Barker’s Good Little Girl
With practically every other high-priced bureaucrat in South Carolina bombarding Gov. Mark Sanford with calls and e-mails demanding that he accept his portion of the federal “big government bailout” funds, we figured it wouldn’t be long before all those high-priced administrators up at Clemson University got their two cents in.
Except in Tigertown, the preferred method of using taxpayer funds to advance an “official position” of the University is to get the students to do the dirty work.
Hence the mass e-mail sent by Student Body President Callie Boyd yesterday to her fellow students urging them to lodge their carbon copied protests with Gov. Mark Sanford.
From Boyd’s missive:
As I am sure you’ve heard, Governor Mark Sanford has announced his intention to decline Federal Stimulus funding for South Carolina. As a result, colleges and universities in our state stand to lose approximately $119 million in one-time funding. This news comes as higher education has sustained significant cuts to their base budgets and funding has reached a devastating low point.
As we’ve seen with similar taxpayer-funded propaganda in multiple other counties, the actual numbers don’t reflect the doomsday pronouncements.
In fact, as we’ve noted previously, all three major research universities in this state (USC, Clemson and MUSC) are doing just fine – even when you factor in the percentage of state funding they’ve lost.
That’s what happens when you add $520 million to their total budgets over the past five years.
On top of that, Clemson, MUSC and the University of South Carolina are spending millions of dollars on crap that has absolutely nothing to do with their core missions. The true cost of this “mission creep” is exacerbated by the fact that our state inexplicably pays for 33 public colleges and universities at over 80 campus locations – which is why South Carolina spends 17% of its budget on higher ed compared to the national average of 10%.
Boyd’s e-mail mentions none of that, which isn’t surprising. After all, Clemson President James Barker and his cronies don’t want the facts getting in the way of their fat salary increases, and trotting Boyd out like this keeps the discussion off of them.
A smart PR move, honestly.
To her credit, Boyd is kinda cute. In that “Sixpence None The Richer” sort of way, at least …
WEB EXTRA:
Comments
By Try this on March 30th, 2009 at 12:56 am
Yeah, in today’s paper she attacks Barker and company. She certainly does as he says.
I guess you forgot to read the paper before you posted this. Or maybe you are that dumb.
http://www.greenvilleonline.com/article/20090329/NEWS01/903290321/-1/IE6SecuritySettings
By fitsnews on March 30th, 2009 at 2:28 am
“Try this,”
Are you kidding? Seriously … are you?
We thought you were going to blow us out of the water but you link to an article that quotes her politely complaining to the trustees about the school’s bus service?
That is not an attack. That is light petting.
Clearly you are new to this site. You actually have to bring it when you make a point here.
-FITS
By Try this on March 30th, 2009 at 11:24 am
Fits,
Can you tell me about the presentation that she made to the Board of Trustees in February of 2008 then?
OH WAIT, you can’t! Why? Because you are not an education reporter. You don’t follow Clemson at all. You post stories your little zombies who feed you info they want posted. This is worse than your story on the Floyd campaign. And that is saying something. Maybe if you knew anything about SC politics or higher education you’d know what I was talking about.
By Hawk on March 30th, 2009 at 12:27 pm
No offense “TryThis” BUT your article link was simply a complaint about the bus service at Clemson. And Since you are so privy to the “presentation she made to the Board of Trustees” in Feb – Please share THAT link… or quote her statements…. enlighten us….
Instead of having students ask for one MORE government handout- why not ask the Board to take LESS money or NO money at all. Ask every board member to become volunteers during this “crisis”. Let Clemson’s board and its Pres to lead by examply – decrease staff, cut THEIR budget and have each board member take 0 compensation. THEN if that isnt enough ask for a handout…
But the TRUTH is they wont do it – in days past board members used to serve because it was an honor – now its a political favor that is granted and payed back by being on the board.
By A(nother) Citizen on March 30th, 2009 at 5:03 pm
Now for some facts. Hawk, the Board is not paid a dollar amount. In fact, they pretty much have to give a fair sum o’cash every year. Football season alone, with their box and own vans and such costs them each more than $20,000 each. Now I’m not saying it’s not without MAJOR perks God knows, but it’s private boards where people are paid. Ask Barker’s Council about the bills they run up at their “retreat” in Charleston each year. Yes, it’s on the Foundation dime, but couldn’t that money go to a need-based scholarship rather than an $5,000 dinner tab?
Minutes (the cleaned up and much sanitized version) are supposed to be posted on the web site, but nothing has been added since last summer. But I’m sure that her presentation was a nice request to keep the CAT bus running. The Board acts as Barker commands — but hey, the system is run as an auxiliary enterprise and has to break even. It can also make money that the University can “borrow.” Those auxiliary revenues (includes housing and other) make over $100 million for the University (http://www.clemson.edu/cfo/documents/budgets/09buddoc.pdf).
By Apparently the only educated one on this board.. on March 31st, 2009 at 5:13 pm
Wow, awesome how a stupid article from someone who has about as much influence as my Aunt Bertha (it’s quite a site actually – tried to get her own talk show but Jiminy Glick beat her out; probably for the best) can cause so much arguing. Go back to collecting worthless baseball cards and sharks teeth? (By the way, Sanford has been asking for those back…something about a debt the tooth fairy owes)
What is funny is that compared to universities like it, Clemson runs a pretty tight ship. Is that because or in spite of Barker? Well, depends on who you ask. My point is, why are we taking the blame away from the real problem? When your hands are tied, what else are you supposed to do? The money has to come from somewhere, and whatever you are, a few thousand from a dinner isn’t going to do much. Grow up Peter Pan.
Why don’t people start realizing that the root of the problem is the fact that a ‘state’ university that is only funded some 18% by the state, should pull out and go private.
‘Six Pence’ – hilarious. Laughed for days.