Schrödinger's Coach
Years ago an administrator told me that when accreditation and other review teams visited U(S)L, they often started their final report with some comment to the effect, "We owe you an apology. We arrived here quite certain that a school with your budget, other resources, and your regional designation, could not be a very strong institution.
"We were wrong."
Over the years I have also been aware that some of our faculty are better than we have a right to expect based on our budget and national presence.* I've thought about that a lot, and I have a theory, with at least some data to back it up. Because at least some of those outstanding faculty personally told me that they initially intended to use UL as a stepping stone, but decided to stay on because they fell in love with the school and the region. As one of them, an internationally-renowned researcher, told me, "When I came here, I decided I would stay unless one of the 5 schools on my list called me.
He then gave me a side-long glance and said, "They've all called."
Another hot-shot researcher here, someone a lot of you know, was leaving a much better-known, and better-funded, university to come here. When he told friends that they were moving here, the wife started crying. He was puzzled; they weren't that close. But he reassured her and said, "Hey, we'll come back to visit."
She replied, "It's not that. We've been trying to get back to Lafayette for 8 years now."
Something similar happened with the oil patch. While the boom was on, a lot of oil folks moved in, and said they just loved the area and the people. But when the bust hit, they packed their bags and skedaddled. (And for a some of them, it was good riddance.)
But a few stayed, here. Some even took a pay cut, or started their own businesses. They decided they preferred the culture and the lifestyle we have here.
So when rumors were flying that Billy might leave, I decided it was a bit like Schrödinger's cat. Is he one of us? Was he meant to be here? Does he think, as so many of us do, that we would rather live here than any other place we know of?
As with all of the talented people who come here, we can't know until he/she gets a great job offer.
I'm not knocking anyone else's priorities, mind you. I'm just saying we play to a difference snap cadence here.
Best of everything to Billy and his family. We were fortunate to have you with us. Make us proud at UF.
• • •
*Many years ago, before the rich schools started pouring money into their computer science programs, UL came out 8th in ranking for a big grants program. The top 6 -- big name schools like Ohio State & Carnegie Mellon -- got $1M grants, and that's back when that was still a lot of money.
One of our people called someone on the review board to ask about weaknesses in our proposal. The other guy said, "Actually, you had just about the best proposal we read."
Confused, the UL administrator asked why we didn't get a grant. "Well," the guy said sheepishly, "for a lot of reasons. But mainly, we couldn't see giving $1M to a place named 'Southwestern Louisiana.'"
On a related note, about two decades back there was a move afoot to strip us of our PhD in English. The expert brought in was from (if I remember) U Michigan. He hammered us. There were too many English PhD programs in the country, turning out too many PhDs. There just weren't enough job openings to justify our program.
At the public hearing before the Regents, VP Gary Marotta got up and asked him, "What percentage of Michigan English PhDs get jobs?" The guy said he didn't know the number, but it wasn't good.
"What percentage of UL English PhDs get jobs?" he then asked. The guy didn't know.
"100%" Marotta replied. The guy turned red-faced. Turned out he had called someone at State, who fed him a lot of horse fertilizer.
He ended up apologizing, and we kept our PhD program.
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Re: Schödinger's Coach
Originally Posted by 60swerethebest
