UMass Chancellor strikes back

So it took a while, but the lame duck leader of the flagship University of Massachusetts at Amherst Chancellor Bob Holub responded to the Front Page, above-the-fold-glorification-of-student-parties story that appeared in both the Daily Hampshire Gazette and Amherst Bulletin on September 29--a Friday no less.

Chancellor Robert Holub

His Letter To The Editor appears in this Saturday's Gazette--the most widely read press run of the week--along with two other letters sternly criticizing the student party mentality oozing from the original article by two young champions of the ZooMass image of old, Peter Clark and Emerson Rutkowski.

I actually tried to get our venerable Amherst Select Board to respond with their own Letter To The Editor a couple weeks back, but apparently to no avail.

SB Chair Stephanie O'Keeffe can publicly criticize our beleaguered DPW for not completing construction of the downtown Spring Street parking lot in the middle of an unexpected monsoon season, but hides her head in the mud when it comes to riotous student behavior that degrades the quality of life in neighborhoods near and far from UMass, the largest employer in Western Massachusetts and Amherst's second largest landowner--all of it tax exempt.

Spring Street parking lot Friday morning October 21

Sunday Morning

Kendrick Park Amherst Town Center

UMass Parking Lot near Whitmore

Upper Amity Street Town Center

UMass shows off new Police Station

A boatload of state and local officials sat under the big tent this morning to hear Chancellor Robert Holub sing the praise of the new $12.5 million UMass police station and the men and women who now call it home, as well as the outstanding relationship shared by public safety officials in the town of Amherst and neighboring Hadley.

Chancellor Robert Holub

The new station has its own emergency dispatch center causing UMass to opt out of a regional dispatch Amherst is pursuing. Obviously town officials did not hold any grudges, as Select Board Chair Stephanie O'Keeffe and SB members Diana Stein and Alisa Brewer attended as did acting Town Manager Dave Ziomek, Fire Chief Tim Nelson, Assistant Chief Lindsay Stromgren, APD Captain Jennifer Gundersen and other high ranking members of those departments.

Stan Rosenberg, the consummate pro, eschewed the poor quality PA system

UMPD Chief Johnny Whitehead has a lot to smile about

Intersection upgrade makes it easier for UMPD and AFD to get rolling

No, the horse did not speak...or cut the ribbon

Negotiating a minefield

It's safe to say the working relationship between UMass/Amherst and the town of Amherst, colloquially known as town/gown, has never been better.

Perhaps best reflected in the workings of the Campus and Community Coalition--a large committee of concerned public officials who live and work in the shadow of UMass, or the partnership forged recently to bring about the dream of a new Gateway Corridor to revitalize the physical link between UMass and downtown Amherst.

And these important initiatives--especially the Gateway Project--have flourished under the reign of Robert Holub, an academic (German literature no less) who seems to understand entrepreneurship, as evidenced by the significant increase in out-of-state enrollments that brings in higher profit margins per head to the flagship trying to negotiate turbulent economic waters.

Naturally I first welcomed him to town by pointing out his children attend the Amherst public schools while he lives in a tax exempt home on campus. One of my readers responded that it was a good thing: unlike some highly paid administrators in the Amherst School system, Chancellor Holub demonstrates confidence in our all-important institution by sending us his most prized treasure.

Last Sunday--seemingly out of nowhere--The Boston Globe detonated a major bombshell all but declaring Chancellor Holub a lame duck. Why? Spending $60,000 in consulting fees for an ill fated attempt to establish a medical school in Springfield, less than stellar ratings from an anonymous survey of classroom professors and an alleged cavalier attitude about affirmative action when it comes to attracting black students.

Overall, however, UMass/Amherst has a higher percentage of minority students under Holub's tenure--but unfortunately for him they are of the wrong target demographic; and when the Governor is black, I guess it's not hard to figure out what quota needs to command attention.

Last year, Amherst's interim (now permanent) Superintendent Maria Geryk--without telling the Regional School Committee--signed a $96,000 consulting contract with UMass School of Education for services some would consider mutually beneficial and therefor should have been free...how to better teach high school students.

So I'm trying to figure out what's the big deal with Mr. Holub--in command of a overall budget seven times higher than the Amherst Regional High School--spending a lousy $60,000 to perform due diligence on the possibility of establishing a medical school in Springfield?

Congressman Ritchie Neal seemed very supportive--and since he was instrumental in the Pioneer Valley Chinese Immersion Charter School acquiring a $1.5 million federal grant, safe bet he could have done the same for UMass.

UMass President Jack Wilson fought hard to found a law school at UMass/Dartmouth and probably spent a fair amount in consulting fees leading up to it. And if I had to choose what the state could use more of--lawyers or doctors--it would be an easy call.

And the fact that employees under Holub as measured by Mass Society of Professors don't particularly like him strikes me as a good thing. If employees love their boss, chances are the boss is not pushing them very hard to perform.

Interestingly, only 220 union members bothered to submit the survey on Holub's evaluation but a week later over 700 weighed in on the "Exceptional Merit Proposal". Kind of like Amherst's last local election that garnered under a 10% turnout vs. an Override election attracting 30%. Pocketbook issues seem to get everyone's attention.

UMass/Amherst has suffered budget cut after budget cut, yet it's still ranked in the top 20 universites in the world. And last I looked the world is a pretty BIG place.

The endowment is at an all time high indicating strong approval from alumni, the incoming class is the largest in history with the highest average SATs and GPAs so their retention rate will also be stellar as well (and safe to bet none of them will win my "Party House of the Weekend" award).

This is not the time for a change in command. As President Lincoln once said, "best not to swap horses while crossing the river."

Support from Amherst officials and business community

Support from University of California Berkeley

While the weary editors were sleeping

Daily Hampshire Gazette and Springfield Republican editors awoke Sunday morning with collective egg on the face. A small nuclear bomb detonated next door and somehow they managed to sleep through it.

Let's hear it for the distant BIG city bricks-and-mortar institution who still knows how to break a fully fleshed out story, even though they had to rely on unnamed sources "familiar with the evaluation."

But when you are the iconic Boston Globe you can get away with quoting unnamed sources.

Of course now the fun game is to watch closely and see who will first catch up to this Front Page story (and whether they assign a reporter to get a different quote or two from their own sources) on their webpage, since the ink presses will not run again until Monday morning.



UPDATE: 9:10 AM My ultra reliable source at the Gazette just sent me a link showing they just updated their Gazettenet main page with a "breaking story" citing the Boston Globe. OK they win, but still come in second place overall. And in journalism second place might as well be last.

And it may very well have been a tie since my Facebook buddy Scott Coen did put up a blogpost on Masslive--the Springfield Republican website-- with the story at 9:15 AM. Okay, so now we just need to hear from Ch. 22 (Scott Coen also absolves his main employer WGGB Ch 40)

Now I'm told by another Facebook buddy--who works for the Republican--that indeed the Gazette won as he published Scott Coen's blog post around 9:30 AM, about 15 minutes after Mr Coen hit his publish button and a few minutes after the Gazette went cyber.

And he also pointed out that there is no embarrassment being scooped by the likes of the Boston Globe. The young lad has been working less than a year and he's already complacent. Yikes!

Well I guess not that complacent. He responds:


"1.) I work for MassLive.com, a sister company to The Republican.
2.) I didn't say there wasn't any "embarrassment," just that it wasn't an upset i.e. I would expect the Globe to get this story because it's not, per se, a local one. The Holub decision will likely be made in Boston, not Amherst.

Acknowledging the good work of competitors is hardly complacency. You can quote me on that."

And so I did.

A (tax-exempt) house with a view

So in addition to a $375,000 annual salary and company car Dr. Holub, the new Umass Chancellor, gets to live in this fine house with what he described as having a great view. Indeed.

Chancellor Holub also told the 400 folks attending the Community Breakfast that his wife could not attend because she was busy enrolling their two young daughters into the fine Amherst school system.

This year Amherst taxpayers will expend $14,410 per child to finance the public schools. Dr. Holub’s two children will be joining the estimated (by our Finance Committee) 50-60 other children coming from Umass tax-exempt housing (probably not nearly as nice as the Chancellor’s House), or an impact of almost $1 million dollars.

Amherst taxpayers also fund ($4.8 million) the busiest Fire/EMT department in the state with the Fire Chief estimating Umass accounts for about one-quarter of the their calls, or an impact just over $1 million dollars.

Hey, a million here and a million there—pretty soon you’re talking real money.

Even though Westover Air Force Reserve Base in Chicopee is one of the largest employers in that region (with all those economic spin off benefits) they recently agreed to a $1 million payment-in-lieu-of-taxes to the host city.

Hmmm…