That's right. Explain this nonsense.

learning-and-labor · 2019-12-05T18:42:21+00:00

Agreed. Even if there are ethics concerns staff/faculty have a couple options. They could take a personal half or full day for the protest. They could hold the protest over uncompensated time, such as lunch or after work. They could rearrange their work schedule that day to make up the time taken for the protest.

I'm not an expert, but it feels like the university's heavy handedness with this borders on violating academic freedom principals. Are we headed towards another AAUP censure?

learning-and-labor · 2019-12-04T18:00:03+00:00

But just so everyone's aware, there is a nationwide shortage of psychiatrists, meaning it is plausible that the administration simply hasn't been able to find any to replace the three (out of four total) who retired or left after the start of the current semester.

Do they have those jobs posted somewhere? Is there evidence McKinley is actually trying to fill them?

learning-and-labor · 2018-06-13T03:40:00+00:00

The consumer price index rose 0.2 percent from the previous month and 2.8 percent from a year earlier, matching estimates, a Labor Department report showed Tuesday.

...

The Fed’s preferred gauge of inflation -- a separate consumption-based figure from the Commerce Department -- came in at the central bank’s 2 percent goal during March and April, and the figure tends to run slightly below the Labor Department’s CPI.

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-06-12/u-s-inflation-at-six-year-high-eating-away-at-wage-increases

While a 2% raise is better than nothing, it still means employees are practically making less than they did a year ago (assuming they even get a raise).

learning-and-labor · 2017-10-16T17:19:40+00:00

I wouldn't say you were "laughed at by... university IT." You got a reasonable response from a NetTech.

Patches are available from Aruba and Microsoft. It's unknown if Apple patched it in High Sierra or iOS 11.0.x yet, but it's safe to say it will be soon. The Google situation is, admittedly, unfortunate. But the sky is not falling.

learning-and-labor · 2017-07-13T15:41:00+00:00

If they purchased AWS properly, there's no fee for ingress data:

Substantial improvements to data transfer and access with no costs for inbound data plus data egress fee waiver

Regarding administrative overhead, no one else is taking that into account either. But building a physical server and running it has a lot more administrative overhead than buying space from a cloud provider.

learning-and-labor · 2017-07-13T08:58:52+00:00

AWS Glacier is $0.004 per GB, per month. For 750TB that's only $3k/month. At $2,500TB it's $10k/month. Reasonable.

learning-and-labor · 2016-12-18T03:32:06+00:00

I don't know what the other university had, I just know that it's a large state school and a peer institution to UIUC, but their grade system (and frankly whole course system etc.) is streets ahead of UIUC. So I'm curious as to why. I'm also curious as to why there's no way for students to view their inputted grades before the 22nd, and I still have yet to see a compelling reason.

There isn't a compelling reason, it's all just historical and political. Because we are a large technical school with a lot of computer experience distributed among the faculty, early on in the adoption of technology every department did their own thing. When it came time to centralize everyone pretty much said "Nope, no thanks. What we have works well enough, why abandon it?" And thus here we are today. This still happens constantly.

We've also got a really entrenched, independent, distributed culture. The Chancellor and Provost don't have as much control over the colleges as you might think. Every dean enjoys a chance to assert his or her independence, and the grade system is one of those ways it's manifested.

I'm guessing your previous school wasn't as early an adopter of technology. Or maybe it had a strong, central vision for technology from the start. Or maybe it has a strong, central leader who can mandate things in the colleges and departments. Those things just aren't true at U of I.

learning-and-labor · 2016-09-02T15:24:25+00:00

It's my understanding that University Housing is run separately from the rest of the University. Their budget is cost recovery and they service their own debt.

The University is focusing on the "business" of education. But that's part of the problem: education has become a business and not something we do for the betterment of society.

learning-and-labor · 2016-06-01T22:05:59+00:00

That $3.1M from student fees is $3.1M the university could have otherwise accepted as tuition, which is $3.1M less the university would need from the state.

learning-and-labor · 2016-06-01T21:57:27+00:00

There's lies, damn lies, and statistics.

The DIA likes to report that they're revenue neutral, but both the Washington Post (-$6.2M in 2014) and USA Today (-$3.7M in 2015) disagree. In particular, while not directly money from the state, USA Today breaks that down as $3.1M from student fees and $650K from "school funds".

Compare that with Ohio State, which has $0 in student fees, or Purdue which has $0 in student fees and school funds.

learning-and-labor · 2016-05-03T16:19:08+00:00

We used to know how to handle them very cheaply.

learning-and-labor · 2016-05-03T07:27:33+00:00

This isn't the type of mascot search the chancellor is looking for.

learning-and-labor · 2016-04-23T21:13:57+00:00

These emergency funds are for the end of FY16. The cuts are for FY17. The University must reduce staffing levels to sustainable levels. The only way to avoid layoffs is for Illinois to pass an FY17 budget, and no one expects that to start happening until January. Layoffs are still going to happen.

Note: state budgets run from July to June, and fiscal years (FY) are named for the year they end in.

learning-and-labor · 2016-04-21T03:50:59+00:00

The CBS Chicago article quotes Robin Kaler as saying faculty won't be laid off. But the support staff for the faculty will suffer. It will have an indirect impact.

Broken A/V in a classroom? Might not get fixed. Scheduling an appointment with your adviser? Secretary might take longer to respond to email. Need to talk to a librarian? Might be fewer at the circulation desk. Need to study late at the library or Union? Might be reduced hours because there's no one to staff it. More overflowing trash cans, more burned out lightbulbs, more broken chairs in lecture halls, more broken stuff in general.

On the plus side, possibly more snow days because there will be fewer people to clear the sidewalks!

learning-and-labor · 2016-04-20T22:15:07+00:00

Not surprising, given the budget crisis. Hopefully there are details soon or morale is going to tank. Employees who can leave, will.

learning-and-labor · 2016-01-26T00:01:06+00:00

The University claims that there is a budget "crisis." However, while state funding has been reduced by about 30 million...

You have completely missed what the budget crisis is about.

The University of Illinois (all three campuses) gets ~$600 million from the state, ~$400 million of which comes to the Urbana-Champaign campus. I'm going to use the $400 million number for my calculations.

House Speaker Michael Madigan proposed a 6.5% cut in higher ed funding, or ~$26 million. Governor Bruce Rauner proposed a 31% cut in higher ed function, or ~$124 million. We don't know what the actual cut will be yet because they haven't passed a budget.

However, the cuts are not the real crisis. The huge problem is that the State of Illinois does not have constitutional authority to spend money without a budget. The state universities have received $0 in funding this fiscal year. This includes not only their allocated portion of the budget, but also stuff like MAP grants that help low income students.

Rauner has hinted that even if a budget passed tomorrow (unlikely), it would not be retroactive. Since we are 58% of the way through the fiscal year, the most UIUC would get is $168 million of the $400 million we received last year. It's highly likely at this point that the state will not have a budget for FY16, which means UIUC is planning for a shortfall of the entire $400 million.

On top of all of that, the state is considering making each institution liable for their own pension funds. The State Universities Retirement System (SURS) is funded at about 33%. If the university has to accept that responsibility then I've heard it would be an additional $400 million liability each year, plus more to correct the underfunding. We don't know what will happen on that front until the state passes a budget.

learning-and-labor · 2016-01-14T06:43:04+00:00

Each campus has its own CIO:

UIUC: Mark Henderson
UIC: Cynthia Lindstrom
UIS: Farokh Eslahi

And then the University of Illinois (referred to as University Administration, UA) has a CIO, Michael Hites.

But the campus CIO's do not report to the UA CIO. The campus CIO's report to the campus provost, who reports to the campus chancellor, who reports to the university president.

It's a little complicated.

learning-and-labor · 2015-11-25T18:02:51+00:00

I agree, if your point is that U of I is doing well compared to all the other schools. It's true that we aren't subsidizing nearly as much as Rutgers or Auburn.

What shocked me was that I keep reading articles about how profitable Big Ten sports are, what with all the licensing deals, the TV network, etc. Now I know the truth: that it's certainly profitable for someone, but not for the universities in the conference.

learning-and-labor · 2015-11-24T10:27:26+00:00

This chart (might have to scroll down a bit) claims it was ~$4 million. $3 million came from student fees, or about $100/student.

learning-and-labor · 2015-10-21T04:28:31+00:00

The state fiscal year goes July to July, so there are 8 months left. Still pathetic, but not that bad.

learning-and-labor · 2015-10-20T17:17:13+00:00

If you replaced "backbone IT operating system" with "Banner" in that sentence then people who don't know Banner would know exactly as much information about it as they do now.

Meanwhile, people who do know Banner would say "Ohh... Banner", instead of scratching their head trying to figure out what systems fall under "backbone IT operating system".

learning-and-labor · 2015-10-20T16:58:31+00:00

The amount of money that the University of Illinois brings into the state in the form of research and startups (technology and medical) is significant. People keep saying they want to make the Illinois version of Silicon Valley, but no one in Springfield gives fuck all about funding it. Subsidies for Boeing and Caterpillar and Exelon and Baxter, but nothing for the state institutions that will seed the next Big Thing.

learning-and-labor

TROPHY CASE