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(May 10, 2011) No Confidence . . . by the Numbers A GUEST COLUMN Votes of “no confidence” have spread from the Shelby Thames administration of USM (2002-07) to the University of Houston at Victoria, where former USM (Thamesian) provost Tim Hudson served as president until Aug-2010, and where former USM (Thamesian) associate dean Farhang Niroomand now serves as b-school dean.

(May 11, 2011) How Do You Know If You Are The Target Of A Mobbing? Over the next few days usmnews.net will publish excerpts from an excellent article published in the Chronicle of Higher Education. Mob Rule: In departmental disputes, professors can act just like animals, John Gravois, http://chronicle.com, Section: The Faculty, Volume 52, Issue 32, Page A10.

(May 11, 2011) Tyler Junior College Newspaper Stands Tall East Texas Community College Press Represents UT-Tyler Students on First Amendment Issue When administrators at the University of Texas at Tyler stifled The Patriot Talon’s ability to report and editorialize on administration malfeasance there, the nearby The Apache Pow Wow of Tyler Junior College jumped into the breach with its 5-May-2011 report entitled “UT-Tyler newspaper advisor fired from job.”

(May 16, 2011) Uncustomary Alliance Troubling Union between Government and the Media in Victoria Reporter Kayla Bell’s 11-May-2011 report for The Victoria Advocate entitled “UHV faculty issues vote of no-confidence in provost” tells some of the story that an earlier . . . Breaking News . . . report here at USMNEWS.net told about the vote of “no confidence” taken by a vast majority of the University of Houston-Victoria Faculty Council against UHV provost Suzanne LaBrecque.

(May 18, 2011) Administration Surrogates HOW STANLEY HAUER THREW KATE GREENE UNDER THE BUS A Guest Editorial USM faculty have had to deal with terrible central administrations for far too long. The Shelby Thames Administration ran USM in what some called a plantation style for five years, from 2002-07. Since May of 2007, current USM President Martha Saunders has been in charge. Despite what some faculty will say, Saunders represents little, if any, improvement over the situation that existed under Thames. Those who would say otherwise would likely need to think about whether they hold such a view only because Thames was so bad that almost anyone else would seem like an improvement, even if only a minor one.