In a letter sent to faculty on Sept. 1, Prof. Chaden Djalali, dean of the University of Iowa’s College of Liberal Arts & Sciences (CLAS), invited faculty to partake in what he called “a wonderful opportunity” to come up with new revenue strategies for the University of Iowa.
“Suggestions might include new online courses or certificates,” he suggested, “a new professional masters’ degree program, or a consulting initiative.”
That’s right, faculty and staff, please put your teaching on hold and run (Do not walk! Proposals are due by Sept. 15) to your nearest TED innovation hour and start synergizing core competencies toward groundbreaking, Regents-proof business plans.
Hold up, though. The new president is an expert at Executing Strategy, so you will want to make sure it’s a really good strategy — one that you have thought all the way through. For example, Djalali advises, you should definitely include information on your proposal’s “anticipated target audience.”
The top ten faculty-generated revenue strategies will be forwarded on to the President’s Office, where, incidentally, a $2.4 million renovation is soon to be underway.
Here is the complete letter, submitted for your enjoyment by a UI faculty member:
Call for Proposals_new revenue
This is corruption at its best. Sign: https://www.change.org/p/dismiss-bruce-harreld-a-corporate-businessman-from-the-university-of-iowa-presidency/u/13317264
“A sense of humble honor was felt as I drafted this carefully considered revenue strategy. I have been inspired by current considerations of the forward-thinking model leading to the hiring of our new president and am compelled to propose a revenue generating strategy that will take us in to the twenty-second century as a thought-leader in academia. The new president’s salary should be halved, along with the salaries of all the provosts, deans, and anyone of the aforementioned ranks with the word “associate” preceding his or her title. The Board of Regents should be dissolved and replaced with faculty-appointed Trustees, saving the university hundreds of thousands of dollars in largess expenditures per annum. We have been given a great opportunity to increase revenue by more than $30 million in this way, in the first year of implementation alone, allowing all administrators to participate in this new venture with all the enthusiasm for UI they clearly share with, say, the adjunct pool and the hospital custodial staff. I would be honored to create a spreadsheet that would schedule and aggressively institute this program toward the exciting benefits, including investment strategies toward compensation for intellectual achievements, that our proud university would realize. Respectfully submitted, etc.”
Kip, You have proposed an excellent strategy!
Dear Dean Djalali,
Given the near-omnipresence of the “freshman 15” and the current first-year enrollment of the University of Iowa (4,666 students in the incoming class for 2014), there is an untapped goldmine (well, sort of a pinkish-greymine, I guess…) of nearly 70,000 pounds of unused lipids that could be rendered and repurposed by the University at the conclusion of each academic year.
Not only would extracting this extra weight dramatically improve the health (and visual marketability…go Hawkeyes!) of the student body, it would produce an endless and cyclically renewable energy resource for the University to produce and to sell at a considerable markup. By preying on the vanity of nineteen-year-olds, the University could conceivably even charge the students for the service of removing the fat via liposuction and realize further profits from the sale of the “by-products” of this surgical procedure.
Surely, with the UI’s rich history in the fields of both engineering and agribusiness, a process could surely be developed by which the fat harvested from these students could be converted into either a fuel that could power the combines, harvesters, spreaders, and milking-machines of Iowa’s noble and downtrodden farmers (to say nothing of generating endless photo-ops — paid, natch — with newly lissome undergraduates for the hordes of presidential candidates who will soon be descending on the state for caucus season…). Since the main agricultural product of Iowa is corn and the foodstuffs on the menus of UI’s dining halls are overwhelmingly corn-based, this is essentially an eternally recurrent source of unrealized profit for the University.
I hope the fact that I am not currently employed by the University does not preclude my submission of this modest proposal. I would be glad to accept a job as “Associate Dean in Charge of Assessing the Success of Liposuction Surgeries” at the prevailing rate for administrative jobs (I’ll be needing a renovated administrative office as well…) at the University if that helps to fast-track my proposal.
Sincerely,
J. Stick
J. Stick, an excellent idea, but I believe you mean “Liposuction Synergies”.