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Charismatic finesse
If there was ever any doubt about whether the members of UW's top
administration deserve their inflated salaries all doubts were laid to
rest at Thursday's town hall meeting. The skills and talent
displayed were truly amazing. If that team were to take their act
on the road in the real world they'd be making millions. Con men
and their kind would follow their every word in hope of learning from
the masters. Fortunately for us, they have chosen to use their
powers for good.
Never have I heard people talk so much and say
so little, or evade questions with such charismatic finesse, avoiding
obviousness by employing a wide range of techniques.
Sometimes
several questions were bundled into an omnibus question. By the
time they had finished talking, perhaps only a few in the audience
realized that they had actually failed to address several of those
questions. This happened with the pay-freeze related issues,
which included a question about how while a two year freeze with later
inflation catch-up will be a short-term inconvenience for most, it will
be a life-long sacrifice for those of us nearing retirement. The
question was totally ignored.
Sometimes the interlocutor offered
questions as teasers to be answered later, such as the issue of faculty
as the University's most important asset, but somehow they never were.
Most
times, there was so much talking around the question that by the time
it was done most of us had forgotten what the original question was and
failed to realize that it hadn't actually been answered.
Occasionally
a question was answered concisely and on target but in a way that
provided no real answer. One question stated that 2009's
inflation rate was near 2%, provided specific references to government
web pages, and asked where the Administration got their 0.3% figure
from. They avoided admitting the mistake (and the implied issue
of whether it was deliberately misleading or a simple lack of
diligence) by brushing off that serious question with a joke reply
("from Stats Canada") and quickly moving on to the next question.
Are professors now supposed to consider it acceptable if the references
section of a submitted term paper contain nothing but "The Library"?
The
brief Q&A session at the end was handled masterfully. Impromptu
questions are typically emotional, and the responders immediately
seized on the feelings behind the questions and expanded on them,
entertaining us without informing us, name dropping and reminiscing,
being so fully supportive that by the time they were finished, the
original question was no longer remembered, much less answered.
It
would be wonderful if someone could prepare a document listing all the
questions, each followed by a brief summary of its answer. That
would be a truly amazing feat.
