From the Times-Picayune:
Ivor van Heerden, the outspoken coastal scientist who led the state's independent Team Louisiana investigation into Hurricane Katrina levee failures, has been notified by Louisiana State University that he will be terminated as a research professor in May 2010.
Van Heerden, who is not a tenured professor, also has been stripped of his title as deputy director of the LSU Hurricane Center. Also, engineering professor Marc Levitan has stepped down as the center's director. University officials say they will reshape the center's research direction in the wake of the moves.
The university authorities give no reason for his termination.
Van Heerden said the university would not give him a reason, either. David Constant, interim dean of LSU's College of Engineering, told him the decision "wasn't due to my performance. But he couldn't tell me why," van Heerden said.
The decision has been brewing ever since van Heerden agreed to head the forensic investigation team in the days after Hurricane Katrina hit New Orleans in August 2005, he said. Within days of the team's formation, van Heerden was frequently quoted in national newspaper and television reports, and most of his comments were highly critical of the Army Corps of Engineers' levee and floodwall construction policies and designs.
The flooding of New Orleans after Katrina was not from the storm, but from faulty levees built to protect the city in just such a situation that Katrina produced. The levees gave way, causing the resulting death and devastation. For years, Ivor warned that the levees were faulty and inadequate to protect the city from possible disaster. I heard him express his concern more than once, but no one who mattered paid attention.
Ivor spoke the truth to those in power. If I ever met an honest man, Ivor was that man. Because he was never given tenure, the authorities at LSU could terminate him at any time. He knew that there could be serious consequences for him because of his truth-telling, but he continued to speak out. The wonder is that he lasted as long as he did at LSU. Ivor is a hero.
This stinks, doesn't it?
ReplyDeleteIt does. Louisiana's politicians aren't known for their high appreciation of science or public criticism.
ReplyDeleteI don't see the locals or most academics taking this quietly.
I agree that it stinks. Economic downturns are so often used to do what people hesitate to do otherwise, get rid of the troublemakers. Ivor is a hero and I hope his colleagues and the people in Louisiana and elsewhere rally behind him.
ReplyDeleteMimi, I just read the whole article. LSU should be ashamed of itself. They really just were looking for a way to get rid of him.
ReplyDeleteThe Powers That Be don't like having their corruption, negligence, and incompetence pointed out to the public.
ReplyDeleteSo much for Academic Integrity and Independence, but I've never believed those things really existed anyway, not since the Cold War and all those government contracts pouring into universities.
When Grandpère got his first job in Academe, our idealistic notions about work in higher education disappeared quickly. His best experience was at a Jesuit university, but the pay was pitiful.
ReplyDeleteOh, yes. And his boss there kept iced beer in his desk drawer to have it handy throughout the day.
Sad news.
ReplyDeleteThat's really cool that you know him--I've been reading about him ever since Katrina, and have always been impressed.
When you see him next, tell him I said "thank you".
Bubs, I will. We'll probably email him. His address at LSU should work until the end of May 2010.
ReplyDeleteWe won't give our annual donation to LSU this year, either, and we'll tell them why. GP and I both have degrees from there.
Prayers for Ivor as his life readjusts, and for all truth tellers.
ReplyDeleteAnd lSU is a goat. I hope they loose every football game next fall.
ReplyDeleteLSU has, for a long time, placed far too much emphasis on athletics to suit me, but I think this action is despicable. They should rather have honored him with tenure, a promotion, and a big raise for his efforts.
ReplyDeleteThe "research track" of faculty lends itself to this kind of abuse. REally research track of faculty are at teh mercy of the university, and state universities are at the mercy of the politically powerful. It's the ugly little secret of higher education, how many faculty are on adjunct, research-track, or other non-tenure stream positions.
ReplyDeleteAnyone who thinks that universities are above that kind of thing hasn't spent much time in higher education. INdeed, because jobs are so few, they have way more power over their employees than the private sector. I remember a colleague being told by someone in industry that he was horrified at the stuff the univeristies get away with in equity and diversity issues. Liberal enclave? Not in the administration! THey are much more ossified.
One thing you can say for tenure is, that there is an almighty howl and lots of help if they pull this kind of @#$% (the AAUP among others).
Of course the down side is the dinosaurs who have been there since Noah's flood.
As I said, liberal enclave no way.
Just stinks.
IT, you're right about the research-track.
ReplyDeleteAnd there are definite pluses and minuses to tenure. I've taken classes at the local university within the last few years, and some of the long-timers don't even make a pretense of actually teaching.
Years ago, I read Kingsley Amis' Lucky Jim, still one of the funniest books about the academy that I have ever read. I've read it two or three time since, laughing my way through it again and again. I still have my yellowed paperback copy with my maiden name in it, so I read it before Grandpère and I married. But I couldn't quite believe things were that bad, until we lived it.
Actually, my experience from Lund University was that it was the soon-to-be-pensioned-offs who were really good, who questioned the "lieux-communs" (as Marguereit Yourcenar called them) and who were on a generally higer level, altoghether!
ReplyDeleteWhereas those who were my age, were reactionaries defending several "mothers" a piece; a certain romance about Monks (they were married themselves and sometimes Priests in the CoS, though a few were converts to Rome) and above all the Pope (one serving on a papal commission to defend the Crusades ;=)
Oh my goodness, I love that book and am living an academic nightmare as we speak. I did invent a fake university where I coudl play out some of my frustrations though.
ReplyDeleteVera
Vice Chancellor and Professor of Celtic Spirituality
Bishop Beaver College
Göran, I've been taught by the good old-timers, too. Some of them were bullied by the authorities for being "too hard" on the students for trying to keep up standards.
ReplyDeleteVera! Welcome. I'm always pleased to find another fan of Lucky Jim.
We went through two years of hell at the university where my husband worked, and he was on the president's "enemies list" for the rest of the time that he worked. We should have invented a fantasy to help us through that period.
Good luck with yours.