YSU trustees should resign

YSU trustees should resign
EDITOR:
I am calling for the immediate resignations of all nine members of Youngstown State University's Board of Trustees on grounds of incompetence and gross mediocrity. All nine are decent enough human beings and successful in their chosen occupations. They would have had to be in order to be appointed to the board by our last two anti-education Republican governors.
The only things they know about YSU is what Sweet and his administration tell them -- hardly an unbiased view. In fact, I have never seen any of them outside of Tod Hall, the administration building, or Beeghly, where they attend graduation ceremonies. (Mr. Pogue's willingness to talk to the faculty is a sham since he has implied he will not change his mind on any subject pertaining to YSU and that he still has confidence in Sweet and Herbert.
Their animosity to the faculty and staff of YSU and their blind support of President Sweet and Provost Herbert have caused great harm to the functioning of my university. They have committed acts of academic malfeasance. Pogue and Wang's recent comments about wanting to reopen contract negotiation are not only premature but a direct assault on the people who do the real work at this university.
Millions of dollars could be saved immediately if the number of unnecessary administrators was drastically reduced. Their numbers have doubled since Sweet became president, and at a conservative estimate 90 percent do not solve problems but create them. Thousands of dollars could be saved now if Herbert would sign off on pay from external grant agencies that have been sitting on his desk for months. Hundreds of thousands could be saved on unnecessary legal work. An amount of 140,000 (plus fringes) could have been saved by not paying John Habat when he is no longer working at YSU. If this is not incompetence, what is?
Notice their contradictions on the collective bargaining process: (1) The board wishes to reopen negotiations when they have already accepted these faculty and staff contracts in 2005. Contacts are not sacrosanct. (2) They are spending hundreds of thousands of dollars to appeal a ruling because an arbitrator confirmed that Ohio law takes precedent over a labor contract and the staff must be given 4 personal days off per year (from the state mandated sick leave quota), rather than the two provided in the contract. Contracts are sacrosanct.
Yes, it is time for the entire Board to resign, taking with them the entire Sweet administration. I have no confidence in any of them. YSU is a great institution, but this is because of the faculty and staff and in spite of administrative bumbling.
RONALD G. TABAK
Canfield
The writer is a professor of physics and astronomy at YSU.
Kindness goes a long way
EDITOR:
On a recent trip to Gabriel Brothers department store with my five children, I found myself 3 short at the register. I did not realize that they don't accept the coupons printed on their merchandise. A very kind woman behind me insisted on giving me the 3. She and the woman beside her were remembering a movie that they had seen. They were saying that we all need to take care of each other.
I cannot tell you how this act of kindness has touched my heart. I was almost in tears as I left the store. It also makes me a little sad that I was so shocked and flustered when it happened. The list of craziness going on in the world today is endless: road rage, suicide bombers, rich vs. poor, Democrats vs. Republicans, Americans vs. Iraqis, black vs. white, and everyone vs. George Bush (sorry, I couldn't resist). Kindness seems to be the exception instead of the norm.
I would like to thank this kind lady for reminding me that good people are the majority. This is easy to forget, because the news is generally not about the good people. Wouldn't the world be a better place, if instead of competing, we all worked together and took care of each other?
MARTINA FERRARO
Canfield