One of the intriguing questions about the unfolding horrors at the University of Akron is not whether President Scott Scarborough's confident predictions that the sun will again shine but rather how did a personal email conversation between Scarborough and Ted Curtis, the powerful veep of capital planning & facilities management, mysteriously turn up on a PDF on your computer.
The chummy insider tete-a-tete dealt exclusively with Scarborough's wish list for new UA projects in the midst of the school's $60 million debt. It also again revealed the president's obsession with tidiness as a critical path to rebranding. You may recall that he lectured the faculty that the profs couldn't possibly expect passing grades as educators if they didn't pick up trash. Disciplined behavior also is one of the beauty marks for the newly created student Corps of Cadets, which will even have a glee club.
Much as ex-president Luis Proenza placed high priority on bricks and mortar to recruit students, red ink notwithstanding, the current CEO advises Curtis that after driving around the campus, there are 30 items on his list that he would like to "cost" from the Grand Entrance - a rebirth of the Arc de Triomphe - to the campus that traverses the now-teamless baseball field; power washing the Polsky building and E.J. Thomas Hall; removal of the trees in the center of the circular drive at Buchtel Hall and adding plants; demolition of several big unused buildings; more signage everywhere.
Oh, how about painting the roof of the E.J., moving the track to Exchange and Spicer and adding lights on the tops of many buildings.
Did I mention power washing E.J. and Central Hower?
All of these things, of course, would sound good in better times. But these are not better times for UA.
Scarborough wrote: "Would you put a price tag on each of these projects and send it back to me when done? I realize that will be easier to price than others, I also realize that some (like resurfacing parking lots and resurfacing university roads)will need to be costed at greater levels of detail".
The confab goes on and on, but the question remains: How did it get on line? Who was the canary?
The best explanation I've heard is that is was a distressed former member of the hulled-out information services offices. He or she would have had access because with today's technology, every email can be easily accessed.
"Why didn't they know that?" my source asked. Well, maybe they should ask anybody they can still reach in information services.
Monday, August 31, 2015
Sunday, August 30, 2015
At least they didn't ask about the candidates' favorite newspaper
Although I recall interviewing a politician or two over these many years, I don't remember ever asking any candidate to identify his or her choice of a quarterback on a college football team. That distinction, however, appeared in the Beacon Journal today. It was a vibrant clue to Ohio State University's dominance over the minds of Ohio sports fans to the dismay of the Akron U Zippies and other grid mediocrities..
So the question to Akron Democratic mayoral candidates Dan Horrigan and Mike Williams, if I'm keeping you breathless, was their choice of an OSU quarterback this year. It's one of the few things they agree on: Cardale Jones. Who knew?
I learned to be indifferent to college football as the alum of the University of Illinois and earlier, Pitt, as both made a habit of losing.
Want to know how bad it is with the Illini? Within days of the team's season opener with Kent State, the front office fired the head coach this week. Why? Sorry, I didn't read past the first paragraph.
So the question to Akron Democratic mayoral candidates Dan Horrigan and Mike Williams, if I'm keeping you breathless, was their choice of an OSU quarterback this year. It's one of the few things they agree on: Cardale Jones. Who knew?
I learned to be indifferent to college football as the alum of the University of Illinois and earlier, Pitt, as both made a habit of losing.
Want to know how bad it is with the Illini? Within days of the team's season opener with Kent State, the front office fired the head coach this week. Why? Sorry, I didn't read past the first paragraph.
The olive jar saga now explained
The full back channel story on that pricey olive jar in the UA president's house may now be told. This marketing scrap reportedly was found in the center of the devalued UA baseball diamond.
There are several theories about its mission. But my hunch is that President Scarborough had hoped to move it to the proposed pearly entrance to the campus as a profitable scheme selling olives to help reduce the school's debt. We don't see that it is a perfect fit for a polytechnical U, but a lot of strange things are happening under the new regime.
Don't laugh. I have the original on my desk and hope to cash in the business-like sales pitch myself with a forceful proposal to the board of trustees. As Carmine Sabatini defended his business style in The Freshman:
"Scam?...Scam!? This is an ugly word - this scam. This is business. If you want to be in business. This is what you do."
Don't laugh. I have the original on my desk and hope to cash in the business-like sales pitch myself with a forceful proposal to the board of trustees. As Carmine Sabatini defended his business style in The Freshman:
"Scam?...Scam!? This is an ugly word - this scam. This is business. If you want to be in business. This is what you do."
Saturday, August 29, 2015
For Best and Scarborough, the two who tangoed
Randy Best is a mega-rich entrepreneur who has become the big man on the University of Akron campus, if only in the offices of President Scott Scarborough and his servile board of trustees. Best was just awarded a lucrative contract for an online nursing program in which his Texas-based company, Academic Partnerships, will receive half of the tuition from students who sign on. Half? Nice work if you can get it. And Best knows how to get a lot of it.
But the subplot to Best's huge success story, insofar as he embraces UA, is that he and Scarborough have had intersecting careers for years in which the latter has had Best's business model coursing through his grand plan to rebrand UA, relieve some of the school's debt and apply whatever other strategies that leave academia in the distant past. That not only includes Scarborough's passion for online courses but also his promotion of hired off-campus "coaches" for students.
As Forbes magazine once described Best's M.O. to profit from a university's treasury, his three R's are "recruitment, retention and revenue". It quoted his bottom line judgment on academic matters: : "The Stanfords, the Harvards, of my gosh, those schools are remarkable. But they're irrelevant to the market."
A think-alike Texan yoked with Scarborough, Best is also active in national politics, having raised millions of dollars for former President George W. Bush. And Jeb Bush is an investor in Best' s enterprises.
Scarborough, of course, will deny the linkage defined in a growing number of media reports. He prefers to call it nothing more than just another day at the office in his heroic effort to cut UA's debt. But don't believe it. He's already cashed in his credibility as the CEO on the reeling downtown campus even though he's admitted his mistakes in ramping up his grand designs on the ailments of higher education. The paper trail is simply too persuasive .
Some tell-tale evidence: As the chief financial officer at DePaul University in Chicago, Scarborough recommended the sale of Barat College, a tiny Catholic school, to Best's company in 2005 and that would include accreditation, land and buildings. You can only believe that the transaction would have had a lengthy get-acquainted period as the details fell into place.
Eureka! As part of the deal, Scarborough landed a seat on the new owner's board.
There he remained, the Plain Dealer reported, until 2007, when he became chief financial officer at the University of Toledo, giving up his board seat on Higher Ed Holdings, the company's new name.
He became Best's go-between to the provost in which Best offered an online master's degree in an education program for teachers. Sorry, the College of Education said, and turned it down. Undaunted, Best came back with an online nursing program with Scarborough serving as his greeter. Again he was rejected.
Academic Partnerships then scored with Ohio University in 2008 for the nursing program. But OU has since cancelled it. Randy Leite, dean of the College of Health Sciences, told the PD: "We found over time that the quality and level our students expected was not being met." Meantime, Best had collected 50 pct. of the tuition.
And so the ship has now come in at the UA, with Scarborough saying he only had been contacted by Academic Partnerships and turned over its proposals to the trustees for them to decide. He said he was surprised that it was accepted by a "consensus". Really? With this board?
You may have noticed that Scarborough has met the critics by saying that rather than enhancing his friend Randy Best's business opportunities, he simply made a few introductions.
And at the University of Akron, based on their feathery track record how could the trustees possibly resist? By the looks of things, Team Scarborough ain't done yet.
.
But the subplot to Best's huge success story, insofar as he embraces UA, is that he and Scarborough have had intersecting careers for years in which the latter has had Best's business model coursing through his grand plan to rebrand UA, relieve some of the school's debt and apply whatever other strategies that leave academia in the distant past. That not only includes Scarborough's passion for online courses but also his promotion of hired off-campus "coaches" for students.
As Forbes magazine once described Best's M.O. to profit from a university's treasury, his three R's are "recruitment, retention and revenue". It quoted his bottom line judgment on academic matters: : "The Stanfords, the Harvards, of my gosh, those schools are remarkable. But they're irrelevant to the market."
A think-alike Texan yoked with Scarborough, Best is also active in national politics, having raised millions of dollars for former President George W. Bush. And Jeb Bush is an investor in Best' s enterprises.
Scarborough, of course, will deny the linkage defined in a growing number of media reports. He prefers to call it nothing more than just another day at the office in his heroic effort to cut UA's debt. But don't believe it. He's already cashed in his credibility as the CEO on the reeling downtown campus even though he's admitted his mistakes in ramping up his grand designs on the ailments of higher education. The paper trail is simply too persuasive .
Some tell-tale evidence: As the chief financial officer at DePaul University in Chicago, Scarborough recommended the sale of Barat College, a tiny Catholic school, to Best's company in 2005 and that would include accreditation, land and buildings. You can only believe that the transaction would have had a lengthy get-acquainted period as the details fell into place.
Eureka! As part of the deal, Scarborough landed a seat on the new owner's board.
There he remained, the Plain Dealer reported, until 2007, when he became chief financial officer at the University of Toledo, giving up his board seat on Higher Ed Holdings, the company's new name.
He became Best's go-between to the provost in which Best offered an online master's degree in an education program for teachers. Sorry, the College of Education said, and turned it down. Undaunted, Best came back with an online nursing program with Scarborough serving as his greeter. Again he was rejected.
Academic Partnerships then scored with Ohio University in 2008 for the nursing program. But OU has since cancelled it. Randy Leite, dean of the College of Health Sciences, told the PD: "We found over time that the quality and level our students expected was not being met." Meantime, Best had collected 50 pct. of the tuition.
And so the ship has now come in at the UA, with Scarborough saying he only had been contacted by Academic Partnerships and turned over its proposals to the trustees for them to decide. He said he was surprised that it was accepted by a "consensus". Really? With this board?
You may have noticed that Scarborough has met the critics by saying that rather than enhancing his friend Randy Best's business opportunities, he simply made a few introductions.
And at the University of Akron, based on their feathery track record how could the trustees possibly resist? By the looks of things, Team Scarborough ain't done yet.
.
Friday, August 28, 2015
Thursday, August 27, 2015
Bobblehead giveaways for UA football fans?
Having had no experience in building crowds at college football games, I am eminently qualified to offer you today's sermon. The idea came to me as I read an expert's advice on the Beacon Journal's op-ed page to seduce people to attend University of Akron football games.
What didn't work, I should begin, is the school's attempt to pulsate its 30,000 seat stadium on those hapless afternoons when the team was doing its pantomine before more than 20,000 empty seats. The $61.6 million structure, which opened in 2009, hosted a team that won three games that year. (The following year 1-11, followed by a lot of etc's) Its grand opening, however, was celebrated with so many exclamation points that the school's administration under President Luis Proenza could have been penalized for demonstrating in the end zone after a game-winning touchdown.
About the crowd-building expert: Katie Swartz, who runs a sports management consulting firm, prescribed an enhanced "game day experience" with one option being a LeBron James event tied to ticket sales. She also recommended aggressive ticket hustling with corporations, local businesses and donors; raffles, and changing the game time. I would suggest a moment when the game didn't conflict with a Trump TV speech.
Inasmuch as so many decisions by the Team Scarborough front office have been scrapped to the extent that the school has become a national joke, I have a crowd-pleasing suggestion offered by the other person who shares our home: Why not offer every patron on game day a Scarborough bobblehead doll?, she asks. I would add a free tee shirt with the names of the trustees printed upside down in school colors.
Well, why not? It won't win any games, but it would certainly add some joy to a game-day experience.
.
.
What didn't work, I should begin, is the school's attempt to pulsate its 30,000 seat stadium on those hapless afternoons when the team was doing its pantomine before more than 20,000 empty seats. The $61.6 million structure, which opened in 2009, hosted a team that won three games that year. (The following year 1-11, followed by a lot of etc's) Its grand opening, however, was celebrated with so many exclamation points that the school's administration under President Luis Proenza could have been penalized for demonstrating in the end zone after a game-winning touchdown.
About the crowd-building expert: Katie Swartz, who runs a sports management consulting firm, prescribed an enhanced "game day experience" with one option being a LeBron James event tied to ticket sales. She also recommended aggressive ticket hustling with corporations, local businesses and donors; raffles, and changing the game time. I would suggest a moment when the game didn't conflict with a Trump TV speech.
Inasmuch as so many decisions by the Team Scarborough front office have been scrapped to the extent that the school has become a national joke, I have a crowd-pleasing suggestion offered by the other person who shares our home: Why not offer every patron on game day a Scarborough bobblehead doll?, she asks. I would add a free tee shirt with the names of the trustees printed upside down in school colors.
Well, why not? It won't win any games, but it would certainly add some joy to a game-day experience.
.
.
Wednesday, August 26, 2015
Trump's color-coded attack on illegals
Can we all agree that the Republican battle cry, as shouted by the gang of impostors running for the White House, has upstaged gay marriage, abortion, religious liberty and President Obama's birth certificate as the key to success?
As wildly as Donald Trump wails of undocumented immigrants who are rapists, gang leaders, criminals and the parents of anchor babies, it has the same effect as Paul Revere's "the British are coming."
Historically, the melodrama at the Mexican border is another ugly chapter in America's blurred reaction to a color-coded phenomenon that it doesn't understand. There was the "Yellow Peril' advancing to the 20th Century with fear of Oriental invasions, the "Red Scare " sold by fear mongering Sen. Joe McCarthy of commies under your bed in the 1950s and now the "Brownish Peril' exploited by the GOP candidates trying to out-Trump Trump.
And some, like Jeb!, aren't doing it with much panache. When he was challenged for bringing up the nasty term, "anchor babies," he said, gosh, he only used it in reference to "Asian people." Holy God! And this frequently misspeaking guy wants to be your president?
And Trump, circuit-riding as face-twisting comedian Lewis Black, was at it again in
Iowa with Ann Coulter, who brandished her wicked witchcraft before a curse-thirsty audience. She said Trump's arrival was evidence that "God hasn't given up".
So now and probably well into the future, we are witnessing what the New York Times accurately called a "revoltingly xenophobic Republican campaign".
Is this how The Donald plans to "make America great again"?
In the days before the internet , President Andrew Jackson came up with the Indian Removal policy that drove the hapless Cherokees west from the south on the Trail of Tears. But these mistreated Indians were a handful compared to the 11 million illegals that Trump wants to ship back to Mexico, a multi-billion dollar impossibility that would take years to accomplish if they ever find their human quarry at all.
But in his Iowa harangue, Trump set his audience on edge by huffing that illegals slip over our borders and instantly produce a child, whom America will pay for over the next 80 years. Voters can rid America of Trump much sooner than that.
As wildly as Donald Trump wails of undocumented immigrants who are rapists, gang leaders, criminals and the parents of anchor babies, it has the same effect as Paul Revere's "the British are coming."
Historically, the melodrama at the Mexican border is another ugly chapter in America's blurred reaction to a color-coded phenomenon that it doesn't understand. There was the "Yellow Peril' advancing to the 20th Century with fear of Oriental invasions, the "Red Scare " sold by fear mongering Sen. Joe McCarthy of commies under your bed in the 1950s and now the "Brownish Peril' exploited by the GOP candidates trying to out-Trump Trump.
And some, like Jeb!, aren't doing it with much panache. When he was challenged for bringing up the nasty term, "anchor babies," he said, gosh, he only used it in reference to "Asian people." Holy God! And this frequently misspeaking guy wants to be your president?
And Trump, circuit-riding as face-twisting comedian Lewis Black, was at it again in
Iowa with Ann Coulter, who brandished her wicked witchcraft before a curse-thirsty audience. She said Trump's arrival was evidence that "God hasn't given up".
So now and probably well into the future, we are witnessing what the New York Times accurately called a "revoltingly xenophobic Republican campaign".
Is this how The Donald plans to "make America great again"?
In the days before the internet , President Andrew Jackson came up with the Indian Removal policy that drove the hapless Cherokees west from the south on the Trail of Tears. But these mistreated Indians were a handful compared to the 11 million illegals that Trump wants to ship back to Mexico, a multi-billion dollar impossibility that would take years to accomplish if they ever find their human quarry at all.
But in his Iowa harangue, Trump set his audience on edge by huffing that illegals slip over our borders and instantly produce a child, whom America will pay for over the next 80 years. Voters can rid America of Trump much sooner than that.
Tuesday, August 25, 2015
UA woes now in national spotlight
As I have been saying...
The incalculable mess at the University of Akron has now painfully gone national. The Huffington Post, a leading national online site, has published a column referring to the video produced by an anonymous group that mockingly titled the piece "Graduates over Greed". Many on-liners have seen it.
The story is told by puppets with bags over their heads, which in my view precisely describes Team Scarborough and his imported cronies as well as the Board of Trustees.
And yes, in ridiculing the free spenders on President Scarborough's newly renovated house, the video specifically notes the $556 olive jar and a $838 makeup chair. It even posted a photo, shown here, of the school's "Fear the Roo" whimper.
Folks, it is 2015 and the internet, which has crowded the wilting mainstream media for readers, has little mercy for screw-ups on the scale of the widely, widely, widely reported saga at UA. There was a time when these unsightly events could have been contained to the home turf by a friendly hometown paper, but no more.
So for the foreseeable future, UA's attempt to rebrand itself into - what? - must settle for being a magnet for ridicule. And we're not limiting that to the football team. It is usually hard for an institution to gain respect, but ever so easy to lose it. Not much that Scarborough, said to be a religious man enjoying the prosperity Gospel, can do about damage control now.
The incalculable mess at the University of Akron has now painfully gone national. The Huffington Post, a leading national online site, has published a column referring to the video produced by an anonymous group that mockingly titled the piece "Graduates over Greed". Many on-liners have seen it.
The story is told by puppets with bags over their heads, which in my view precisely describes Team Scarborough and his imported cronies as well as the Board of Trustees.
And yes, in ridiculing the free spenders on President Scarborough's newly renovated house, the video specifically notes the $556 olive jar and a $838 makeup chair. It even posted a photo, shown here, of the school's "Fear the Roo" whimper.
Folks, it is 2015 and the internet, which has crowded the wilting mainstream media for readers, has little mercy for screw-ups on the scale of the widely, widely, widely reported saga at UA. There was a time when these unsightly events could have been contained to the home turf by a friendly hometown paper, but no more.
So for the foreseeable future, UA's attempt to rebrand itself into - what? - must settle for being a magnet for ridicule. And we're not limiting that to the football team. It is usually hard for an institution to gain respect, but ever so easy to lose it. Not much that Scarborough, said to be a religious man enjoying the prosperity Gospel, can do about damage control now.
Monday, August 24, 2015
On restored UA president house, olive jars and Mike Williams
Inspired by the nearly $1 million makeover of University of Akron President Scott Scarborough & Family's new digs, I spent some time over the week end making my office more presentable by emptying files and wastebaskets.
Among the old clippings that turned up was a Beacon Journal piece dated July 19, 2014 reporting the projected cost of the renovation as $375,000. Ted Curtis, UA vice president of capital planning and facilities management, made it all seem worthwhile by saying "it's a great house in a wonderful neighborhood. Very solidly built." Not as solidly built was the rollout of the Team Scarborough's plan to cut UA debt.
Also quoted was Board of Trustees chairman Jonathan Pavloff , who noted that the trustees were "in agreement that the house is an appropriate piece of the presidential package". It was a reminder that the trustees were as useless then as they are now.
As we have come to learn, Curtis missed the mark by a cool half-million dollars, even if you leave out that notorious olive jar...
* * * * *
Speaking of that jar, it could be reinstated with respect if it were offered as a trophy to the winner of the annual KSU-UA football game, much like the Michigan-Minnesota Little Brown Jug trophy. I know. UA and KSU already have a wagon wheel trophy. But who wants to reach for a wagon wheel to garnish a martini?
* * * * *
At last week's Akron mayoral debate Democratic candidate Mike Williams, a longtime foe of former Mayor Don Plusquellic, talked of the improvements in downtown Akron over the past decade, sounding self-congratulatory as a city councilman. But he forgot to mention that most of these improvements were produced during the Plusquellic administration.
Among the old clippings that turned up was a Beacon Journal piece dated July 19, 2014 reporting the projected cost of the renovation as $375,000. Ted Curtis, UA vice president of capital planning and facilities management, made it all seem worthwhile by saying "it's a great house in a wonderful neighborhood. Very solidly built." Not as solidly built was the rollout of the Team Scarborough's plan to cut UA debt.
Also quoted was Board of Trustees chairman Jonathan Pavloff , who noted that the trustees were "in agreement that the house is an appropriate piece of the presidential package". It was a reminder that the trustees were as useless then as they are now.
As we have come to learn, Curtis missed the mark by a cool half-million dollars, even if you leave out that notorious olive jar...
* * * * *
Speaking of that jar, it could be reinstated with respect if it were offered as a trophy to the winner of the annual KSU-UA football game, much like the Michigan-Minnesota Little Brown Jug trophy. I know. UA and KSU already have a wagon wheel trophy. But who wants to reach for a wagon wheel to garnish a martini?
* * * * *
At last week's Akron mayoral debate Democratic candidate Mike Williams, a longtime foe of former Mayor Don Plusquellic, talked of the improvements in downtown Akron over the past decade, sounding self-congratulatory as a city councilman. But he forgot to mention that most of these improvements were produced during the Plusquellic administration.
Sunday, August 23, 2015
John Kasich, the centrist ...not
Sandy Theis, the executive director of ProgressOhio, sent along a perfect cameo of Gov. Kasich's Orwellian newspeak that captures his huge reliance on cognitive dissonance in responding to the delicate issues of the day. Campaigning in New Hampshire, he described Roe v. Wade as the law of the land that we must live with. But the day before in Iowa, he returned to his pro-life mode in a conversation with a woman:
Not okay, guv. It 's going to be a tough uphill presidential campaign anyway so you might as well come clean on your dedicated pro-life position. After all, cheerleaders who know you best, Lt. Gov. Mary Taylor and Ohio Right to Life boss Mike Gonidakis have already called you the greatest pro-life governor in America, boasting that some of the state's toughest abortion restrictions have been signed into law by you. It has been, and will continue to be, in all of the papers as myth collides with reality.
And I didn't even mention your opposition to Planned Parenthood.
All of this leads me to a comment by Kent State University political science professor Danielle Sarver Coombs, in a speech this week at Akron Roundtable in which she referred to Kasich as a "centrist" who could be the "last man standing". Good grief. A centrist who is in born-again lockstep with the Republican presidential field on most issues, calls for boots on the ground in Syria, opposed the stimulus package and auto bailout, is a charter school loyalist, ridicules public school teachers and waffles mightily on climate change.
On the latter, he says he believes there is a problem but doesn't think we should "overreact" to it, whatever the hell that means. At the same time, he is part of a the group taking legal action against the EPA.
But as an "on the other hand" candidate, it has earned him plaudits from the gallery that on some hazy days may be hard pressed to figure out what he really is at any given moment and settles for "centrist".
Woman questioner: "In Ohio, I know half of the abortion centers closed. Can you do that in the country if I vote for you?"
Kasich: "We'll do our best, okay."
Not okay, guv. It 's going to be a tough uphill presidential campaign anyway so you might as well come clean on your dedicated pro-life position. After all, cheerleaders who know you best, Lt. Gov. Mary Taylor and Ohio Right to Life boss Mike Gonidakis have already called you the greatest pro-life governor in America, boasting that some of the state's toughest abortion restrictions have been signed into law by you. It has been, and will continue to be, in all of the papers as myth collides with reality.
And I didn't even mention your opposition to Planned Parenthood.
All of this leads me to a comment by Kent State University political science professor Danielle Sarver Coombs, in a speech this week at Akron Roundtable in which she referred to Kasich as a "centrist" who could be the "last man standing". Good grief. A centrist who is in born-again lockstep with the Republican presidential field on most issues, calls for boots on the ground in Syria, opposed the stimulus package and auto bailout, is a charter school loyalist, ridicules public school teachers and waffles mightily on climate change.
On the latter, he says he believes there is a problem but doesn't think we should "overreact" to it, whatever the hell that means. At the same time, he is part of a the group taking legal action against the EPA.
But as an "on the other hand" candidate, it has earned him plaudits from the gallery that on some hazy days may be hard pressed to figure out what he really is at any given moment and settles for "centrist".
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