https://www.athensnews.com/news/campus/where-is-ohio-univ...

Remote employee works remotely. More at 11.

You're 100% right. Schaffer is a public employee, and the public has a right to know if she's doing the work and fulfilling her professional duties.

And we know she is. From this story. Nellis said
“What I can tell you is that senior vice president Shaffer is fully engaged every single day with the work of this university,” Oliver said, noting that they speak with each other many times a day."

So what's being hidden, exactly? Shaeffer's whereabouts at all times? Is that something the public has a right to know?

I stand by the fact that the handling of this entire story, going back to the mob wielding pitchforks about a CFO being well-compensated, had been silly and embarrassing. Were I a candidate for administrative employment at OU, this would raise all manner of flags for me. For several reasons.

I just find it silly and sensationalized. The opening paragraph states that the university "won't answer questions about her whereabouts."

A few paragraphs later, they quote the university comms lead and President calling directly to address the question. They also directly address that most university employees are working remotely, and the university isn't monitoring their whereabouts. In other words, they addressed the question directly. And yet the premise of the story is an insistence that the University is hiding something.

This is a non-story. The A News knows there are people who are easy to rile up when it comes to Schaffer, so they're doing that. They may not have violated ethics standards in doing so, but it's still not a story they should be proud of.

The story here is that the Athens News spoke to like 4 different sources to confirm that a remote employee is working remotely. They then took that very basic fact and used that remote employee's unpopularity to create a story. How many other OU employees are working remotely? I guess it's just a coincidence this story is about the one people don't like.

I'm excited for the search for our next CFO when Schaeffer justifiably leaves. Every good candidate will look at this garbage and bail, and we'll have a less competent administrator as a result. All because of a 100k retention bonus, spread over 3 years, at an organization with an annual operating budget of 800 million dollars.

The name of this thread is "CFO MIA." In the article linked, the President of the University tells the reporter that the CFO is engaged daily with her responsibilities and job. Yet the takeaway is that she's MIA.

In other words, how the University answers yes or no questions -- or the actual facts -- have literally nothing to do with this story. The entire purpose of this story is for the Athens News to pose questions that their readers will answer themselves. Neither the Athens News nor a whole bunch of people in Athens care about the facts here.

Shaeffer is an overpaid elite carpetbagger or whatever. The goal's to run her out of town, and they'll find the reasons one way or another.

In 2021, let's also just record every lecture and move all classes to online going forward. We can just play those lectures for students. $0 in faculty overhead. $0 on our CFO. Makes the margins way better. Additionally, athletes can just order their own equipment on Amazon. No more equipment managers. A couple hundred roombas can replace the custodial staff.

BLSS nailed this one. This is garbage journalism and a non-issue.

When I first saw the headline, I snatched up the paper, then as I read the article, my thoughts were this is just horrible journalism.

From the article - one of my pet peeves:


There are many reasons for the university’s current budgetary crisis. One of the more significant has been College Credit Plus (CC+), a program sold to Ohioans as a way to reduce the cost of higher education, but which has proven penny wise and pound foolish from an educational perspective. It has hurt universities, and more importantly hurt students who believe they are getting a college education and arrive on campuses poorly prepared for more advanced work. University leaders across Ohio, including college presidents, know this, and it’s a shame they have not had the political courage to campaign vigorously against CC+.

There are two types of CC+ courses - those taught at the local high school by high school teachers and those taught at the local college. The quality of teaching is one issue. A second is the fact that many students who aren't college material at the age of 13 to 17 are taking these courses and as some kids at the local high school told me last year, gaming the system clearly stating that what the classes at the high school are harder than those at OU. And here is the big issue for the colleges - lost revenue. Instead of getting four years of tuition from a student they are getting three and a few dollars for the CC+ classes not to mention a lost year of room and board since many of these kids enter college as sophomores.

It's tough to argue against the program because it has saved families millions - but at what cost to a quality degree and the financial health of the college? That's where I have a problem with the program as executed today.

In theory, a good program for the few students who really could benefit academically from the program. in reality as Billy, cc and others have ponted out, a system rife with abuse, inconsistencies and questionable results.

Not sure what it's called today, but there are a whole host of classes that admitted students need to take to "catch up" when they get to OU.

This is what happens when college tuition hits hyperflation and becomes prohibitively expensive. Anyone not in the upper class is going to do whatever they can to save money. If CC+ is affecting colleges in a negative way, it's a self-inflicted wound.

Exactly.