VP of Student Affairs: New Cactus Cafe Options Considered
Posted by Save the Cactus Cafe on Wed, 04/07/2010 - 10:20am
This is from the official UT “Cactus Cafe” blog, presumably under the authority of Vice President for Student Affairs, Juan González:
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Here is the comment I posted (now "awaiting moderation") on the blog cited above.
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As became painfully clear last night at the panel discussion following the screening of "University, Inc." at the Texas Union Theater:
At least one participant (Mr. Reid Nelson) in these "Cactus Conversations" (if that is the name we'll use for the series of Thursday-morning meetings now underway) has felt compelled to drop out of the meetings because he is convinced that UT Administration is not proceeding in good faith; that is, he has surmised that a behind-the-scenes effort to ram through a plan nearly identical to the Smith agenda formulated last December has the support of Administration.
Another participant (Ms. Hayley Gillespie, a graduate student) commented that in the "Conversations," she keeps hearing terms from Administration such as "third party" and "partnership". . .but no member of Administration will supply any concrete definition as to the meaning of those terms. Ms. Gillespie further stated her unease at the impression that by her continued presence at these "conversations", someone may attempt to construe that she will be expected to "sign off" on "something" without knowing exactly what that "something" is.
Thus, if genuine transparency and collaboration (with the student body, the faculty and the greater UT community, which includes many alumni and donors) is a goal and all these "conversations" are not mere window dressing, three crucial questions:
1. Instead of resorting to an insider lexicon worthy of the Nixon White House, will someone in Administration please come clean as to the meaning of the phrases "third party" and "partnership" as they bear on the future of the Cactus Cafe? How did those terms come into the discussions at all?
2. Where are the minutes of the Texas Union Board of Directors' meetings (which the Board voted unanimously to post online February 26, 2010) after November 13, 2009?
3. Will any minutes of these "Cactus Conversations" be available, or will those of us not sitting at the table have to rely on official Administration summaries (here I think of the football program's $700,000 "academic initiative" to relocate trees during the stadium's recent $175 million expansion)?