December 31, 2014

UAB Faculty Senate Considers Vote Against All That Annoying Faculty Stuff

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Earlier this month, Ray Watts, the president of the University of Alabama at Birmingham, announced that UAB would be dropping its Division I football program, the first university to do so in 20 years. I haven’t paid much attention to the fallout, but today the LA Times summarizes the swift reaction:

Watts said the decision was strictly financial: After spending $20 million each year subsidizing an unsuccessful team, it was time for UAB to cut its losses and put academics before athletics.

….These are fighting words in Alabama. After announcing his decision Dec. 2, Watts needed police officers to escort him through a crowd of angry fans outside Legion Field, the school’s outdated off-campus stadium, where he met with Blazer players and coaches.

….All of a sudden, almost everyone is a football cheerleader: The City Council passed a motion in support of UAB football; the university’s Faculty Senate drafted a resolution of no confidence in Watts.

Look, I get that the football players are angry. I even get that all the boosters who hadn’t stepped up before are now swearing that they would have donated millions of dollars to keep the program alive if only Watts had asked them. But the Faculty Senate? At a bare minimum, shouldn’t they have had the back of a president who wanted to stop draining money from academics into football, even if no one else did? Yeesh.

Anyway, the gist of the story is that without a consistently losing football program to rally around, UAB is now certain to wither away and die. Why would anyone want to be be a student there, after all? What’s left?  A bunch of hoity toity classes and labs and stuff? What a waste of some perfectly nice property in the middle of town.

UPDATE: Apparently my reading comprehension is weak today. As the Times story says, the Faculty Senate is considering a no-confidence motion in Watts, but hasn’t actually voted on it yet. That won’t happen until January 15.

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WHO DOESN’T LOVE A POSITIVE STORY—OR TWO?

“Great journalism really does make a difference in this world: it can even save kids.”

That’s what a civil rights lawyer wrote to Julia Lurie, the day after her major investigation into a psychiatric hospital chain that uses foster children as “cash cows” published, letting her know he was using her findings that same day in a hearing to keep a child out of one of the facilities we investigated.

That’s awesome. As is the fact that Julia, who spent a full year reporting this challenging story, promptly heard from a Senate committee that will use her work in their own investigation of Universal Health Services. There’s no doubt her revelations will continue to have a big impact in the months and years to come.

Like another story about Mother Jones’ real-world impact.

This one, a multiyear investigation, published in 2021, exposed conditions in sugar work camps in the Dominican Republic owned by Central Romana—the conglomerate behind brands like C&H and Domino, whose product ends up in our Hershey bars and other sweets. A year ago, the Biden administration banned sugar imports from Central Romana. And just recently, we learned of a previously undisclosed investigation from the Department of Homeland Security, looking into working conditions at Central Romana. How big of a deal is this?

“This could be the first time a corporation would be held criminally liable for forced labor in their own supply chains,” according to a retired special agent we talked to.

Wow.

And it is only because Mother Jones is funded primarily by donations from readers that we can mount ambitious, yearlong—or more—investigations like these two stories that are making waves.

About that: It’s unfathomably hard in the news business right now, and we came up about $28,000 short during our recent fall fundraising campaign. We simply have to make that up soon to avoid falling further behind than can be made up for, or needing to somehow trim $1 million from our budget, like happened last year.

If you can, please support the reporting you get from Mother Jones—that exists to make a difference, not a profit—with a donation of any amount today. We need more donations than normal to come in from this specific blurb to help close our funding gap before it gets any bigger.

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