It seems we are not the only ones offended by the appointment of Bob Albrecht as Interim VP for Academic Affairs (darn-- there's that gagging feeling again). Albrecht is a man who desperately wants to be king. For years he has shown his nature is that of a petty tyrant.
Now, in Uma Gupta, he has someone who is willing to give him a lot more power as long as he provides unwavering support for her. Albrecht sold his soul when he stepped into the position of VP for Academic Affairs, but it gave him what he wanted -- the power to settle old scores once and for all.
We agree with our readers...Albrecht needs to go. But don't expect it to be anytime soon. Gupta is going to string us along for as long as she can. Expect her to announce that she will comply with the Faculty Senate's demand for a national search for a new VP for Academic Affairs...but don't expect it to happen until this fall or winter...maybe four, five, six or more months from now. Then expect the search to take six to 12 months, if it is successful the first time. Then expect it to take a few months for a new VP for Academic Affairs to move into the position.
Our bet is that Gupta will try to string us along for a good 12 to 18 months, keeping Albrecht in his position for that entire time while saying she's doing everything she can to comply with the faculty's demands.
The question is, can we afford to have Albrecht in the VP for Academic Affairs position for 12 to 18 months...or perhaps longer.
We think not. And apparently, neither do many other folks at Alfred.
Here's what our readers have to say...
Time for people to get it - Uma needs to change or go. Albrecht needs to just plain go. We all know that he doesnt want to change, so why should he? We can make it happen - why is everyone just sitting around.and...
Has nobody figured out that Uma is either unwilling or unable to change? She has already done serious damage to the college, and the longer we wait, the more damage she does. She has got to go before she destroys our college. It's time for us to take action and "encourage" her to move along.and...
I'm glad to see someone discuss Albrecht. Uma had an opportunity for a fresh start, and she chose poorly. Those of us who have been here a while know that Bob's judgement is an idealogical mess and that he acts only in his best interest. For the younger people, I was here eleven years ago when he left campus to become VP of the union statewide. After just one year of his "leadership" the union brass wouldn't even put him up for re-election again. Are we going to wait a year to act on something we already know? Albrecht is a self-interested, self promoting power grabber who doesn't care a bit about Alfred. He cares about Albrecht. Faculty Senate needs to say to Uma: We don't like what Bob has done so far, and he needs to go now.and...
It's about time someone talked about Albrecht instead of obsessing about Gupta. As an untenured faculty member, I can say that there's a reason why the young faculty call him the Assassin. Let's hope that the people running the blog put these comments in a thread of their own.and...
Just logged on to the blog for the first time, and I share the view of the previous poster: Albrecht is a far greater problem than Gupta. Gupta isn't a bad person -she's just having leadership difficulties, but Albrecht is totally deluded. I attended the Skunkworks and listened to him talk about an open atmosphere, when he does more to promote fear on the campus (at least among faculty) than anyone else!!!! People talk about the list of dismissed people on campus - try making a list of people who Albrecht has tried his best to boot out of here, and the list will be much longer than Gupta's!! I'd invite Kathleen Ebert, Dan Barwick, Craig Clark, Rick Mitchell, Jim Grillo or a dozen others to testify on this blog whats it's like to be on the receiving end of Albrecht's fist, but they're probably too classy to air Alfred's dirty laundry here. I couldn't believe it when that windbag was made a department chair, and now he's VP!!and...
I agree with the previous messages - Gupta is merely incompetent, but Albrecht is incompetent AND corrupt. I don't think he would be capable of doing something that is in the best interests of the college at his own expense. He's in this for power and glory. Why hasn't faculty senate done more about this?and...
I too am puzzled by Albrecht's title - did anyone notice that he stopped referring to himself as Interim Vice President for Academic Affairs? Instead, he now uses "Vice President for Academic Affairs, interim." Which seems a little strange, unless its too de-emphasize the interim part. Power corrupts...and...
It's clear that Bob Albrecht is completely unable to function as VPAA and has little interest in doing the job required of him. His only interest is to use the position of VPAA to push his personal agenda and ram down our throats everything that he was unable to force on us when competent people were running the college.It's clear that Albrecht needs to go and go now.
We've received a lot of information in the past week besides these comments, so we'll have plenty to write about when we get back.
But for now, we return to our hiatus...
