Comments on: DePaul Students and Faculty Fight to Keep Fired Dean

By: wtf!?

wtf!? — Tue, 23 Jun 2009 18:27:34 +0000

WTF!? Did any of you read the links provided before you posted your comments?!
Read the WHOLE story… then form an opinion!! UGH! I really hate ignorant people! I REALLY DO!

By: Glenn Cassidy

Glenn Cassidy — Tue, 23 Jun 2009 09:14:10 +0000

Whatever the cut the university takes from law school tuition, that doesn’t belong in the accreditation criteria. The criteria should only include output measures, not inputs. What does the school offer students? What do the faculty accomplish? This transfer at worst could be thought of as a tax by the university, and this is the implicit assumption by the accreditors, the ABA. The only interest ABA has in using this as a criterion is to protect rents for its law school constituents. It says zero about law school quality. If the university drains resources from the law school and this action affects the law school quality, then that quality reduction will ultimately earn a lower rating from the ABA. This logic would imply a lawyer from New York is of poorer quality than one from Florida because New York income taxes take a chunk of the NY lawyer’s pay while income taxless Florida does not take any of the Florida lawyer’s pay. For a student or potential client, compare the expected benefit from the law school or the lawyer and compare it to the price charged.

By: Mike Spindell

Mike Spindell — Mon, 22 Jun 2009 14:43:36 +0000

The mistake is often made whether dealing with academics or in the sciences, that somehow people are able to rise above their
petty needs and proceed by valuing either their mission, or their method. Yet we know that in both academics and science, the most vicious battles occur when the protection of turf is involved. The pious hypocrisy prevalent in discussing the doings in academia and science.

As distressing as the circumstances may be for Dean Weissberger
we needs these incidents occasionally to draw the curtain and see the wizardry as the sham it is. Why is it that the costs of higher education have far outstripped the cost of living?

By: mespo727272

mespo727272 — Mon, 22 Jun 2009 03:07:47 +0000

A few words from Ibsen come to mind as I read this post. In his seminal work, “An Enemy of The People,” the great Norwegian playwright’s protagonist, Dr. Stockmann, is faced with a similar dilemma involving his duty to his conscience versus expediency. Here’s how Ibsen describes the conundrum of being guided by consensus instead of principle:

“The majority is never right. Never, I tell you! That’s one of these lies in society that no free and intelligent man can help rebelling against. Who are the people that make up the biggest proportion of the population — the intelligent ones or the fools?”

And then his famous line from the same work about the nature of the fight for truth:

“Never wear your best trousers when you go out to fight for freedom and truth.”

He even has some advice for us here on the blog:

“To live is to war with trolls.”

–HENRIK IBSEN

Damn that guy can write.

By: hidflect

hidflect — Sun, 21 Jun 2009 16:19:57 +0000

And didn’t Harvard Business School lose 25% of their endowment fund in the markets recently? Educators seem to have a bad track record in dealing with Big Business. They should concentrate on helping students rather than generating cash cows.

By: rafflaw

rafflaw — Sun, 21 Jun 2009 14:48:51 +0000

My daughter is going into her third year at Loyola Law School in Chicago and she almost went to DePaul. I was actually surprised that she didn’t choose DePaul after our visit there, but now I am glad that she is not in the middle of this nonsense. I smell a rat in this one. It sounds like someone has a burr in their saddle and logic and the good of the school don’t matter to the administration. This story even hit the Chicago papers and it has harmed the reputation of DePaul.

By: Jill

Jill — Sun, 21 Jun 2009 14:45:29 +0000

Take the school charter and place inside a ring of brandy from the president’s private stash. Form student drum circle around same and bring in Hawaiian Fire dancers near same. Call Tom Hanks and offer him the role as ousted Dean in the new movie–Stupid in DePaul.

By: Hugh Sansom

Hugh Sansom — Sun, 21 Jun 2009 14:03:48 +0000

It was also Helmut Epp (and DePaul’s president Dennis Holtschneider) who was instrumental in denying tenure to vocal Israel critic Paul Finkelstein. Finkelstein had the unanimous of his department, which had already voted for tenure, and was very popular among students.

But noted anti-Arab racist Alan Dershowitz went to war against Finkelstein (who exposed Dershowitz’s rampant plagiarism). Dershowitz was particularly aggressive in lobbying academics in the DePaul’s law school.

By: Anonymously Yours

Anonymously Yours — Sun, 21 Jun 2009 13:07:24 +0000

Well with Big Business and Corporate governance committees what do you really expect?