Rutgers athletic director Hermann is a joke

I’ve always wondered how some people who work at colleges get their jobs. It just cannot be because they are the most qualified for the position. I find it hard to believe that some of these folks interviewed the best, as well.

Case in point would be the Rutgers University athletic director, Julie Hermann. Here is someone who holds an important, high level job at a university, and she speaks to a journalism class and says that it would be “great” if the Star Ledger, New Jersey’s largest newspaper, were to “die.”

Isn’t that kind of a stupid thing to say to a class full of journalism students?

And this person is an athletic director at a major university? How could she not know better?

It’s typical for college administrators to blame the media for the problems they create and problems that, despite their advanced degrees, they can’t seem to figure out how to solve.

Instead of blaming reporters who merely cover the news or columnists who express an opinion, college administrators would be better off spending their time working on improving their campus.

Rutgers’ athletic program could use a leader who is looking out for its interests, not her own.  Rather than complaining about newspaper coverage, maybe college administrators can look at the causes of the negative news. And then do their jobs by fixing the problems.

Rutgers AD fiasco shows how incompetent college administrators can be

No one can really blame Julie Hermann for taking the job of Athletic Director at Rutgers when it was offered to her. After all, it wasn't up to her to divulge any details of "negatives" in her career history that might have prevented from being hired in a new job. That would be the responsibility of the people in charge of hiring - i.e., the college administrators at Rutgers University.

The level of incompetence of administrators and faculty at colleges and universities when it comes to hiring people for jobs borders on the bizarre. The situation at Rutgers is only one example.

First, the university wastes thousands of taxpayer dollars by paying an "executive search firm" to try to find a suitable candidate as its next athletic director. When in reality, the search committee of Rutgers administrators, faculty, and students could simple have advertised the opening and contacted other athletic departments at colleges around the country to inform them of the open position for minimal expense (not to mention, most people who work in college athletics would have known that there was an open position at Rutgers just by listening to the news).

Then, one of the members of the search committee on her own identifies Hermann as a candidate. So much for paying the search firm to provide a service. How come they didn't identify Hermann?

According to one published report, the process of hiring Hermann was rushed through the search committee, to the dismay of several committee members. Plus, no one at Rutgers did any kind of background check, which may have turned up the controversy of her tenure as a volleyball coach. The Star Ledger newspaper found out about the volleyball coaching controversy. Apparently, Rutgers did know about the discrimination lawsuit that was filed against Louisville when Hermann was there. It didn't seem to matter in the decision making process, as do many outlandish things that occur in the college sports world. College coaches and sports administrators get paid millions, jump from one job to the next, all the while claiming that they are working in the best interests of "student athletes." Yeah right.

Rutgers president Robert Barchi did the politically convenient thing by firing former athletic Tim Pernetti. Defending the hire of Hermann and not publicly admitting that Rutgers fouled up the vetting process is also a politically convenient move. But why should we expect anything more from the incompetent college administrators?

NCAA offers zero leadership

How does one get a job with the NCAA?  How did they start and what is their purpose? I need to do some research. It seems like whenever there's some sort of problem in college athletics, like the Rutgers basketball situation, the NCAA doesn't offer any leadership. Their leadership is in their back pocket. It's in their wallet. I'd like to know what the salaries are for some of the upper level employees at that place.

In college football and college basketball, the coaches are the stars. How come coaches can get out of their contracts to take a job in professional sports, but college athletes have to sit out a year if they want out of their scholarship in order to go play at another university? How come coaches get paid whatever is remaining on their contract if they get fired, but an athlete's scholarship is renewed year by year?

I hope college athletes really enjoy the sport that they're playing. Wouldn't seem worth it otherwise.

Crazy Job Search/Interviewing Stories, Part V: Rutgers University

I know a lot of people out there who read this are just going to poo-poo my stories as sour grapes. But hey it's just my opinion; it's just that people seem to behave differently when they are hiring for an open job.

I interviewed at Rutgers University in Newark, NJ, for three different positions. One was in the graduate career center. That one wasn't too unusual. But another time I interviewed with the undergraduate career center; I met a woman named Lynne who was an assistant director. She could not have looked any more disinterested during our brief interview. It's like someone had dumped the task of interviewing on her and she resented it. So she asked me a couple of questions, I answered, trying to demonstrate some enthusiasm, trying to make some kind of connection with her. Then she asked me if I had any questions; I asked one, she made a quick reply, and then said, thanks for coming in. We left the conference room and walked back to her office. She opened the door, and I don't remember what I said exactly, something along the lines of thanks for meeting me, I'm really interested in the job, etc., smiling as I said it. What did she do? She frowns and slams the door in front of me! Look people, if you're not interested in a candidate, fine, but there's no need to be rude. At least act like a civilized human being.

Another time I interviewed for an assistant director of the student center job at Rutgers Newark. I went into the conference room and there was about ten college administrators sitting on both sides of a long table. They asked me to sit at the front. I did and promptly sank into a chair that was lower than the others. I guess they like looking down at people. Anyway only one person, the dean that I would have been reporting to, asked me any interview questions. The rest of them just sat there and stared at me. Eventually the security director help up a flyer and asked me what I would do if I some supposedly radical group consisting of black people came to campus for some type of student program. Then he picked up a flyer and growled that they were going to be there next week, and slammed the flyer down on the table. The black folks sitting at the table said nothing; didn't even look at him. I'm not sure what my answer was, but I'm pretty sure it was generic. I was interested in the job (for some unknown reason) so I didn't show any bias one way or another. Anyway the interview ended and I left. Never heard from them again, thankfully. I mean, who knows..was it all some sort of act to see how I would respond to people just staring at me? How I would respond to an angry security director? Maybe. Or maybe they're just a bunch of wackos who have no idea how to conduct a professional job interview. I don't know. I don't really care either...I'm just glad my own diploma isn't from Rutgers Newark!