[ale] [OT] Merger of Southern Polytechnic State with Kennesaw State

[David Tomaschik]

I don't know about students or about SPSU faculty/staff, but I remember
this was actively being discussed when I worked at KSU in 2011.  It
probably is a hostile takeover more than a merger, and I suspect it would
have negative implications for SPSU students, but I also understand why
they are doing it.  The USG is seriously top-heavy.  Lots of relatively
small schools (SPSU being one, KSU is less "small" but still not the scale
of GSU/GT/UGA), each with their own President, Provost, Deans, IT staff,
etc.

Unfortunately, I can't find line-item budgets for either school to break
out the administrative overhead, but it's definitely not trivial.

KSU's "president's cabinet"[1] salaries add up to at least $1.4 million:

Dr. Dan Papp, President: $319k
Dr. Ken Harmon, Provost: $270k
Dr. Randy Hinds, CIO/CBO/VP: $192k
Dr. Jerome Ratchford, VP: $150k
Mike Harders, VP: $40k [Partial year]
Arlethia Perry-Johnson, VP: $164k
Dr. Flora Devine, VP Legal: $143k
Dr. Erik Malewski: [No data]
Dr. Maureen McCarthy: $76k
Vaughn Williams, Athletic Director: [No data]
Lynda K. Johnson: $72k.

(All salary data from "Open Georgia", FY2012 records.[2])

Yes, $1.4 million is a drop in the bucket compared to KSU's $320M FY2012
budget[3], but this is just the very top layer of all that administration.

When I worked there, I went through furloughs and budget problems that made
it difficult for us to serve the needs of the students.  My department was
lucky in that we had staff (myself, my manager, and my director in
particular) who were strong open source proponents, so we built solutions
without spending money on licensing fees & support contracts, but other
departments depended heavily on those.

I don't know that KSU and SPSU merging is the right combination, but the
USG has 35 separate colleges/universities, each with its own administration
and administrative overhead -- maybe there's a better way to spend that
money?

David

[1] http://www.kennesaw.edu/president/cabinet.php
[2] http://open.georgia.gov
[3] http://www.usg.edu/fiscal_affairs/documents/usg_budget_fy12.pdf


On Sun, Nov 3, 2013 at 4:13 PM, Jonathan Meek <jonathan.l.meek at gmail.com>wrote:

> For those of you haven't heard, the Board of Regents is proposing a merger
> between Southern Polytechnic State University and Kennesaw State University
> in order to control budget costs to the University System of Georgia this
> past Friday. The merger will happen in Fall of 2015 should the plan be
> approved.
>
> Below is the news article announcing the merger: (link 1 at the end of the
> email)
>
> I am reaching out to the ale list because I feel this affects you guys as
> much as it does me, especially the ALE-NW group since we all meet at SPSU
> for our monthly meetings. I am drumming as much attention as I can to this
> because I haven't heard anything on the local news about it and hope that
> there will at least be a conversation before it goes for approval by the
> Board of Regents.
>
> Personally, I believe this a horrible move given that SPSU serves such a
> unique popluation (us nerds). The SPSU staff wasn't notified about the
> proposal until the day before the merger was announced (link 2 at the end
> of the email). As well as it has been decided that the president of
> Kennesaw State University will be the new president of the merged schools
> which shall be called Kennesaw State. This feels like hostile takeover
> rather than merger.
>
> I have added the change.org petition that students of SPSU have created
> in order to help get our voice heard on this issue (link 3 at the end of
> the email). If you have any questions or want to talk further about this
> news, feel free to email me off list.
>
> link 1:
> http://www.spsu.edu/newsroom/news/Consolidation_initial_announcement.htm
> link 2:
> http://mdjonline.com/view/full_story/23971909/article-SPSU-community-petitions-to-stop-merger
> ?
> link 3:
> http://www.change.org/petitions/university-system-of-georgia-board-of-regents-stop-kennesaw-state-from-merging-with-southern-polytechnic-state
>
> Regards,
>
> Jonathan
>
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-- 
David Tomaschik
OpenPGP: 0x5DEA789B
http://systemoverlord.com
david at systemoverlord.com
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