Bacon's Rebellion

  • Massive New Bureaucracy in JMU Faculty Hiring Procedures

    Posted on

    by

    Robin Beres

    The Academic Affairs Guidelines for Recruiting and Hiring Instructional Faculty manual provides a glaring look into the bureaucratic and deeply troubling hiring procedures for faculty at James Madison University. Highly bureaucratic systems and policies are nothing new in American higher education, but this manual of edicts from the Office of the Provost and Senior Vice President for Academic Affairs is highly prescriptive and cumbersome. Effectively, the provost has insisted on the review and approval for every hire on the JMU campus and her office has expanded to take on this new additional responsibility.

    Since coming to JMU in 2017, Provost Heather Coltman has massively expanded the staffing in her office, including hiring Dr. Narketta Sparkman-Key, the Associate Provost for Inclusive Strategies and Equity Initiatives (APISEI) in 2022. According to the manual, Sparkman-Key and Coltman are basically the gatekeepers — not just for hiring any new faculty member at JMU, but even determining if a search committee may continue with a search based on the diversity within the applicant pool.

    For example, even before a search committee can form, the steps shown below  must be taken. Understandably, there must be some top down controls to ensure departments are not hiring without proper approvals, but we note the first of many approvals by the Provost highlighted below.

    1. The dean, the academic unit head (AUH), and faculty discuss and determine the need for a new faculty hire.

    2. The AUH submits a justification for a new hire to the dean.

    3. The dean reviews the justification and submits the position request form to the provost’s office by the established deadline.

    4. Academic Resources prioritizes faculty hiring requests.

    5. The provost confirms approvals and notifies the dean.

    6. The dean notifies the AUH to proceed with the search.

    7. The AUH completes and submits a “Request to Recruit” to Academic Resources.

    There are protocols on who can be on the search committee, which is then approved by Sparkman-Key or another Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) leader. (As an aside, according to this report, JMU boasts 65 administrators and spends more than $5.3M on DEI salaries)
    (more…)

  • RGGI Repeal Debate Rages on Comment Portal

    Posted on

    by

    Steve Haner

    The states currently in the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative tax compact.

    by Steve Haner

    Virginia’s Air Pollution Control Board is continuing through the necessary steps to repeal Virginia’s participation in the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (RGGI), a regional compact that imposes an allowance cost (carbon tax) on fossil fuels used in generating electricity.

    During 2021 and 2022, the tax collected about half a billion dollars from power producers, most if not all of that cost passed on to customers. Almost 70 percent of the allowances for 2021 were used by Dominion Energy Virginia, which is in the process of adding that cost back to its monthly customer bills. The next allowance auction, number nine for Virginia, is March 8. (more…)

  • At George Mason: Statement of Commitment to Academic Freedom and to Intellectual Merit

    Posted on

    by

    Bob Rayner

    The undersigned members of the GMU Department of Economics express their commitment to academic freedom and to intellectual merit.

    American universities have professed allegiance to two ideals. First, the ideal of academic freedom – the right of students and faculty to express any idea in speech or writing, without fear of university punishment, and secure in the knowledge that the university will protect dissenters from threats and violence on campus.

    Second, the ideal of intellectual merit – the right and duty of academic departments to hire and promote the most brilliant, creative, and productive faculty in their fields, and admit the most intellectually promising students, without pressures from the administration.

    These ideals are the cornerstones of liberal education. They protect faculty and students who hold views unpopular on university campuses. Academic freedom protects existing students and faculty who dissent from current dominant academic opinion and ideology. No matter how unpopular their views, they know the university will protect them. As stated in the University of Chicago Statement on freedom of expression and as quoted in GMU’s “Free Speech at Mason” Statement:

    [We must hold a fundamental commitment to] the principle that debate or deliberation may not be suppressed because the ideas put forth are thought by some or even by most members of the University community to be offensive, unwise, immoral, or wrong-headed.

    Intellectual merit protects prospective students and faculty who speak and write against current dominant viewpoints. No matter how unpopular their views, they know that university administration will not obstruct or prejudice their admission, hiring, or promotion.

    Recently, both of these ideals have come under attack. Pressure for conformity has intensified and universities have increasingly interfered with departments’ personnel decisions. For example, at some universities, one of the more egregious new practices is the requiring of written “diversity” statements by prospective students, staff, or faculty, then used to discriminate among candidates, often by quarters of the university with interests other than those of the department or unit. Such methods recall arrogations of the past, such as The Levering Act of 1950, used against radicals. (more…)

  • In Virginia Beach: Hang On to Your Wallets

    Posted on

    by

    Bob Rayner

    by Kerry Dougherty

    How to ruin an otherwise lovely early spring-like weekend, Virginia Beach-style:

    Send out real estate assessments that show double-digit increase in the value of property (that’s a good thing, by the way) and a huge jump in taxes.

    That’s not good.

    Yep, many of us opened our mail on Saturday and wished we hadn’t.

    While it’s nice that the city assessor believes property values are soaring, we all know what that means: the city council will quietly vote to “keep” the tax rate the same as last year and the year before, and then pat themselves on the back, crowing:

    WE DIDN’T RAISE TAXES.

    Ahem. Yes they did. They do it every year, just a little sleight of hand.

    Let me explain: if your assessment rose 20% – as mine did – and the council votes to keep the rate at 99 cents per hundred dollars of assessed value rather than cutting it to a rate that would keep revenue about where it was last year – your taxes are going up.

    A lot!

    Look, rising assessments are a good thing. For most of us, our homes are our biggest assets. No one wants their asset to lose value.

    If your stocks go up but you leave your money in the stock market, you aren’t taxed on unrealized gains. You’re taxed when you sell shares.

    But when assessments skyrocket and you stay in your home, you’re being taxed on your “wealth.” In the parlance of the world of finance, you’re paying taxes on unrealized capital gains. (more…)

  • Virginia, School Choice and Charter Schools – The National Map

    Posted on

    by

    sherlockj

    by James C. Sherlock

    One of the most curious aspects of discussions about Virginia, school choice, and charter schools is that Virginia progressives attack both as a conservative plot.

    And mostly get away with it.

    The claim is demonstrably preposterous, but effective so far because Republicans don’t offer an organized response.

    I offer a map of the United States annotated with the percentage of public school kids attending public charter schools in 2019.

    If Virginia progressives can discern some pattern of red states vs. blue states, they should speak up.

    State laws vary, but each of the states with significant numbers of charters has a state-appointed charter authority that is not dependent upon approval by local school boards.

    “Conservative” Washington, D.C., had 43% of its public school kids in charters.

    Far from being totalitarianism, as goes the progressive line in Virginia, this is the result of popular constitutional amendments in virtually every state shown above in green.

    Seems voters in those states wanted parents with kids in their worst schools to have options.

    So will the voters of Virginia. Just show them the map during the campaign. (more…)

  • A New 800-Pound Gorilla in Virginia Politics

    Posted on

    by

    Dick Hall-Sizemore

    by Dick Hall-Sizemore

    Ivy Main, in a recent commentary in the Virginia Mercury, identified a change in the power dynamic of Virginia politics that is taking place: “Amazon is the new Dominion.”

    Amazon’s presence in the Commonwealth has grown significantly over the past decade. It has taken place in three areas— distribution facilities, the second headquarters, and data centers.

    When most Virginians think of Amazon, they think of the boxes or white plastic bags with the swoosh that get left on their front porch. Many, however, also think of Amazon as the source of their pay check. Surprisingly, there does not seem to be a definitive list of Amazon facilities in the state. From press releases and other material, I have pieced together the following list of localities in which Amazon has built a facility. The list includes sortation centers, distribution centers, delivery stations, and fulfillment centers. They serve different purposes, but it is not necessary to go into more detail here. (more…)

  • RVA 5×5: Restoring A Richmond Treasure

    Posted on

    by

    Robin Beres

    by Jon Baliles

    One of Richmond’s favorite architectural wonders and spooky places is the Pump House along the Kanawha Canal and adjacent to the Boulevard Bridge. It has been the target and talk of renovations and adaptive reuses for almost a century since it closed in 1924 (the city wanted to tear it down in the 1950s, go figure), and now some federal funding is coming to help jump start the conversation yet again, according to Hunter Reardon at Richmond Magazine.

    The nonprofit Friends of Pump House took an interest in preserving the property in 2017 and now $1 million in renovation funds will be used, half of which was secured by Virginia Sens. Mark Warner and Tim Kaine as part of a federal spending bill signed in December.

    The City of Richmond will use $500,000 to “stabilize the Byrd Park Pump House, expand its capacity beyond the current limit of 25 and to preserve it for future generations,” according to a joint statement. The money is expected to be matched by private donations from Historic Richmond.

    “It’s sort of a Sisyphean task to preserve an old building like this, but you’d be surprised how good of a shape some parts of the building are in,” says Penn Markham, president of Friends of Pump House. “We’re working on a study with Quinn Evans architects to figure out what needs to be done to spend the money wisely. For example, there’s no point fixing the floor if you haven’t fixed the roof first.”

    Fully restored, the site could became a super-popular destination for weddings, retreats, fundraisers, and other cool events with the canal and the James River right outside. And there have long been discussions of varying degree about restoring the canal from the Pump House to Tredegar downtown — it may come in phases, but that would be just about one of the coolest experiences anywhere.

    Markham hopes this infusion of cash is the beginning of a full revitalization. “This is the most serious renovation effort in the last 100 years,” he says. “A lot of people have talked about it, but nobody’s ponied up the money until now. It just might work — there are a lot of people in the community that want it to happen.”

    Jon Baliles is a former Richmond City Councilman. This is an excerpt from the original article posted on his blog, RVA 5×5. It is posted here with permission.

  • Return to Chickahominy Swamp

    Posted on

    by

    Bob Rayner

    by Jon Baliles 

    Peter McElhinney at Style Weekly takes us on a retroactive visit through the Chickahominy Swamp and the voice and mind and sounds of the late Richmond music legend Page Wilson. The new online radio station, The Breeze, has begun airing old episodes of Wilson’s weekly visit to his porch in the swamp (which was actually recorded in a music/radio studio but sounded like you were out there.

    The new edition, “The Swamp Sessions,” includes an eclectic mix of roots-influenced artists, including the Sun Rhythm Section, James McMurtry, the Irish-superstar Clancy Brothers, local hero Robbin Thompson, and more. Their relaxed conversations and playing were gingerly restored from reel-to-reel tapes.

    The entertaining mix of talk and live songs was recorded between 1989 and 1992 for Wilson’s local public radio show, “The Out O’ the Blue Radio Revue,” which ran from the 1990s to the early 2000s on WCVE radio.

    The original show was a slice of Americana already a bit retro in its day, a fashion-defying mix of Garrison Keillor’s similarly folksy “Prairie Home Companion” and Wolfman Jack’s midnight pirate station swagger. A lot of the artists who appeared on the shows, like legendary singer-songwriter Townes Van Zandt and guitarist Tony Rice – are gone. Others, like Mary Chapin Carpenter, are still touring.

    “It was interesting to see how many of them, to varying degrees, played along with the whole swamp thing,” says former local radio personality Tim Timberlake, who has been editing the raw tapes into coherent programs. The setup was theater, but the food and the fellowship was real. “It was the same thing every time,” Timberlake says. “But it was different from anything else.”

    (more…)

  • Virginia Republicans, in Need of a Public Education Strategy for the Fall Elections, Should look to Florida

    Posted on

    by

    sherlockj

    by James C. Sherlock

    Virginia still supports in law the pillars of the progressive takeover of public K-12 and higher education.

    Our elected Democrats, having made those laws even crazier in 2020 and 2021, resist any efforts to change them even at the margins.

    Mystifyingly, Virginia Republicans seem not to have a public education strategy for the fall elections.

    They need to look south.

    The Washington Post reports that the legislature of the state of Florida, having already proscribed in law some of the more radical progressive educational dogma, is now taking down the pillars of that control in both K-12 and higher education.

    It will consider various bills:

    • requiring teachers to use pronouns matching children’s sex as opposed to a gender construct;
    • changing the current Florida law that offers school choice funding subject to income limitations to make it a universally available program;
    • eliminating college majors in gender studies;
    • banning spending on DEI administrative positions and programs not required by federal law;
    • requiring post-tenure reviews at prescribed intervals to evaluate an individual’s continuing contributions to scholarship;
    • strengthening parents’ ability to veto K-12 class materials;
    • extending a ban on teaching about gender and sexuality — from third grade up to eighth grade.

    I would have to see the final language of any of the bills to determine my personal support, and am unlikely to back all of them either personally or for Virginia.

    But the strategy is right.

    They attack the foundations of the progressive strangleholds on public K-12 and higher education. (more…)

  • Empty Gesture? UVa Board Endorses Diversity of Thought.

    Posted on

    by

    James A. Bacon

    by James A. Bacon

    The University of Virginia Board of Visitors did more than endorse free speech on university campuses Friday when it voted to adopt a Council of Presidents statement on free speech: it endorsed the principle of viewpoint diversity.

    In 2021 the Board had embraced a statement on free speech by a commission appointed by President James Ryan. But that statement alluded only vaguely to the value of “exposure to a range of ideas.” If the ideas discussed at UVa consisted only of different strains of leftism, the declaration on free speech wouldn’t amount to much.

    The statement of the Council of Presidents, which was crafted at the request of Governor Glenn Youngkin, made it clear that the exercise of free speech and the diversity of ideas are intertwined, and it implied that a wide range of ideas should be encouraged. [My emphasis added below.]

    As presidents of Virginia’s public colleges and universities, we unequivocally support free expression and viewpoint diversity on our campuses. Free expression is the fundamental basis for both academic freedom and for effective teaching and learning inside and outside the classroom. Our member universities and colleges are bound to uphold the First Amendment. We are committed to promoting this constitutional freedom through robust statements and policies that are formulated through shared governance processes and through actions that reflect and reinforce this core foundation of education. We value a scholarly environment that is supported by a diversity of research and intellectual perspectives among our faculty and staff. We pledge to promote and uphold inclusivity, academic freedom, free expression, and an environment that promotes civil discourse across differences. We will protect these principles when others seek to restrict them.

    Ryan told the board that he wants the Council of Presidents statement to “inform what we do at UVa.”

    The challenge for Ryan and Provost Ian Baucom will be implementing those principles in an institution marked by a left/right ideological imbalance of roughly ten-to-one; in which a Diversity, Equity & Inclusion bureaucracy suffuses university policies with a leftist understanding of “equity” and requires employees to express their views of DEI in “diversity statements”; and in which many students and the faculty self-censor for fear of igniting a social media storm, sparking social ostracism, or suffering administrative punishment. (more…)

  • Jeanine’s Memes

    Posted on

    by

    James A. Bacon

    From The Bull Elephant

  • Sen. John Edwards Calls It Quits

    Posted on

    by

    Robin Beres

    by Scott Dreyer

    In a highly-watched move, Democrat State Senator John Edwards announced this week he will not seek re-election after his current four-year term ends in January, ending his 40-plus-year run as a politician. Edwards, who will turn 80 in October, has been the subject of much speculation as to his intentions. Reportedly, he hosted a fundraiser just this past January and public records show he has a campaign war chest north of $100,000. Those aspects indicate his decision to retire to be somewhat mystifying.

    However, with President Biden being less than one year older than Edwards, but with glaring displays of cognitive decline, and Americans increasingly on-edge regarding those gaffes and the president’s ability to function in a time of the Ukraine War, Edwards’ running for re-election as an octogenarian under increased scrutiny may have carried significant liabilities.

    A native Roanoker, Edwards was born in the Star City in 1943, the son of the late Judge Richard T. Edwards. Growing up and attending school during the Jim Crow Era, Edwards graduated from the then-all-white Patrick Henry High School in 1962, because the school had not yet integrated.

    According to Edwards’ campaign website, which is still up, “he was the first president of the student government [at PH]. He was a record setting pole vaulter and state high-school champion and voted by his classmates as ‘most likely to succeed’.”

    Edwards graduated from Princeton University in 1966 cum laude. After graduation, he attended Union Theological Seminary in New York City for a year, and later graduated in 1970 from the University of Virginia Law School. Ironically, at UVA Edwards was a writing instructor assistant to Professor Antonin Scalia, who later became a well-known conservative Supreme Court Justice while Edwards went politically to the left.

    Edwards served his country during the Vietnam War in the U.S. Marine Corps as a Captain from 1971 through 1973, as a JAG officer based first in Japan and later in North Carolina.

    In 1980, President Jimmy Carter (D) appointed Edwards United States Attorney for the Western District of Virginia.

    In 1993, Edwards was appointed to fill a vacancy on Roanoke City Council and was elected in 1994 to a four year term and as Vice-Mayor. In 1995, Edwards defeated a Republican incumbent to win a seat in the Senate of Virginia, representing the 21st District. He was re-elected in 1999, 2003, 2007, 2011, 2015, and 2019. In a few of those races, he faced no or only token opposition.
    (more…)

  • RVA 5×5: RVA = DIY

    Posted on

    by

    Robin Beres

    by Jon Baliles

    Jack Jacobs at Richmond Biz Sense has an update about the ongoing fallout from the collapse of the Enrichmond Foundation last summer. All of the small organizations that used Enrichmond as a fiduciary lost access to their money (which may be gone for good; stay tuned) and other things like insurance coverage.

    While there are efforts underway to transfer two historically Black cemeteries formerly under Enrichmond’s purview to the city, there has not been any statement, hint, clue, concern, or any sign of emotion uttered by the Mayor about when or if the city will help restore the funding of these small groups that do a lot of valuable work to help the City and save staff time.

    Since no one at City Hall seems to be interested in helping, Richmonders are doing what they do best — they are doing it themselves (aka DIY).

    For example, the group RVA Clean Sweep counts nearly 1,500 people who support it by going around the city picking up trash. They lost their insurance coverage and about $3,000 when Enrichmond folded. Have they quit trying to help clean up the city? Nope.

    They held fewer cleanups and told volunteers to be extra careful as they were volunteering without insurance, but they still kept cleaning and sweeping. But no insurance means they were not able to apply for grants or hold as many cleanups as they would like, according to RVA Clean Sweep Director Amy Robins.

    But they still held cleanups because they wanted their volunteers to stay engaged. “Robins feared that a prolonged hiatus on activity would cause volunteers to drift away from the cause of cleaning up litter in the city,” wrote Jacobs.
    (more…)

  • Bacon Meme of the Day

    Posted on

    by

    James A. Bacon

  • Poof! 21 Retirements and 363 Years of Combined Service. So Far.

    Posted on

    by

    Bob Rayner

    by Chris Saxman

    Here’s a General Assembly Retirement Tracker with estimated years of service:

    Retirements thus far – 7 Senators and 14 Delegates. Combined years of service? 363. I’m putting the Over/Under at 30 members of the General Assembly and 480 years of service that will not return next year. So far not returning:

    Senator Dick Saslaw – 48
    Senator Janet Howell – 32
    Senator Tommy Norment – 32
    Senator John Edwards – 28
    Senator Jennifer McClellan – 18 (Congress start date March 7)
    Senator Jill Vogel – 16
    Senator John Bell – 8
    Delegate Ken Plum – 44
    Delegate Kathy Byron – 26
    Delegate Rob Bell – 22
    Delegate James Edmunds – 14
    Delegate Margaret Ransone – 14
    Delegate Roxann Robinson – 13
    Delegate Kathleen Murphy – 9
    Delegate Mike Mullin – 8
    Delegate Jeff Bourne – 7
    Delegate Dawn Adams – 6
    Delegate Kelly Convirs-Fowler – 6
    Delegate Wendy Gooditis – 6
    Delegate John Avoli – 4
    Delegate Tim Anderson – 2

    Not included in this list are the nomination battles between sitting incumbents or the incumbents who face challenges in their new districts. Sixteen incumbents face off which will add another eight to the list of non returners and there are five House members plus eleven Senators facing nomination battles. Possibly 24 could be added to the current 21.

    So. Far.

    Chris Saxman is a former member of the Virginia House of Delegates. This column first appeared on his blog, The Intersection, and is republished with permission.

Now Available

Book cover of 'Dust Mites: A Second American Revolution' by James A. Bacon, featuring astronauts planting a flag with a blue and white emblem on a lunar landscape, with Earth visible in the background.
For sale on Amazon.com

The year: 2075. The American colonies on the Moon are getting restless under Washington’s tyrannical rule….

This second edition of “Dust Mites” has a snazzy new cover, includes helpful lunar maps, and is 5,000 words tighter than the original. The sequel, “Trogs,” is scheduled for publication this summer.

Advertisement

Advertisement

Advertisement

Advertisement

About

Bacon’s Rebellion is Virginia’s leading politically non-aligned portal for news, opinions and analysis about state, regional and local public policy. Read more about us here.

Fund the Rebellion

Shake up the status quo! Your contributions will be used to pay for faster download speeds and grow readership. Make a one-time donation by credit card or contribute a small sum monthly.

Can’t wait until tomorrow

For your Bacon’s Rebellion fix?

Enter your email address to receive immediate notifications of new posts by email.

SUBSCRIBE

Search Bacon’s Rebellion

Categories

Archives

The Jefferson Council

Protecting Thomas Jefferson’s Legacy at the University of Virginia

Forgot Your Password?

Shoot me an email and I’ll generate a new password for you.

Latest