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I had a uniquely unpleasant interview with Auburn University last week in which I saw continual glum faces and body language that registered (if only to me) somewhere between "I really wish I was somewhere else" and "I really wish I was dead". It was a depressing enough place that even though it pays significantly better than I'm currently making and is a lot closer to my friends/family I withdrew from candidacy for the position.
Well, I think I can understand the AttitUde a little better now.
The university has just been placed on probation by SACS. For those not in academia, that's sort of like getting a write-up from your boss that says "This is a written warning that your ass is grass and the lawn mower is being cranked"; the only thing more severe that SACS can do is to dis-accredit you and if that happens you might as well sell cupcakes and waffles because you're not getting any federal funding and your graduates are screwed when they leave the workforce (think "medeival pope" and "interdict").
Most of the problems are associated with Bobby Lowder, a man unknown to the editors of Salon.com but quite well known in Alabama as their own local J.R. Ewing. (CNN once referred to him as a "prominent realtor", rather like referring to Jimmy Carter as a "former Georgia politician"; Lowder's companies are conservatively worth in the high ten figures.) Appointed one of the trustees of the school some while ago, he's essentially attempted to convert it into a fiefdom while crushing all dissent. (One particularly nasty incident occurred recently when he was attacked by the school paper (for standing up a meeting with the SGA) he attempted to have it brought under his direct "editorial" control and crush the journalism department.) Then I think there's something about Auburn having a football team that he's interested in, and I seem to recall something about people being unhappy with their coach or something.
Anyway, this is a really juicy story that would make one helluva Barbarians at the Gate style book for somebody interested in academia, athletics, politics, really big business and the overlap thereof. Go for it.
