NCSU

Two pieces of juicy news about the Puppetmaster and NC State:

The Pope Foundation has apparently turned down a piece-of-crap proposal submitted by four College of Humanities and Social Sciences departments at NC State. The proposal asked for $1.88 million - a small sum for which the four departments would sell their souls and become whatever Puppetmaster Pope wanted. All the details aren't in yet, but it seems that even the Pope Foundation has some standards. According to insiders, the proposal was hastily thrown together, generally sloppy, and mostly incoherent.

Secondly, the Puppetmaster has recently given a boatload of money to a new "center" at NC State which will be designed to help right-wing donors demand and get more for their money. Long frustrated by the fact that, left to their own devices, faculty lean in the direction of critical thinking, Art Pope has decided that the best way to tilt things to the right is to buy the influence he wants the old fashioned way.

And what better place to prove the concept than at NC State, where apparently even department heads will dance to whatever tune the Puppetmaster plays.

Earlier coverage of the Puppetmaster & NC State available here.

Rumors or reality? NC State is all a-twitter either way.

Toby Parcel, dean of the College of Humanities and Social Sciences at NC State, has apparently been pressuring department heads to come up with proposals to submit to the Pope Foundation. One department discussed this possibility at its February 14, 2007, faculty meeting.

Several faculty members noted that the values and agenda of the Pope Foundation are incompatible with the values and mission of a public university. In view of this conflict, department faculty decided that they did not want to seek Pope Foundation funding or have anything to do with the Foundation.

A little while ago, I observed that Ms. Jane Shaw, the emerging queen of the Art Pope Puppetshow, had worked herself into a swivet because the mean old faculty at NSCU didn't want the University to take any more of the Puppetmaster's money. Well Ms. Shaw has now taken her case to the Independent, where they've printed her full-fledged defense of the Pope Center for Higher Education.

Shaw's blow-by-blow reporting of all the good and wonderful things about her organization is endearing and admirable. But it doesn't mean squat. Because in the minutia of her defense, the misses the rotten forest for the spindly trees. As I wrote in my first review:

Ms. Shaw appears truly confused as to why professors would dare to question the motives and challenge the integrity of the organization she recently joined. In the face of such confusion, I daresay the new Puppet didn't complete the level of due diligence she should have

What's more surprising to me is that the Independent allowed this commentary by Shaw in the first place. Maybe they needed some filler.

There's a new Puppet lurking in the halls of the Art Pope Puppetshow. Her name is Jane Shaw, and her credentials place her among the upper crust of free-market fundamentalists. With a career spent extolling the virtues of private enterprise (though never actually running a business), it's surprising that she landed in the Pope Center for Higher Education instead of the John Locke Foundation itself. She's infinitely more suited than Stagemanager Hood to be running the whole shooting match for the Puppetmaster. But that's another story.

This week Ms. Shaw slips into her whiniest self over the latest dust-up between the mean old faculty at NC State and Art Pope. As you may recall, a number of NC State professors recently complained about a planned deal between the Puppetmaster and the school. Mr. Pope wanted to buy himself his own private curriculum and the faculty, understandably, has said "no thanks." Now Jane Shaw is accusing the faculty of having a political agenda! Talk about the pot calling the kettle black!