Talk About the South: Dayne Sherman's Blog

Friday, August 16, 2013

Guest Column by Dr. James D. Kirylo

We Have a Leadership Crisis in Baton Rouge

By Dr. James D. Kirylo
August 16, 2013
Guest Column - 700 words

This speech in no way reflects the views of Southeastern Louisiana University or its management.

On behalf of the faculty senate, a grand welcome to the 2013 Convocation! Also, as a great way to commence this new academic year, I hope you will all join us at the annual Alumni picnic located in the Twelve Oaks on Friendship Circle following this convocation.

It is an honor and privilege to be standing before all of you this morning. When I mentioned to my wife what my role would be at this event, and that I would be speaking, she squirmed a little and said “Oh, oh.” Perhaps some of you might be saying the same thing to yourselves. Anyone who knows me knows that I attempt to live my life to be as honest, authentic, and sensitive as possible, making every effort to speak truth to power, truth to justice.

And the truth is, Dr. Crain is making every good effort to lead this university through waters that are hurricane rough, paddling with only one oar—not two—in a continuous sea of darkness, somehow fending off wave after wave with seemingly no forecast of calm. Clearly, the ride has been rough. As Hammond City Councilperson, Mike Williams, recently stated, “I know Dr. Crain and I know that this pains him.”

Certainly, we will come out of these difficult days, but it won’t happen unless more of us rise up out of our slumber of silence. Mayor Foster is absolutely right, “As goes the university, so goes the city of Hammond.”

Of course, there is an elephant in the room. A big one. And that is this: we have leadership crisis in Baton Rouge. While we are starving higher education and going down, most states are reinvesting in higher education, including our neighboring states of Texas, Mississippi and Arkansas, adding fiscal resources to higher education. Yup, we have a leadership crisis in Baton Rouge.

It has been said that if given lemons, we ought to make lemonade. That’s a nice thought, a positive spin on things. The problem, now, is the lemons are dried out, and the lemonade has been all drunk up. No more lemonade can be made.

Well, perhaps we ought to look at things as a glass half full, instead of half empty. A nice thought, too. But, that is problematic, as well, because there is no more water in the glass. To be sure, we have a leadership crisis in Baton Rouge.

These draconian cuts to Southeastern have placed an incredible financial burden on students, have created unsustainable hardships on faculty, and staff—on families, and soon—if not already—the business community in Hammond and surrounding area will share the pain. To put it another way, if Southeastern goes away, no more new chicken places will be coming to town, and most of the others will close down. Bye-bye Starbucks, hello vacant lot. Yes, we have a leadership crisis in Baton Rouge.

But, there is a light. And that light is all of you, is me, is Dr. Crain. Collectively, we can right this ship, by—as one insightful thinker at Southeastern puts it—“Standing up, speaking up, and not shutting up” so much so to move Baton Rouge to assert leadership that rightly funds higher education in the state of Louisiana, that rightly supports Presidents of Universities, like Dr. Crain, and that rightly supports students in elevating their possibilities to make a better Louisiana.

Some in here may be thinking, odd introductory remarks for an-opening-academic-year convocation. Perhaps, but I don’t think so, simply because the urgency of the times demands it. Contrary to Jack Nicholson’s iconic line in the motion picture, A Few Good Men, I suspect this audience can handle the truth.

As I introduce Dr. Crain, I am reminded of the words of Victor Hugo, the great French writer who wrote, “Be as a bird perched on a frail branch that she feels bending beneath her, still she sings away all the same, knowing she has wings.” Indeed, the President of Southeastern Louisiana University continues to strongly move forward, despite the fragility of the circumstances. It is my great honor to introduce Dr. John Crain.

***Used with permission.

Blogger Dayne Sherman resides in Ponchatoula. He covers the South like kudzu and promises that he never burned Atlanta. He is the author of author of Welcome to the Fallen Paradise: A Novel. His website is daynesherman.com.

==============================
Dayne Sherman, Writer & Speaker
Web & Social Media: http://daynesherman.com/
Talk About the South Blog: http://daynesherman.blogspot.com/
Tweet the South - Twitter: http://twitter.com/TweettheSouth/
Facebook: http://facebook.com/daynesherman
***This message speaks only for the writer, a citizen, not for any present or past employer.***

Sunday, August 11, 2013

Sage of Tangipahoa Parish speaks bravely

Profiles in Real Courage

Dayne Sherman

Column
August 11, 2013
Published in the Daily Star and elsewhere.
Words: 550

After Hurricane Katrina, a wise man appeared in Tangipahoa Parish. His name is C.B. Forgotston, and he stands alone as the most important commentator on Louisiana politics writing today.

I’ve met Mr. Forgotston face-to-face only one time. It was at St. Vincent de Paul. We were both dropping off items. Through Twitter and other venues, however, Forgotston is always quick to answer my many questions. He serves as the Bayou Socrates never taking a fee for his advice and analysis.

Even during the rare moments when I disagree with his positions, I appreciate his perspective and his courage.

One of the greatest lessons I’ve learned from him is what I like to call the “The Forgotston Equilibrium.” It’s a flawless economic principle. Each time tuition is raised, Governor Bobby Jindal and his lapdog legislators cut higher education funding by an equal or greater amount.

For this economic theory, Forgotston should win the Nobel Prize just like Milton Friedman, Paul Krugman, and Joseph Stiglitz.

In other words, “The Forgotston Equilibrium” explains why Louisiana universities can’t possibly tax students into prosperity.

Raising tuition is a lose-lose game, and with the advent of a burgeoning community college system charging far lower tuition, the demise of universities will continue unabated into the foreseeable future.

Remember the $250 million construction engorgement passed during the last legislative session that will build community colleges in every crack and corner of Louisiana? Between misguided community college competition and higher university tuition, I predict that every university in Louisiana with the exception of LSU and perhaps Tech and ULL will start dropping 400-500 students a year until the entire student body can fit into a janitorial closet.

Louisiana higher education is being systematically destroyed. The culprit is not a lack of tax revenues. No, it’s a matter of priorities. These priorities come from the governor and our elected representatives.

Our primary recourse as citizens is to let our “representatives” know that they are not representing us with their pork barrel projects, often called NGOs, obese consulting contracts, and state money spent on local boondoggles.

Let the politicians know that their choices make them anathema, and in 2015 they will be thrown out of office like a big old snake that has slithered inside the house through the kitchen door: swiftly and with plenty of malice.

I find it ludicrous when local leaders run around like hound dogs covered in red ants and can’t quite figure out how to stop the cuts to higher education and other essential state services.

Haven’t these nitwits read C.B. Forgotston’s recent columns?

Here’s how to stop the bleeding in higher education and elsewhere. Stand up, speak up, and don’t shut up.

Of course, this takes backbone. In Hammond, my hometown, a newly evolved subspecies of human invertebrate is leading much of the political and business community. How disgraceful.

In a world of hacks, charlatans, suck-ups, higher education bureaucrats, political appointees, and fawning politicians, it’s nice that we have C.B. Forgotston telling it like it is. At least Hammond has one resident with a fully formed adult spine.

Louisiana and Hammond need people like Forgotston now more than ever.

Dayne Sherman resides in Ponchatoula, Louisiana. He covers the South like kudzu and promises that he never burned Atlanta. He is the author of Welcome to the Fallen Paradise: A Novel. His website is daynesherman.com.

Wednesday, July 3, 2013

Guest Column by Dr. James D. Kirylo

Truth, Love, and Partisanism

By Dr. James D. Kirylo
July 3, 2013
Guest Column - 450 words

Last week, Robert Mann, a professor at LSU’s Manship School of Mass Communication, wrote a provocative column in The Times-Picayune. Titled Louisiana is Walling off School Children From Each Other, Mann challenges the direction of the Louisiana school reform effort.

Among other facts, he asserts that 40 percent of the state’s voucher students scored at or above grade level last spring, that 80 schools in the Louisiana Recovery School District (RSD) were plagued with allegations of mismanagement, wasteful spending and millions in lost or stolen property, and that the New Orleans’ RSD schools, mostly charters, were the worst performing in the city. In short, Mann calls out the so-called reformers, making clear that their effort to systematically dismantle public schools is not working, not good for Louisiana, and ultimately undermines the common good.

Evidently, Senator Conrad Appel (R-Metairie) took exception to Mann’s piece, provoking him to strike back with a rather long diatribe in a post on his Facebook page. In more ways than one, Mann brilliantly did his job as a columnist. Appel was defensive, divisive, and ideological, injecting partisan politics, essentially proclaiming how the Republican Party is saving public education in Louisiana.

Nowhere in his column did Mann mention political party, the left, the right, Republican, Democrat or Independent. He simply presented a critical point of view that is clearly necessary in the overall conversation regarding the direction of public education in Louisiana.

As for Appel, instead of thoughtfully considering Mann’s assertions as a prompt for constructive reflection, he pounced, taking Mann’s commentary personal, attacking the left, the Democrats, unions, and then somehow thinking he hit a home run with the proclamation, “Out of sheer love of our state, we Republicans have taken on the campaign to free our people from ignorance…Petty attacks by people who seek to destroy what is noble and good will be met with truth.”

“Truth” is a funny word and so is “love.” Evidently, Mann doesn’t speak the truth, nor does he love the state of Louisiana. Heck, the Democrats, those on the left, and even union people don’t speak the truth or love this state. But the Republicans do! The kind of political posturing that Appel injects is incredibly destructive, leaves no room for dialogue, and is an obvious manifestation of the axiom, “A house divided against itself, cannot stand.”

According to a recently published Bloomberg report, Louisiana has been rated the most miserable state in 2013. The list goes on and on as to why we were graced with that not-so-flattering label. Clearly, the partisan divide has exacerbated that misery. Perhaps Senator Appel should meditate on the misery he's caused before his next missive is written.

James D. Kirylo is the author of the book Paulo Freire: The Man from Recife, and can be reached at jkirylo@yahoo.com.

Reprinted with permission.
========================================================

Blogger Dayne Sherman lives in Ponchatoula and is the author of Welcome to the Fallen Paradise: A Novel. His website at daynesherman.com.
========

Web & Social Media: http://daynesherman.com/

Talk About the South Blog: http://daynesherman.blogspot.com/

Tweet the South - Twitter: http://twitter.com/TweettheSouth/

***This message speaks only for the writer, a citizen, not for any present or past employer.***

Sunday, June 9, 2013

Louisiana Legislators Destroy Universities

The Death of Higher Learning

Dayne Sherman

Column

6/9/13

Published in the Daily Star and elsewhere.

Words: 750

The Louisiana legislative session ended on June 6. Victory was declared by all parties, and Governor Jindal showed up for a photo op once the budget deal passed. Reports have claimed that this was only his second visit to the Legislature since he “parked” his dubious tax swap plan during his address at the opening of the session on April 8.

Despite the high-fives and celebration of alleged legislative independence, the much lauded victory is a fraud, just positive spin to keep the homefolk happy and dumb. Our elected representatives failed us this year, and the state will suffer as a result.

One important example of this failure is the continued attack against colleges and universities. Let me be very clear: your local university is dying, and this session did nothing to revive it or any other suffocating Louisiana university.

Despite the malarkey you will hear from various well-paid sources in and out of the higher education, Louisiana schools may have been given the final blow with this year’s budget.

The best analysis comes from Jan Moller of the Louisiana Budget Project who said recently that Louisiana higher education was slated to receive $204 million in state funds (2.7 percent of the General Fund) during the coming fiscal year.

Keep in mind that higher education received about $1.5 billion in state funding in 2009 (18 percent of the General Fund).

As Moller points out, we are funding Louisiana higher education at the lowest level since the 1950s.

The legislators are saying they ended the use of one-time money, which has hurt higher education and health care in the past through midyear cuts. But one-time money and creative accounting did not go on vacation under this year’s budget. The budget is full of hoaxes, not the least being the nitwit tax amnesty program that will do little to make funding sustainable or stable.

For higher education, expect a midyear cut. I hope I am wrong, but the budget is full of funny money.

Community colleges were given $250 million to build campuses, and they will get the money separate from the Capital Outlay Budget, an act that may harm the state’s bond rating.

It sounds great on the surface, and I am all for strengthening our anemic community and technical college system. But this is an irresponsible plan that will build “ghost campuses.” Ghost campuses are fancy buildings without adequate faculty to teach students.

Colleges need students and qualified professors. This building boom is a bust without good students and compensated faculty. Though I am sure well-connected building contractors are pleased about the newfound pork, there is no money to hire professors for the new classrooms.

In a death blow to higher education, SB 16, a retirement bill, did not pass. Thus, new higher education employees electing to take the defined contribution plan (the Optional Retirement Program), which about half of the employees choose because of portability, will get a 1.8 percent retirement “match” and no Social Security benefits beginning July 1, 2014 (1).

Louisiana higher education will have the least attractive benefits package in North America. I challenge any person to find a more paltry retirement plan at any legitimate university in the United States or Canada. This legislative failure will grossly limit recruitment of new faculty. Simply put, men and women with any intelligence will find another place to work—a place outside of the Bayou State.

The legislative session is over but the damage to higher education continues. Thank your senator and representative next time you see him or her. Both Democrats and Republicans failed to give a legitimate effort to help higher education survive.

However, Jerome “Dee” Richard, an Independent from Thibodaux, made an effort again this year to reduce state contracts by 10 percent. It failed in the Senate. In my view, only by limiting these bloated contracts and cutting back on billions in corporate welfare and tax loopholes will higher education make a comeback.

Unfortunately, we have a legislative body, a governor, and perhaps a general populace with more interest in funding foolishness than higher learning.

On positive note for many of my readers, I plan to take a break from writing newspaper columns this summer in order to prepare several fiction projects for publication. That is if I can help myself. The Louisiana political landscape is rich and tempting for any observant writer.

I think it was novelist Tom Clancy who once said the difference between fiction and reality is that fiction has to make sense.

In Louisiana, truth is more bizarre that fiction.

Dayne Sherman lives in Ponchatoula and is the author of Welcome to the Fallen Paradise: A Novel. His website is daynesherman.com.

(1) After being contacted by two Louisiana higher education advocates about SB 16, I am adding "2014" above. As it turns out, HCR 2 will stall the cut to a 1.8 percent match for a year. However, as the ORP stands right now, I challenge anyone to find a worse retirement program than the ORP at any legitimate university in North America.

Sunday, June 2, 2013

Snakes at the Capitol

The Real Threat in Baton Rouge

Dayne Sherman

Column published in the Daily Star and elsewhere.
6/1/13
Words: 650

Recent reports have detailed a dangerous snake infestation at the Louisiana State Capitol. This has been the fodder for jokes, but the fact remains that the slithering serpents of the Garden of Eden have invaded Huey Long’s Art Deco skyscraper (1).

On Memorial Day, my day off, I decided to go to the Capitol. My goal was to say a few words related to HB 1, the state budget bill, which will destroy universities in Louisiana by cutting funding to levels somewhere just north of zero. The Senate Finance Committee had the bill on the agenda.

As I waited in the hallway for the room to open, I heard many comments and backslaps about the snakes, but I never saw a single reptile that moved without feet. All of the reptiles I saw wore loafers.

Inside the committee room, Chair Senator Jack “I’ve Always Got Bobby Jindal’s Back” Donahue (R-Mandeville) called for a moment of silence for the MEN who gave the ultimate sacrifice for the country. Obviously, he does not know that women bleed and die for our country.

After another senator corrected him about the women who did indeed die in war, he quickly said HB 1 would not be heard until later in the week.

I immediately realized my trip was a goose chase. Thanks, Senator Donahue.

For my little drive to Baton Rouge, I did get to see the Senate committee kamikaze Representative Kenny Havard’s (R-St. Francisville) HB 240, a bill that would have required legislative oversight for privatization of state services over $5 million dollars. It had passed the House with 93 votes in favor. Not bad.

But it became clear from the senators' questions that the bill was dead on arrival.

During the testimony for and against the bill, I saw Steven Procopio, a Jindal administration lackey, bloviating about the governor’s wishes. In short, he called Havard’s fiscally responsible bill a Massachusetts-based liberal union-loving leftist agenda sent from Karl Marx himself.

I was waiting for Procopio to use the words Benghazi, IRS, Solyndra, and Nancy Pelosi, but I’m certain he knew he didn’t need to bring out the big guns to defeat the bill.

Havard’s good government proposal was shot down with only two senators voting for it. I should note that Senator Mack “Bodi” White (R-Central) offered a courtesy vote in favor of his neighboring legislator’s bill—after he saw that it was dead in the roll call. How charitable of him, and Havard noted this in his banter with White.

I learned something from my Memorial Day goose chase at the Capitol. Our greatest problem is not a few snakes sliding through the building. No, our real problem is a Senate full of men and women who are invertebrates, backbones optional for all but a few.

Speaking of invertebrates, Senator Elbert Guillory (R-Opelousas) changed his party affiliation on Friday from Democrat to Republican. Guillory, a man who recently said he consulted a witch doctor for an ailment, is perhaps the American Legislative Exchange Council’s most valuable member. ALEC thinks he’s grand, so much so that they gave him plenty of campaign cash. According to reporter Tom Aswell, Guillory received “$45,200 from ALEC member corporations, $7500 from Jindal.”

Several reports confirm that he switched from Republican to Democrat, and now he’s back to the GOP. I had a Republican House member tell me off the record that Guillory became a Democrat just to win office.

I should start an annual award for legislative sorriness. During this session there are many good examples of breath-taking awfulness, but I think Senator Guillory deserves a lifetime achievement award.

Are there snakes at the Capitol? Maybe. But watch out for the ones wearing suits. There is no antivenom for their bite. Our only hope is to throw them out of office as soon as possible.

Dayne Sherman lives in Ponchatoula and is the author of Welcome to the Fallen Paradise: A Novel. His website is daynesherman.com.

1. Yes, I know water snakes aren't venomous, but stay with me.

Sunday, May 26, 2013

A Roaring Lion or a Stuffed Housecat?

A Problem with the Hammond Chamber of Commerce

Dayne Sherman
Column
5/26/13
Words: 650
Published in the Daily Star & elsewhere

The crisis in Louisiana higher education does not appear to be slowing in the least. With almost every public statement, Governor Bobby Jindal’s well-paid propagandists say that they are protecting higher education and health care—as if saying something over and over again will convince the public to abandon reality and believe their fiction.

My role as a writer is to point out the distance between the spin and the facts. In the process, I have often raked my own tribe, the professoriate, over the coals. I believe charity begins at home.

From my perspective, college and university employees should be marching on the State Capitol and not their respective university administrations. After all, it is the legislators and the governor who send university chancellors, presidents, and provosts buckets of mud instead of buckets of money to run campuses.

The problem with professors is not that they are lazy or that they do not work hard or teach well, it is that they are not involved in the political process as active citizens. I recounted last week that state funding for Louisiana higher education has been cut 80 percent since 2008. This is a shame and a sin.

So far, I have witnessed nothing to change my mind or challenge my assertion that university employees are cowering in a corner afraid of the boogie man. This lack of civic engagement weakens their institutions, harms their students, and threatens their communities.

Having said this, there are some fine examples statewide and locally of faculty members standing up to the powers and principalities, but they are few, the exception and not the rule.

But enough with the criticism of my own profession. Recently, I was driving up Northwest Railroad Avenue in Hammond, and I saw a stuffed lion atop the Chamber of Commerce sign. It is a cute gesture.

I went home and spent a great deal of time scouring the Chamber webpage for position statements decrying the cuts to their local university, and I could find nothing. Zip. Zero. Nada. The outrage may be buried there someplace, but it is covered by a thin veneer of happiness.

Forty million dollars in cuts to the local university and they don’t have an image of a balled up fist with the caption saying, “Governor and legislators, stop killing our university!”

How shameful.

With the Chamber, I see the same apathy of the professoriate, which is nothing but acquiesce: “Let’s go along to get along.”

In Louisiana, we are own worst enemies. Failing to pass the Hammond school tax is one example, which was detailed on Friday in this newspaper by Dr. Roman Heleniak. I wish to thank him for his kind words about my old novel, Welcome to the Fallen Paradise. The book does deserve a sequel, but next time the beneficiaries of my fictional wrath should be the business community instead of dirty politicians.

Novels aside, at the end of the day Governor Jindal and the legislators couldn’t care less about university faculty and staff. They are disorganized, Balkanized, and as a group unaware of the political process. Most are just plain scared and with good reason.

Please understand one thing: When the business community starts carrying pitchforks to legislative offices and the Capitol, we will see the destruction of Louisiana higher education come to an immediate halt. The silence of the business community needs to end today.

The only reason I spend time challenging business leaders is that I believe they have the power and the responsibility to turn things around for higher education. The legislative session ends on June 6, and they have less than two weeks to wake up.

If only the business community would act like a roaring lion instead of a stuffed housecat.

Dayne Sherman lives in Ponchatoula and is the author of Welcome to the Fallen Paradise: A Novel. His website is daynesherman.com.

Monday, May 20, 2013

All universities cannot survive Jindal

Crisis in Louisiana Higher Education

Dayne Sherman

Column
5/20/13
Words: 750
Published in the Daily Star & elsewhere

The Louisiana higher education crisis is so broad and deep that it is difficult to cover in a newspaper column.

No one sums up the disaster better than Jim Beam of the Lake Charles “American” newspaper. Recently, he opined, “The state spent $1.4 billion for colleges and universities in fiscal year 2007-08. The budget Jindal proposed for the fiscal year starting July 1 contains $284.5 million for higher education. That is an 80 percent reduction in state funding over those years.”

If I thought it would help, I would get this quote tattooed to my forearm in purple and gold letters with tiger paws as accents.

Of course, it would not help at all. I should be clear, however, that an 80 percent cut in state funding is an unmitigated disaster, and we will be three decades fixing the damage.

Why did it occur?

Simply put, Governor Jindal and his obedient legislators would rather provide two billion dollars in tax giveaways—mostly to well-connected companies—than to have a functional higher education system in Louisiana.

Constantly, the right-wing attacks the numbers of universities in Louisiana. We have too many, they say. What they never detail is exactly which universities they want to close.

Indeed, they never mention our lack of a comprehensive community college system or that many of the vo-techs transitioning to community colleges are not accredited by the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools.

I suspect what these folks really want to do is close all of the Historically Black Colleges and Universities. But they know this requires a two-thirds vote of the Legislature, which is impossible.

Make no mistake, universities will be failing or failed by the end of Jindal’s rule in January 2016.

This under the table attack never ends. For example, HB 68, which re-establishes a Cash Balance Retirement Plan for Higher Education employees, as well as rank and file state workers, will help destroy recruiting of new faculty and administrators. (This bill has morphed into a substitute bill, HB 729.)

The bill was sponsored by Kevin Pearson (R-Slidell) and voted out of committee on May 15. It had failed to pass two weeks prior, but Paul Hollis (R-Mandeville) rolled over and switched his vote.

HB 68/729, the “Cat Food” Retirement Plan, is far worse than Social Security alone for many participants. A much better plan was passed last year, but it was found unconstitutional. Now it is before the Louisiana Supreme Court. It added retirement debt, an Unfunded Accrued Liability, and needed a two-thirds vote, which it did not get in 2012. The law that passed last year didn’t meet muster.

So what did Jindal lackey Kevin Pearson do? He made the retirement plan so paltry—again, far less than Social Security—so that it would not need a two-thirds vote of his colleagues to pass.

It’ll give Jindal a victory to brag about as he runs for POTUS. That’s the goal for Jindal’s corrupt retirement legislation.

A dozen college leaders spoke out against the bill on May 15, which will, in part, make Louisiana higher education have a “bird seed” retirement program, something far worse than last year’s cat food plan. No one with any other career possibilities will come to work in Louisiana higher education if the bill becomes law. [See video by date - Retirement Committee: http://house.louisiana.gov/H_Video/2013/May2013.htm]

New faculty coming under HB 68/729 will get a 1.8 to less than 1 percent retirement match if they elect an Optional Retirement Plan (ORP) instead of the new state plan. Recently, I heard Jim Purcell of the Board of Regents indicate that neither he nor anyone else would be coming to Louisiana to work in higher education. Remember that Louisiana state employees do not pay into or receive Social Security benefits. Defending the plan at the hearing was one person, Steven Procopio, a loyal Jindal hack.

One stooge is more important than a dozen faculty leaders in Representative Hollis’s weird little world. In other words, the testimony of one Jindal boot licker is more significant than statewide higher education leaders representing faculty senates, unions, and the American Association of University Professors.

Procopio was just doing his job. But next time you see a member of the Northshore legislative delegation, thank him for being instrumental in killing Southeastern Louisiana University and other state colleges and universities. They deserve to be thanked.

Again, Pearson and Hollis, as well as many local representatives are destroying higher education. I am simply letting you know what they are doing. Don’t forget this during the next election.

Dayne Sherman lives in Ponchatoula and is the author of Welcome to the Fallen Paradise: A Novel. His website is daynesherman.com.