope to God my university is not selling out academic integrity like this. All for the devil’s deal of billionaires buying out our schools’ ability to be non-partisan. And for all you far right wingnuts screaming about “Librul alcoves of socialist thought,” Eff you: the way your conservative bias has shifted so far over, REAGAN is a goddamn librul to you now.
Time to start a good ole fashioned boycott of school jerseys and junk. If Florida St. wants to take the money of whacked-out wingnut billionaires, why the hell should they want money from struggling college alums?
Guster
Irish and Cherokee and she likes things Jewy?
artem1s
there are issues here other than academic freedom involving charitable giving law. A donor cannot stipulate that a given individual benefit from their donation. This is to prevent someone from say, donating scholarship money to a school and forcing the school to then give the scholarship to their kid (while they simultaneously get a tax break for the charitable donation). For similar reasons you cannot endow a professorship for a specific person (say, your loser brother-in-law).
the donor CAN pretty specifically stipulate what type of programming an endowed fund can support (say economics vs. dance, or health care management vs. tort reform research). The system that is described by the President for hiring the professors seems pretty kosher. But there are a lot of things that go on behind the scenes. It could be that someone got their nose bent out of shape during the hiring process and that is why we are only hearing about it now, rather than when the gift was announced.
What alumni should REALLY be outrage by is the piddling little donation that the econ department sold out for. $1.5M is chump change for the Kochs and for most universities its barely enough to endow ONE professorship, let alone two. The going rate for a center of excellence is $5-10M and naming rights (for buildings or auditoriums) also tend to run in the 8-9 figure range. A modest return on an endowment fund is generally figured to be something like $50K/million. How can $1.5M fund the salaries and benefits for TWO professors?
Jeffro
Needs broadcasting far and wide…SO MUCH FOR LIBRUL ACADEEMYA!!
Joel
It’s not just FSU. There’s the David Koch n’ Balls Cancer institute that employs many great biologists over at MIT.
Mr Stagger Lee
Oklahoma State is practically a personal fiefdom of T. Boone Pickens, ditto the University of Oregon and Phillip Knight(Nike) I think what is going to happen is public colleges strapped for cash going to these billionaire sugar daddies. Hell isn’t the University Of Arkansas another name for Wal-Mart U?
Mark S.
See what happens when your school goes from national championship contender to .500 in the ACC?
Fucen Pneumatic Fuck Wrench Tarmal
first fla st let the cocks in, then mel martinez burt reynolds, scott stapp and deion sanders, then the koch brothers, it seems like all the problems are one in the same.
ya’ll need to hire jenn sterger to run that place. she knows what to do with little pricks that need to know when to go away.
SiubhanDuinne
Cock Bros gives a whole new meaning to “Half-Ass U, home of the Semiholes.”
arguingwithsignposts
As much as I love a good blood football feud as anyone, maybe all the big schools could stop throwing stones from their glass houses and deal with the issues at hand (I’m especially looking at you, FU and Miami Correctional U).
gwangung
You’re a decade and a half late, son.
Bostondreams
@arguingwithsignposts:
Miami is actually in a bit of a different situation; it is a private school, not a public school.
And you spelled UF wrong. :)
Delia
@Mr Stagger Lee:
Well, let’s be fair to Phil Knight. I don’t know that he has much of a political agenda for UO. It’s just that those pesky academic departments keep getting in the way of his fine Sports University.
arguingwithsignposts
@Bostondreams:
I was speaking generically of the three big Fla. schools, and I used FU intentionally. ;)
SiubhanDuinne
Er, by the way, no offense to Cait or other FSU alums. But I graduated from USF and was married to a UF alum, so I can’t help myself.
JCT
@artem1s:
This. No way unless they really have lousy support packages at FSU. But wait, given the Koch brothers uh, connections, that endowment may be “extra” fruitful (wink, wink, nudge, nudge).
Beyond the obvious “packing” of an academic department with profs who may not have been subjected to a rigorous selection process (or who are screened by Koch) — this will potentially really degrade the educational power of the dept. G_d knows what Koch’s “criteria” really are (well, actually I can guess). Isn’t this one of the guys who runs around saying Obama is a dangerous socialist?
At my university we get all bent out of shape when our Dean injects himself into hiring decisions (and he’s an academic) — this is a couple of orders of magnitude worse.
Oh well, I guess the Heritage Institute can hire all the drone PhD’s these profs train…
JCT
@JCT: Grrrr, in moderation for the s-word.
Tom Levenson
@artem1s: What you say. Endowing senior professorship at an MRU takes a few million–definitely not 1.5 (which on the more conservative approach (fiscally) of drawing 4% on capital, yields a mer $60K, which would cover about a $46k salary plus bennies. Not two professors. Not close.
FSU conducted a fire sale, based on these numbers
Fucen Pneumatic Fuck Wrench Tarmal
@arguingwithsignposts:
i like your idea and maybe we should create a center of pretty-goodness to facilitate development of a world class research and resource sharing partnership.
Wayne
I’ve seen this elsewhere – $1.5 million is squat when it comes to endowing a position, much less two. The majority of it is invested to maintain the endowment, first of all, which means there’s scant little to actually pay for a real position and its support and overhead.
If this 1.5 million smackers isn’t an annual contribution, FSU got screwed by Koch. Even as a 1977 FSU grad under President Stanley Marshall, when we knew the real meaning of semiholes and cheesebowl, can’t believe they’d be this gullible.
jake the snake
Fortunately my alma mater is a regional state university.
too low on the totempole for big money.
So they have to bleed the students and their parents and make the student lenders rich.
Marty
The Florida state university system has been heavily politicized and corrupted for some time. UF went down this road when they hired Florida State Senator Mike Haridopolos to be the highest-paid non-PhD “faculty” member of the political science department. He teaches a “seminar” in which he regales undergrads by sitting there and reading from the morning newspaper.
Warren Terra
I think some clarification is in order. Here and at other places, I’ve seen this described as Koch controlling all hires, or even all activities, of the Econ department of FSU. As I read the stories, Koch is funding two or three junior faculty posts ($250K/year) and has been given total control not only of who is appointed to those posts but also, should they want it, total control over whether those people remain in their jobs. These people have been hired to create a new course in “free market ideology” or some such.
Mind you, what Koch is doing is very frightening, and what FSU is doing is very wrong. Koch is creating and staffing a undergraduate course in Koch-approved ideological correctness at FSU, using staff with the job title of Assistant Professor at FSU. Furthermore, those people really are assistant professors at FSU, and could get tenure in the department outside of their Koch-created ghetto.
FSU should not sell the right to indoctrinate their undergraduates. Even beyond that, they especially should not do so at cost, which is what they’re doing – it’s unclear that FSU is getting any money out of this deal after the salaries of the Koch-approved, Koch-funded faculty are accounted for – they’re basically just getting this Koch-approved ideological indoctrination program inflicted on their students at no cost to th university.
But it’s not obviously a Koch takeover of the rest of the department, let alone the whole school, as some have characterized it. And in some ways it’s not all that new: take for example Stanford’s Hoover Institution (although the fellows there are not, to the best of my knowledge, referred to as being Stanford Professors, nor do they teach classes in the core undergraduate curriculum). Or, less comfortably, I seem to recall that some unions have paid the salaries of instructors teaching courses on the history of the labor movement – though those weren’t in the core curriculum, and I don’t know whether the instructors were made full faculty members.
ABL
@Guster: She’s a complicated woman.
4jkb4ia
It surprises me that the Koch brothers are supporting public education in any form.
This reminds me of the study that Yves quoted for Econned. The two authors got published in the Journal of Economics and Sociology a description of members of the American Economics Association’s views on “free markets”. According to the authors, only 8% endorsed their view of free markets. This included being against tariffs, public education, consumer protection laws, antitrust, and gun control. The authors went so far as to say that a natural rights libertarian who knew nothing about economics was a better free market supporter than these economists.
(If DougJ wants to read The Shock Doctrine, Econned would probably be really appealing to him)
FSU is marginally better than UF because of being in the ACC. Runs away before a) commenting on the open thread or b) BTD gets here.
(Red Sox collapse. 5 runs in 7th. Gone now.)
ABL
@arguingwithsignposts: Love it.
chrismealy
Which two are the Koch approved econ profs?
Cait
I do love that rival-based and pedantic namecalling is alive and well. Stay classy (and topical), folks.
Fucen Pneumatic Fuck Wrench Tarmal
@Warren Terra:
on the bright side, think of all the opportunities to call bullshit on whatever the kocheteers produce. should be easy pickens for aspiring doctoral students.
MMM
Mr. Cole – look at WVU’s business school/economics. Old news.
Librarian
Also, FSU was where the great physicist Paul Dirac spent his last years as a professor. The physics library is named after him.
PS
The K*chs wouldn’t know a “free market” if it came and bit them in the ass. They invest a modest fraction of their income (i.e. a boatload of money) into ensuring that they never have to compete in anything resembling a free market. It’s actually quite smart of them to fling a small purse of gold in the direction of someone they can have their other propagandists cite. Pitchforks, say I, and lampposts, and high marginal rates of taxation.
Polar Bear Squares
FAMU grad. So my feelings toward FSU aren’t as warm and fuzzy. But yeah that does suck. And I don’t wish the Koch octopuss of stupid on anyone. Even FSU.
Go Rattlers!
Walker
Doesn’t this type of crap threaten accreditation? Sure, these hires could be employees of an external center, but I wasn’t aware this type of interference was allowed for straight faculty. Doesn’t SACS accredit FSU?
The Raven
What good would a degree from such a program be? Seriously? As a major, I suppose it’s kind of advanced Randroidism. As a graduate degree, I can’t see it of much value.
gypsy howell
How is this any worse than torture-enabler John Yoo teaching law at Berkeley? Our universities seem to be filled with unpunished criminals and rightwing crackpots teaching the next generation.
ETA: BTW whoever wrote the university’s response, Koch doesn’t “rhyme” with Coke, it is pronounced Coke.
Fucen Pneumatic Fuck Wrench Tarmal
@gypsy howell:
i noticed that, but i thought it was a southern thing, or the koch brothers had sued coca-cola and won name-sounding rights.
Ecks
@gypsy howell: “Koch”, rhymes with “Rassdole”
Joseph
Maybe my standards are unreasonably high because I’m an anonymous internet commenter, but the post does not seem to be anywhere near angry enough. For example, the description of the Koch brothers as:
This not only doesn’t sound angry but it almost sounds naive. The Koch’s are very methodically and very strategically setting out to destroy democratic institutions and rob the less fortunate of their democratic rights so that the Kochs and their greedy friends can continue to take an ever-increasing share for themselves. These are malevolent men. If the worst you can accuse them of is being “skeazy” and having a narrow point of view, you’re being awfully kind to them and doing them a huge favor.
Bill in Chapel Hill
Some few years ago the faculty at UNC-Chapel Hill voted to refuse a huge donation from the Pope Foundation to establish a curriculum in “Western Values” or something like that. I hope more universities will follow that example.
Cheryl Rofer
I haven’t seen this mentioned anywhere yet, but if you get something for your “charitable contribution,” then you’re buying something, and it’s a commercial exchange, not a charitable contribution. So conditions like this placed on the Koch brothers’ contribution to FSU may well mean that both the Koch brothers and FSU are breaking the law if they consider it a charitable contribution and allow the brothers to choose faculty.
S. Wingerter
Thank God the Kochs are working to dilute the liberal garbage that is being spewed from our institutions of higher learning. Reading these posts is verification of what the radicals of the 60’s and the progressive movement funded by everything George Soros have produced in this country…all the way down to indoctrination of elementary school children now. It’s time to level the playing field, and teach our children what our Founding Fathers created for this country. Has anyone read the “5,000 Year Leap”? Did any of you study the Constitution and all the great men who wrote it? What an amazing turn of events that have produced this culture of entitlement. What ever happened to self-reliance, values, principles, and hard work? Pathetic!
HyperIon
@Mark S.:
As a gator grad and hater of gator football I have to agree with you. FSU is so deranged by their fall from football fame that they are even considering this shit.
And I don’t think UF will act any differently should the same opportunity arise. Both universities have gotten too far away from their PRIMARY mission: to educate the children of residents of the state of florida. It’s pretty much only research that matters now….which means it’s all about the money.