Subject: Re: Cooperative Extension Service

From: [email-masked] (John A. Mcnulty)
Date: 9 Apr 1994 01:01:28 GMT

John Adamson ([email-masked]) wrote:

: well they're being addressed may be another question entirely.  I think 
: bureaucracy is certainly a part of the problem, but what concerns me is the 
: viewpoint I often encounter which goes something like this:  "We're 
: educators, not businessmen, so therefore we shouldn't be expected to try to 
: adhere to the same standards of efficiency as business organizations."  
: Needless to say, taxpayers increasingly find that to be an arrogant (and 
: unacceptable) viewpoint.  (snip)

I have been pretty unhappy with the CES in metro Chicago for a number of
reasons, but "bureaucracy" and "arrogance" covers most of it. The 
"educators" are blaming the lack of office "administrators" in addition
to a lack of secretarial support. Yet I have never heard of a college
biology professor with a staff like these people have...and professors
teach classes all year, write their own grant proposals and research
publications, write and grade their own exams, and do their own research.
I have been met with complete incompetence every time I try to get
something done with the CES. It took me 3 years just to get into the
Master Gardener course ("lost" applications) and it took a year to
get the stupid visor I ordered.  Then these "educators" stand up in
front of us with permanent smiles on their faces and get downright
hostile (smiles intact) when the volunteers challenge poorly written
(and downright erroneous) exam questions. They "train" us, we go out
and do their work. 

I have no other firsthand experience with government funded university
programs; my B.S., M.S., and Ph.D. are from private universities.
Is this how public universities operate in general, or is the CES
in a class of its own? 

Patty, not John or his employer