That’s hissy fit, heiwa. That is, unless …
Ah, … floating.
Allow me to edit 111…’s sentence:
AIU could hire
absolutely anyone
to drool in front of a classroom for 90 minutes at a stretch and it wouldn't affect their ranking.
there,...
AIU could hire absolutely anyone to drool in front of a classroom for 90 minutes at a stretch and it wouldn't affect their ranking.
Is this okay, floating? No problem with the content of the statement? Okay with you, 111...?
Now, if you’re satisfied, floating, just one question: Did you or would you recommend Akita International University to your American friend? If so, on what basis did/would you recommend this ‘unique’ university?
Next, some comments on concerned8’s impressive (04Jan07) post, in which he castigates the “splutter(ing) drown(ing) … academic pygmies,” and the “idiots” who have put up “abusive posts.” (Floating, how did you let the tone/language of that post pass without comment?)
And a piece of friendly (really) advice for concerned8: You should check your facts before you post here.
1. It could have prepared its employment contacts with the people it inherited from MSUA with more care.
First, it’s not just “inherited” MSUA people AIU is breaking their contract with. But whether former MSUA teachers, or those hired from outside, had they understood that they could and would not be renewed without due cause after three years, they could and would have found more stable employment at another institution. Some left stable jobs to come to Akita International University.
No, concerned8, AIU was not playing the good Samaritan when it hired those people. It needed their experience and expertise to create and build a program, and the program will surely suffer when they’re gone.
2. AIU could have been more tolerant in renewing those contracts
but unfortunately “the pygmies” had a
...viciously abusive two hour confrontation with their director when he was seeking a minor curriculum change early in the new regime.
I’ve witnessed dozens of these types of ‘hot’ faculty meetings during my career (and even been the focus of the rage a time or two – oh, the horror). So long as no punches were thrown nor blood spilt, the portrayal seems somewhat sensationalized-but what is remarkable for me is the apparent high degree of faculty consensus on this ‘change’ (whatever it was) and that apparently this type of hot meeting happened very infrequently (Only once?!? …in three years?!!).
…and
... not one of the MSUA English-teaching group has bothered to learn Japanese.
As others have pointed out, this is just plain false, and concerned8 should know it. I watched one of the now-redundant AIU faculty on TV discuss in Japanese the then-new appointment of Tom Foley as U.S. Ambassador to Japan (‘twas 1997, according to Wikipedia).
But besides that, they don’t need Japanese for their work, and as has been pointed out, the likelihood of the new hires being fluent in Japanese is extremely thin - A (good?) excuse to fire them when their contracts are up? (Advice for the new hires: As your workload will be pretty heavy, try the
Japanese For Busy People text and CD set.)…
And I see concerned8 is continuing to bang on about the virtues of bilingualism (17Jan07). Perhaps, being bilingual is now the defining difference between “superiors” and “pygmies.”
But this is a new phenomenon. In fact, traditionally in Japan, defensive monolingual “superiors” have been reluctant to hire bilinguals for English teaching positions. As late as 2002, I advised a bilingual job applicant to conceal his Japanese ability from a (basically) monolingual “superior” interviewer. He did so successfully and got the job. Glad to hear things are changing.
3. AIU could have eased up on the PhD requirement for continued employment. However, it faces the weird Education Ministry demand for more teaching staff, even PE instructors, to have higher degrees.
As pointed out earlier, there is no Education Ministry demand for English teaching staff or PE instructors to have a Ph.D. Please cite your source, or correct yourself.
Concerned8 spends a good deal of his post disabusing the reader of the false charges (whatever those were) of the “abusers” and throws in some abuse of the abusers for good measure. C8, please understand that the Vice President’s lack of a Ph.D. is not the issue. The issue is upper level administrators telling the redundant that they are losing their jobs because they don’t have Ph.D.s when the upper level administrators themselves don’t have Ph.D.s is the issue.
After sifting through and eliminating the inflammatory hyperbole, I find that concerned8 has offered these as administrative reasons for the mass canning:
1. The contracts were never really meant to be renewable (-so AIU is merely correcting/clarifying with action poorly worded clauses in the original contracts.)
2. Faculty members in one department had an acrimonious meeting with their director (and he was very very angry with them.)
3. The non-renewed faculty are incompetent (as they lack Japanese ability.)
4. The non-renewed faculty are not qualified (because they have no Ph.D.)
But the Vice President himself must have had reservations about the validity of the above reasoning as any basis for the dismissals, as concerned 8 states that he
…had pushed hard for an approach that would have eased the contract termination problem, and at a late stage had even succeeded to some extent. Not enough to save the day, perhaps, but he did try.
Concerned8’s posts could be seen as a plea for understanding for the VP. He’s not stupid. He (or anyone with any experience) could have easily predicted the affect of mass dismissals on the AIU students, faculty, programs and institution. Clark argued against it and he was ignored, from which I infer that he functions as a token only - the foreign VP that has no voice in the ‘top-down’ decision-making at AIU.
