Corporate Soap Opera at UATX
a long Politico story
For Politico, Evan Mandery writes a story about internal conflict at UATX last year. He wants to create a narrative in which “right-wingers” battled “pluralists.” I think that over-simplifies and distorts the events, which sound to me like what I call corporate soap opera.
If you read the article, take it as people who are unhappy about how things turned out for them personally taking their gripes to the media. Actually-existing UATX is doing fine without them.
My remarks:
In my experience in organizations, personality conflicts get blown out of proportion by the parties involved. Staff imbue their power struggles with profound cultural and historical significance. Never under-estimate the extent to which something portrayed as a deep battle over principles is mostly just a clash of egos.
The issues that are in play at UATX go much beyond the question of how the school approaches DEI. Like every other campus, we have divergent views on AI, and there is passion on all sides. There are disagreements about the curriculum. Some commitments that were rashly made a couple of years ago are now widely regretted.
I strongly believe that the new administration, while not ideal, is likely better than the one that got driven out. At a personal level, I would never have gotten an opportunity to teach here under the old regime. And if they had stayed, I think that this place would be in worse shape. I get the sense that they were over-invested in the faith that going back to teaching courses on the dead white males is sufficient to revive university education.
My personal opinion is that UATX needs more bureaucracy. Faculty hate that word, and in most established universities the bloated administration is a big part of the problem. But the way it appears to me, UATX suffers from a lack of dependable internal processes.
Among faculty and students, there are a variety of visions for what would make a great institution. The way that this plays out today is that everyone goes out and tries to execute initiatives that fit with their own vision. After two weeks, I have my own strong opinions about what I like about UATX and the direction I would prefer that it take. My younger self would have launched a crusade, causing a lot of pain and stress to myself and to others.
Academic culture in general tends to produce professors who are self-centered and immature. The start-up atmosphere here inclines people to act as if anything is possible, ignoring resource limits, trade-offs, and the need to prioritize. I see this as a recipe for intense internal conflicts. Given the lack of formal mechanisms to forestall these, I could see corporate soap opera continuing to be a source of discomfort.
But I am just a short-term visiting professor, who showed up after the drama discussed in the Politico article played out.
I frequently read Dr. Kling’s column in the morning and then think it over for a half hour or so as I hoe weeds in the garden. This was a really good column to chop weeds to. Several thoughts came to mind.
Accreditation. Weed or vegetable? Apparently UATX holds "candidate for accreditation" status with the Middle States Commission on Higher Education (MSCHE), granted on August 28, 2025. This is a formal step indicating the institution meets the standards to begin the full accreditation process.
The university is not nationally accredited, which means students cannot access federal financial aid such as Pell Grants. Sounds like accreditation is a weed and we would all be better off with more unaccredited colleges in which students weren’t falling into student loan debt traps.
Financial backers. Weeds or vegetable? The Politico story reports a lot of outrage from faculty that major funders might want to have a say in the direction of the university. Napoleon supposedly said “"If you want a thing done well, do it yourself.” If Lonsdale (net worth $3.3 billion) is the big money man behind UATX and if he wanted to run a university a certain way, maybe he should have just launched his own for-profit private university and employed his staff on an at-will basis. This would at least provide him some leverage to avoid the operation of Conquest’s second law of politics: “Any organization not explicitly and constitutionally right-wing will sooner or later become left-wing.” But it seems like Lonsdale’s money doesn’t match that of Jeff Yass ($65.6 billion). And indeed, I can’t find anything online about exactly how much of UATX funding originates from Lonsdale, but it is widely disseminated that Yass donated $100 million. Is Yass happy with UATX? It seems so, at least publicly (https://www.thefp.com/p/im-betting-100-million-on-a-new-university ) but he also seems to indicate if UATX graduates don’t do well, he is going to cut off his support. If there is a division between what Yass wants and what Lonsdale wants, then they could probably help UATX clarify its vision and direction by hashing that out privately and presenting a united front (who knows, maybe they have done that). But the funder’s money is providing the soil for an alternative approach to higher education, so I’d say they are not weeds and need to be indulged and cultivated.
“Unique” visions. Weed. From what I gather, the UATX founders all make noises that Max Weber made back in 1918: https://web.archive.org/web/20250527183403/https://sociology.sas.upenn.edu/sites/default/files/Weber-Science-as-a-Vocation.pdf Would any of the founders disagree with the following Weber quotes?
"I deem it irresponsible to exploit the circumstance that for the sake of their career the
students have to attend a teacher's course while there is nobody present to oppose him with criticism. The task of the teacher is to serve the students with his knowledge and scientific experience and not to imprint upon them his personal political views. It is certainly possible that the individual teacher will not entirely succeed in eliminating his personal sympathies. He is then exposed to the sharpest criticism in the forum of his own conscience. And this deficiency does not prove anything; other errors are also possible, for instance, erroneous statements of fact, and yet they prove nothing against the duty of searching for the truth. I also reject this in the very interest of science. I am ready to prove from the works of our historians that whenever the man of science introduces his personal value judgment, a full understanding of the facts ceases.“
Or,
"The primary task of a useful teacher is to teach his students to recognize 'inconvenient' facts--I mean facts that are inconvenient for their party opinions. And for every party opinion there are facts that are extremely inconvenient, for my own opinion no less than for others. I believe the teacher accomplishes more than a mere intellectual task if he compels his audience to accustom itself to the existence of such facts. I would be so immodest as even to apply the expression 'moral achievement,' though perhaps this may sound too grandiose for something that should go without saying. “
In this regard, some AI might prove more valuable than others, and even most are probably better than others. Maybe “use AI in service to the Weber vision” would not be too bad a way to skin that cat.
Celebrity professors. UATX is going to have 900 students and their Yass endowment of $100 million yields a 3% percent return, that is per student funding of about $3,333 per year (If I did my math right). Even tripled, $9 million a year doesn’t seem like enough to really fund a celebrity faculty. And one wonders what they delivered from the student’s point of view? “I was in a class taught by a celebrity” might attract applicants, but probably a lot less than no tuition. And the real proof will be in whether graduates go on to do great things. But celebrity professors elsewhere don’t really seem to be producing world-changing graduates. I am going with they are weeds. Cheap AI professors on the other hand...cost-effective fertilizer? Looking back at the substack from yesterday, Cowen’s vision of AI supplementation seems like a sound business strategy. Graduates who are in the habit of using technology to achieve their ends will likely take this forward out into the world and may be more likely to deliver great things. One supposes it will be determined by whether AI is seen as a work reducer, eliminating the need to engage in work, or as a work expander, multiplying the possible, and demanding even more time and engagement. If it is the latter, one suspects AI supplementation might be usefully expanded to the displacement of celebrity professors. One wonders whether students are paying for their own AI subscriptions, if the school has negotiated discount contracts, etc., etc. There actually may be no need for infrastructure in this regard. If the tutor/mentor professor is working with the student on practically applying AI, perhaps any policy should be negotiated at the mentor/mentee level.
The 1950s era liberal arts college model. Not sure what the UATX founders see as so important about adhering to this model. It would seem like the 17th century model in which college buildings were modest in size and architecture, and buildings often served multiple purposes with lecture rooms, dormitories, and administrative offices all under one roof. And heavy reliance on the model of a professor being directly responsible for overseeing the education of individuals, with close relationships in and out of the lecture hall. But maybe some other billionaire might see an alternative opportunity.
Who was it that said something like this: the intensity of disputes in academia are in direct proportion to their insignificance?