Save Tulane Engineering Forum Index Save Tulane Engineering
The Weblog of Tulane Students and Alumni Concerned about Engineering’s Future at Tulane University
 
 FAQFAQ   SearchSearch   MemberlistMemberlist   UsergroupsUsergroups   RegisterRegister 
 ProfileProfile   Log in to check your private messagesLog in to check your private messages   Log inLog in 

Ye Olde Green Wave Forum Web Site

 
Post new topic   Reply to topic    Save Tulane Engineering Forum Index -> Tulane Students, Faculty, Alumni
View previous topic :: View next topic  
Author Message
TheCzar35



Joined: 11 Jan 2006
Posts: 55
Location: New Orleans, La

PostPosted: Mon Aug 14, 2006 5:02 pm    Post subject: Ye Olde Green Wave Forum Web Site Reply with quote

Guys,
You guys need to visit www.yogwf.com "Ye Olde Green Wave Forum" web site. Look under the topic "Future of Tulane University, New Orleans and Katrina Aftermath". We need to get the attention of these booster types. They got Cowen to back down on cutting football a few years ago. I am trying to make them see that the cuts are hurting Tulane and that will eventually hurt sports at Tulane. Please check it out and join in the chat.
TheCzar35 (BSEE'76 - MSME '81)
Back to top
View user's profile Send private message Send e-mail AIM Address
TchoupShopper
Guest





PostPosted: Mon Aug 14, 2006 6:58 pm    Post subject: Re: Ye Olde Green Wave Forum Web Site Reply with quote

TheCzar35 wrote:
Guys,
You guys need to visit www.yogwf.com "Ye Olde Green Wave Forum" web site. Look under the topic "Future of Tulane University, New Orleans and Katrina Aftermath". We need to get the attention of these booster types. They got Cowen to back down on cutting football a few years ago. I am trying to make them see that the cuts are hurting Tulane and that will eventually hurt sports at Tulane. Please check it out and join in the chat.
TheCzar35 (BSEE'76 - MSME '81)


Not an engineer here nor a son of one although I have had many engineer friends over the years and still do have many engineer friends. I've also had occasion to follow the football team and be among those who protested Cowen's actions in 2003.

Beware. While in 2003 Cowen was viewed by the YOGWF bunch as the enemy they mysteriously and amazingly seem to be more inclined to kiss up to him now.

I hold the minority view, I suppose. I think they got hoodwinked. All that they did in 2003 was to buy a little more time for the football program. Cowen has more or less given just enough rope for them to hang themselves but while he'll continually talk of being a big fan the fact is that he'd be as much of a fan of non-scholarship football as a Div. 1-A program.

Has Cowen changed his ways of being secretive, paternalistic and dictatorial as well as fairly slimy when he gets called out? Recent events would seem very much to bear out that he hasn't changed at all and he's still not to be trusted.

I hate to tell you but I doubt you'll find much sympathy among the YOGWF folks although you definitely have mine.
Back to top
perturbed1



Joined: 12 Jan 2006
Posts: 87

PostPosted: Mon Aug 14, 2006 8:27 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

I couldn't possibly agree with TchoupShopper more. They are so happy football didn't get axed in Cowen's BuRP (Bold university Renewal Plan) that he is a god to them. They forget that he said the only reason he didn't cut DI sports was because it would have cost too much in the short term to buy out contracts. Besides I think he wants to get as much money as he can in the TAF fund before he grabs for other purposes.

Still it wouldn't hurt to throw you 2 cents in over there. When those guys finally do get the shaft from Cowen his life is probably going to be in danger. It will be fun to watch. Just don't expect much sympathy until the day comes when their ox is gored.
Back to top
View user's profile Send private message
TchoupShopper
Guest





PostPosted: Mon Aug 14, 2006 9:06 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

The decision with Newcomb should have been particularly eye-opening.

There's no way that that move has saved more than a pittance in annual costs, if it's saved anything at all, but it's highly likely that it's incurred a significant cost in terms of donor relations.

Thus, why do it except to consolidate authority and also gain control of the Newcomb endowment, as I had been told back in 2003 that he had designs on doing? Yet, all this was done in the name of post-storm financial necessity.

Scott Cowen, the "Chainsaw Al" of university presidents.
Back to top
TheCzar35



Joined: 11 Jan 2006
Posts: 55
Location: New Orleans, La

PostPosted: Tue Aug 15, 2006 5:45 pm    Post subject: The Truth Reply with quote

TchoupShopper,
Please go to the YOGWF web site and see my heated exchange wit "lundigras". He said that I am lying and that I am twisting the truth in order to get their members on our band wagon. I agree with you, Cowen is their hero for now. I did get several private messages that were more supportive, but they are all buying the juke that engineering was a loser and had low ratings.
TheCzar35
Back to top
View user's profile Send private message Send e-mail AIM Address
TchoupShopper
Guest





PostPosted: Tue Aug 15, 2006 7:12 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

I does not seem like very many people at all take any notion of Cowen being a figure less than, at worse, benign very seriously. Even during the height of the controversy in April-June 2003 there were apologists for him to be seen on the YOGWF while the moderators usually seemed to be trying to subtly steer discussion away from Cowen and his misdeeds but instead toward Rick Dickson, the other great YOGWF hero, and then there even more than a few who had the notion that the athletics review was just a ploy to spur fundraising.

A few months after the D-Day on June 10, 2003 Cowen had done nothing to win the football follower contingent back except for some modest anti-BCS windmill jousting but yet was already pretty much back to being somewhere between a jovial Uncle Scott and a revered "Dr. Cowen." The storm and his actions since have served to strongly reinforce such notions held by the YOGWF denizens, elevating Cowen perhaps to "Dear Leader" status.

The killer about football is this: if you're all into being concerned about finances you have to know that there's only one answer and that that one answer, if you're going to stay in D-1A football and not drop down to non-scholarship, is that you know damn well that you had better win if you expect fans to be buying tickets, donating, etc. Yet, when Cowen conducted the review -- and there's no doubt that he was completely the force behind it and figured that he'd better keep it a secret because there was no way such news getting out would not be explosive -- what he decided on making as variable was whether Tulane would stay in D-1A while having a program "consonant with the mission of the university" or whatever that was supposed to mean was held constant as was the goal of reducing the athletics deficit.

The YOGWF leaders all seem to have drunk the Kool-Aid and believe that all of this, i.e. Tulane staying in D-1A football and reducing the athletics deficit, can be done, mainly by their badgering of the rest of the fan community for donations while they kiss up to the Dear Leader and by Tulane playing these schedules loaded up the Texas, Auburn and LSU types, and is quite realistic.

Maybe their notion is that anger toward Cowen would only serve to hasten his dismantling of the D-1A football status but they're totally wrong on that. Tulane runs its program on the very cheap, is academically restrictive, is proudly super squeaky clean and is located, well, where it is, in a state where guys who are both great football athletes and great scholars at the same time are very few in number, all of which is almost a guaranteed recipe for non-winning, i.e. slow starvation for the program.

Cowen will most likely get what he had wanted with regard to football in the long run while the YOGWF'er's get screwed. I suspect that he figured in June 2003 that he could manage to bide his time.
Back to top
perturbed1



Joined: 12 Jan 2006
Posts: 87

PostPosted: Tue Aug 15, 2006 9:35 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

He set the bar for continuing DI sports sufficiently high enough that it would be nearly impossible to met, especially when the accountants work for him, yet low enough that it held out some hope. In the mean time he will bleed the boosters dry. If in the end they do make the goal by F2007 then atheletics isn't a problem for him and if they don't he inherits all the money they raised the same way he inherited the Newcomb endowment, unencumbered millions.

When they finally wake up with hangovers, bleeding hemmis, and a $20 bill on the pillow they still might not turn on him. After all who wants to tell the world what a skank they've been.

Cowen is what he his. He wants his own way and he wants applause and he is pretty good at getting both. But he is bad for Tulane. It is a great school and deserves much better.
Back to top
View user's profile Send private message
TchoupShopper
Guest





PostPosted: Wed Aug 16, 2006 7:00 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

The YOGWF-er's seem like they really don't want to hear the distinct possibility that they might be throwing their good money away in vain and the leaders of that group seem like they really, really don't want that kind of notion to develop since it would stop their momentum dead in the tracks. They like to say that they "won the big battle" in 2003 and that they're well on track to having the athletics dept. meet the financial goals.

The elephant in the living room that they're ignoring is that unless Gibson Hall would dramatically change its whole disposition regarding football it's going to be really, really difficult for the program to sufficiently broaden the fan base and truly avoid red ink.

If the YOGWF contingent is indeed getting things going financially like they like to advertise I still suspect that there's a lot of smoke and mirrors action.

I suppose that I don't give much weight to their party line but even if somehow the YOGWF leaders' seeming optimism is valid and the donations are rolling in right now I don't understand the reasoning behind continually propping up a program that isn't winning or engendering a broadened fan base. Eventually there logically figure to be red ink problems with that mode and I don't understand the point of, how there's much benefit to the university from staying with D-1A football unless the university truly means business in trying to win, which in Cowen gospel is pretty much the secondary goal -- the party line is that the fans had just better support the program just because Tulane is the "good guys." Thus, there's unreality aplenty to go around. Cowen's got 'em eating out of his palm and they can't bear to hear anything questioning how he's the Dear Leader.
Back to top
ggreen



Joined: 11 Dec 2005
Posts: 52

PostPosted: Wed Aug 16, 2006 9:15 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

There's only one person who can change their minds: Stephen Colbert. Scott Cowen,

YOU'RE ON NOTICE!
Back to top
View user's profile Send private message AIM Address
TUgradstudent



Joined: 06 Mar 2006
Posts: 9

PostPosted: Thu Aug 17, 2006 10:23 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

you guys must not pay very close attention to the YOGWF. I post/read there almost every day and I can guarantee that the majority of the posters there have an extreme dislike and distrust of Cowen. They don't remotely view him as the "dear leader."

There is a contingent over there who think that Cowen was just trying to make all departments on campus, including athletics, fiscally responsible in 2003 and so don't really hold that big of a grudge against him.

But most are very wary of him and realize that the only way to keep the football team afloat is to take care of business themselves by raising money and trying to put "butts in the seats."
Back to top
View user's profile Send private message
TheCzar35



Joined: 11 Jan 2006
Posts: 55
Location: New Orleans, La

PostPosted: Thu Aug 17, 2006 11:40 am    Post subject: Putting Butts in the Seats Reply with quote

TUgradstudent,
You make a good point about getting attendance up and getting donations to keep football afloat. The more I think of it this is what the engineering alumni need to do. You do have to consider, however, the Tulane Engineering Advisory Board did do a special report back in 1997 that showed how to improve engineering and make it more profitable, but the university basically ignored it. Now that they gutted engineering Post-Katrina, we alumni need to independently jump in and raise funds and get corporate commitments (like Entergy, Boh Bros., Yahoo, local refineries, etc.) and help Tulane to have reason to restore these programs. I know several corporations and donors have already done this Pre-Katrina (as before mentioned), but we need to get them to re-affirm and maybe increase their commitments and find new donors and corporations to step up. Of course there is always increasing enrollment.
TheCzar35
Back to top
View user's profile Send private message Send e-mail AIM Address
lob



Joined: 10 Dec 2005
Posts: 17
Location: New Orleans, LA

PostPosted: Thu Aug 17, 2006 4:52 pm    Post subject: donors? Reply with quote

What value does the prospect of additional donations to Tulane Engineering carry?

The School got sixty million dollars in one shot from an alumnus. Apparently that's not enough.
_________________
W. Stuart Lob
BSME 1982, MSME 1984
Back to top
View user's profile Send private message Visit poster's website
perturbed1



Joined: 12 Jan 2006
Posts: 87

PostPosted: Thu Aug 17, 2006 9:03 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

That $60 million may have been from former engineering students but it wasn't a restricted gift so.... it gets spent on whatever the administration wants. Both donors have ben pretty silent, and neither has been asked to join the board though there were a couple of openings recently. Hard to know what to make of it.
Back to top
View user's profile Send private message
TheCzar35



Joined: 11 Jan 2006
Posts: 55
Location: New Orleans, La

PostPosted: Thu Aug 17, 2006 9:30 pm    Post subject: Oragnize Reply with quote

Well guys all I can say is all we can do is try to organize an independent group, because the "Society of Tulane Engineers" is useless and the Advisory Board is no longer independent from the Dean (as Mr. W. Nelson intended it to be). We need to form a new group, like a government in exile. This group will be our platform to launch a PR campaign, legal (if necessary-I would rather not go the legal route), and to raise money to support these expense and to build a fund for a post-Cowen era. I feel he may leave sooner than we think and we should be ready. I know this all sound out there, but I don't think we have really rallied the alumni like we should have. Imagine if we could just get Boh and Filo in the same room and away from Cowen. Just those two guys could turn the Board of Administrators around and away from Cowen. Money talks, BS walks. Well think about it, if you want to email me directly I am at TheCzar35@aol.com. I have been exchanging emails and talking with some distinguished engineering alumni. We are working on something, but it won't be easy. We need soliders in this fight, so please consider joining us.
Thanks,
TheCzar35
Back to top
View user's profile Send private message Send e-mail AIM Address
TchoupShopper
Guest





PostPosted: Thu Aug 17, 2006 11:19 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

TUgradstudent wrote:
you guys must not pay very close attention to the YOGWF. I post/read there almost every day and I can guarantee that the majority of the posters there have an extreme dislike and distrust of Cowen. They don't remotely view him as the "dear leader."

There is a contingent over there who think that Cowen was just trying to make all departments on campus, including athletics, fiscally responsible in 2003 and so don't really hold that big of a grudge against him.

But most are very wary of him and realize that the only way to keep the football team afloat is to take care of business themselves by raising money and trying to put "butts in the seats."


"Butts in the seats" are never going to come and come to stay the way Tulane operates football, i.e. caring a ton about staying extra squeaky clean and free of scandal but not really caring that much about winning.

Cowen's story and also that of the self-appointed leaders of the YOGWF is that the fans had just better donate and buy tickets just because "Tulane is the good guys." As for how they feel about him, it's very often that someone posts something merely hinting at criticism only to see the Cowen apologists who indeed are legion jump right in to counter it and then there's also the very same poster who first broke the news of the secret athletics review telling everyone to lay off of Cowen as several of the moderators also seem to do frequently as well. There is only one I know of who's still fairly openly suspicious and even he might not be right now since his favorite program is not really football but baseball and the baseball program is seemingly getting what it wants right now.

It just doesn't add up.

If football has to make money, fine. The priority then has to be precisely on winning games. If winning is not supposed to be the overriding priority then either making money has to take a back seat or else the university needs to forget about D-1A status.

Cowen could win me over if I could sense that he both understands the reality that the team needs to win more games if it's to be financially viable -- which I think he does -- and he would openly apapt philosophically to that reality instead of doing what he has.

No matter. It's like the other poster said, in the end he'll come out looking great. Either the loyal fans will have squeezed their blood out of their wallet-turnip to a sufficient degree and Cowen can just wash his hands of everything or else he'll get to imitate the administrations such as at Washington Univ. (Mo.) who took their institutions away from "big-time" which I strongly suspect that he'd still philosophically like to do.

The opposite was former Tulane president Sheldon Hackney who candidly stated his views that as a southerner he truly understood football's place in the regional culture, believed in the benefit to the university of staying with D-1A status and not just that but also in the benefit of having a winning D-1A football program and then above all was realistic enough to stress that the best way to minimize financial problems was by having a winning program.

Something just doesn't add up with Cowen, the football program and the supposed forum to represent the fans' views, the YOGWF, just like, as you all know, Cowen's actions with regard to engineering just don't add up. Yet he does have legions of apologists. I can vouch for that.
Back to top
Display posts from previous:   
Post new topic   Reply to topic    Save Tulane Engineering Forum Index -> Tulane Students, Faculty, Alumni All times are GMT - 5 Hours
Page 1 of 1

 
Jump to:  
You cannot post new topics in this forum
You cannot reply to topics in this forum
You cannot edit your posts in this forum
You cannot delete your posts in this forum
You cannot vote in polls in this forum


Powered by phpBB © 2001, 2005 phpBB Group