2025 NCAA Football Thread

[buddha]

40 minutes ago, gehringer_2 said:

I get the point but I think Ono had lost the confidence of a lot more than the lunatic fringe. I tend to think the protest policy proposal was a big misstep - I mean the draft could have come from the Nixon White House. Which points to there being two different questions here  - one is DEI and one is the larger question of civil society. DEI at UM needed to be fixed but that's one issue in a much larger context. And DEI may not have been the only issue at play if he had lost the Regents - it remains to be seen.

In any case, you can't lead unless you give people a belief in where you are going - if what is dribbling out in the local papers is correct, Ono had lost his audience. So maybe he stays and tries to lead them to where he thinks a better place is? It is just as much capitulation to simply duck out? if you are going to turn an institution at all, I guess you have to be a little bit of a visionary and that is certainly not a vibe I ever got from Ono - or Schlissel for that matter. I think they were both more caretakers than movers. Maybe he was just the wrong guy in the wrong place once the political tide had turned.

And so we wait to see what if anything leaks out from the Regents. Even if they weren't going to cry about DEI reforms they might applaud in private,  he may have stepped on toes there if they ended up being blind sided finding out about the changes on twitter.  To be honest, I think that had as much to do with Schlissel's dismissal as anything - him not paying adequate attention to the Regents that is. e.g. he might have survived the personal issues if he wasn't already in the dog house over ignoring/fumbling the Ilitch/Gilbert efforts to build more presence in Detroit.

it is difficult to lead when you dont have the confidence of the people youre leading.  and he has to please the board AND the professors, who are two very different groups with many different interests.  like you say, once you lose their confidence, youre finished.

youre seeing it at northwestern too.  but they are much more in the crosshairs of the trump administration given their high profile ignoring of their jewish students concerns.  the faculty want to "fight", or think they do.  

i imagine there are many faculty members in the hard sciences who are concerned more about their reasearch grant money than on any protests on the "worlds most horrible thing ever" of the day.  

trump, of course, makes things so much worse in the hamhanded and cruel way he does everything.  but they play right into his hands.  i understand the nixon comparison, but nixon was actually smart...

we should stop ruining this thread before it attracts more politics talk.

so....underwood for heisman?  too soon?

[MichiganCardinal]

Not a comment on DEI but on the university structure generally, it has always felt like bureaucracy for the sake of bureaucracy to me. The Department I used to work in, there were six people under the broad HR umbrella (including roles like student services, DEI, staff support, Dean of whatever, etc.) when like a dozen students major in the subject every year and there are single digit PhD students.

There is no way the organizational structure made any fiscal sense, and the six jobs could probably realistically be done by two people. Cue Office Space, “so what exactly do you do here?”

Of course, no one wants to be the university administration that shows up and just starts slashing positions though. So instead, they slash at the ground level, hiring decisions, when they need to recover from a budget deficit, hiring jobless PhDs to do the work of three GSIs. Make it make sense.

So to the extent the elimination of some of these roles is an effort to make the largest employer in the State of Michigan more efficient and cost-effective for students, I’m all for it. Of course, that’s absolutely not the goal here, and in reality it’s all just the 21st Century flavor of racism at the national level.

[buddha]

1 hour ago, MichiganCardinal said:

Not a comment on DEI but on the university structure generally, it has always felt like bureaucracy for the sake of bureaucracy to me. The Department I used to work in, there were six people under the broad HR umbrella (including roles like student services, DEI, staff support, Dean of whatever, etc.) when like a dozen students major in the subject every year and there are single digit PhD students.

There is no way the organizational structure made any fiscal sense, and the six jobs could probably realistically be done by two people. Cue Office Space, “so what exactly do you do here?”

Of course, no one wants to be the university administration that shows up and just starts slashing positions though. So instead, they slash at the ground level, hiring decisions, when they need to recover from a budget deficit, hiring jobless PhDs to do the work of three GSIs. Make it make sense.

So to the extent the elimination of some of these roles is an effort to make the largest employer in the State of Michigan more efficient and cost-effective for students, I’m all for it. Of course, that’s absolutely not the goal here, and in reality it’s all just the 21st Century flavor of racism at the national level.

The bureaucracy is expanding to meet the needs of the expanding bureaucracy.

[gehringer_2]

4 hours ago, buddha said:

we should stop ruining this thread before it attracts more politics talk.

👍

[gehringer_2]

1 hour ago, MichiganCardinal said:

Not a comment on DEI but on the university structure generally, it has always felt like bureaucracy for the sake of bureaucracy to me. The Department I used to work in, there were six people under the broad HR umbrella (including roles like student services, DEI, staff support, Dean of whatever, etc.) when like a dozen students major in the subject every year and there are single digit PhD students.

There is no way the organizational structure made any fiscal sense, and the six jobs could probably realistically be done by two people. Cue Office Space, “so what exactly do you do here?”

Of course, no one wants to be the university administration that shows up and just starts slashing positions though. So instead, they slash at the ground level, hiring decisions, when they need to recover from a budget deficit, hiring jobless PhDs to do the work of three GSIs. Make it make sense.

So to the extent the elimination of some of these roles is an effort to make the largest employer in the State of Michigan more efficient and cost-effective for students, I’m all for it. Of course, that’s absolutely not the goal here, and in reality it’s all just the 21st Century flavor of racism at the national level.

no doubt cost discipline is terrible, which is big shift from my undergrad days when people were still pretty cost conscious., but when you have 115K applications,  9000 applications just to the Law school, it's pretty clear the discipline isn't going to come from the customers!

[gehringer_2]

So just to close the item I left hanging, I have now seen the Nolan Finley op-ed. Short version is the Dems Regents were unhappy with Ono since the election - felt his leadership was AWOL. They penned an OP-ED (which in the end was not run) which he felt was an insult and attack on him and wouldn't sign on. Supposedly he had wanted to stay at M but the relationship had simply collapsed.

Edited Tuesday at 05:21 AM by gehringer_2

[romad1]

My question is:  does the perfect university president for U-M exist?  A guy who balances the sports madness with the social advocacy and/or academic integrity focus of the average graduate student.   You can't be:

• the dean from "Revenge of the Nerds" who finally stands up to the mean football coach
• Dean Wormer who finally goes to war with the rowdy greek community (in service to the local mafia boss) tbf, this isn't really a thing but I figured I'd include this archetype.
• a dean who costs Michigan all of its research funding by failing to thread the needle with the current administration (which may or may not have cost significant political capital for Gov Whitmer in her effort to secure Selfridge ANGB)
• someone who fails to check the box for the school's social justice role

[buddha]

20 minutes ago, romad1 said:

My question is:  does the perfect university president for U-M exist?  A guy who balances the sports madness with the social advocacy and/or academic integrity focus of the average graduate student.   You can't be:

• the dean from "Revenge of the Nerds" who finally stands up to the mean football coach
• Dean Wormer who finally goes to war with the rowdy greek community (in service to the local mafia boss) tbf, this isn't really a thing but I figured I'd include this archetype.
• a dean who costs Michigan all of its research funding by failing to thread the needle with the current administration (which may or may not have cost significant political capital for Gov Whitmer in her effort to secure Selfridge ANGB)
• someone who fails to check the box for the school's social justice role

i doubt it exists.

too many different constituencies to please.

[buddha]

and the sports program is probably the LEAST of the university president's concerns.

[gehringer_2]

2 hours ago, buddha said:

i doubt it exists.

too many different constituencies to please.

In all the years I've been connected to UM (which is a lot) the only UM pres who I saw force real transformation was Harold Shapiro. He came in and kicked a complacent institution in the rear and put it on the path to being world class. I think Schlissel - in his first few years, was pretty good also, but then he went off the rails.

[romad1]

I've considered a couple grad certificate programs for my retirement just to satisfy my academic interests but every time I do I butt up against some aspect of the academic program that just seems ridiculous hoop jumping.   Its a frustrating place to be sure. 

[Hongbit]

3 hours ago, buddha said:

i doubt it exists.

too many different constituencies to please.

This.  It has become an impossible job at most major universities. 

You have a wealthy alumni donor base that wants the university experience like it was in the good old days of their past.   Many of the wealthiest are also very conservative in their political views.  

There is a highly intelligent faculty that is about research and education.  They hate the big money machine that’s needed to keep the doors open, except when it comes to their grants, they love that money machine.  

Of course, there is the student body, who are typically much more liberal than their alumni counterparts.  They are also more demonstrative and can change influence on a whim as they are in a growth and exploration stage of their life.   

There is also a board of regents that acts as a check and balance on the President.  These boards are often a disagreeing mess in the own right and can rarely form a consensus about anything.   

Topping it all off is sports.  We’ve made this into such a big part of the landscape that it’s become the main marketing and branding vehicles to publicize and promote the university to the general public.   

Not a fun job to say the least.  

Edited Tuesday at 02:59 PM by Hongbit

[gehringer_2]

52 minutes ago, Hongbit said:

Of course, there is the student body, who are typically much more liberal than their alumni counterparts.  They are also more demonstrative and can change influence on a whim as they are in a growth and exploration stage of their life.   

Good post but I would take issue generalizing too broadly on this one. In my experience with freshmen, at least a fair number of kids were not particularly liberal - maybe liberal compared to today's GOP, but a lot of them well right of their faculty.

[Hongbit]

Not sure he’s solve the problem but it is Interesting to ponder about that the College Football player having the most power than any other athlete (or at least team sport).   I think he’s right.  

[Deleterious]

In free agency and/or the transfer portal?  Sure.  But lets see a college kid pull a Jimmy Butler.   That is power. 

[buddha]

17 minutes ago, Deleterious said:

In free agency and/or the transfer portal?  Sure.  But lets see a college kid pull a Jimmy Butler.   That is power. 

tennessee's qb just tried and got cut.

ended up taking a pay cut to go to a third rate big ten team.

however, we dont know what goes on behind the scenes.

they'll get to collective bargaining eventually.

Edited Tuesday at 06:54 PM by buddha

[Deleterious]