More on crooked instructor hiring

In a recent post (Apr 27), we reported on corruption in the sailing instructor hiring process, including the hiring of several individuals who had failed the written exam. They were hired anyway because they're fun guys (though lacking in basic sailing knowledge—how'd ya like to find yourself paying to take "lessons" from one of them..?). And of course, they were interviewed by—you guessed it—their buddies, who happen to comprise the "hiring committee".

Some folks asked that actual names be provided, but unfortunately those are subject to the FERPA law that protects some student and job applications. However, if you still doubt that this actually happened—and that it happens every year at Hoofers—check out this recent news story about corruption in the New Haven, CT fire department. That sort of thing is typical nationwide, in many lines of work. Why would Hoofer Sailing be an exception?

It is noteworthy that there isn't one single African-American on the instruction staff at Hoofers, nor was there one single black instructor among the approx. 84 sailing instructors last year.

But wait, you cry. No blacks applied to teach sailing!

Maybe that's because a lot of people don't feel comfortable around the very white and overtly discriminatory Hoofer-controlled lakefront.

The Hydra

At right is the new Hoofer internal political flowchart. It is similar to the ratings flowchart, only this one shows how club politics operate (in a general sense).

There have been some good comments on some of the previous posts, so an evaluation of current (and former) sailing club staff is in prep. [5/29 Update: evaluating some 120 Hoofer Sailing leaders and instructors isn't really within the scope of this blog, but we'll try to post evaluations of individuals who warrant it.]

Thought Control

Aach, ideas are such insidious things. If not properly controlled, they can lead to real problems for those in authority. Hence the restrictions on the club's new official forum, initiated recently by Commodore Matt Duerst. Not only are posts restricted to happy, friendly ones (at the risk of being banned) but certain club members are banned from the outset, according to our sources. A happy, friendly club ought to be free of criticisms—especially ones that potential club members might see.

Nor did certain club hacks like the complaints that were surfacing regularly on the long-time keelboat list (keelboat@cs.wisc.edu), a holdover from better days. Some 150 club members, including most keelboat instructors and club leaders, were subscribed to that list. So, in late April, a couple of club officers started sending obnoxious, slanderous messages to the list, causing it to be shut down.

Of course, that was their intent. A new, privately controlled, non-UW-sponsored list was all ready to take its place. On the same day that the old keelboat list was terminated by UW-Madison staff, a new list appeared (groups.google.com/group/keelboat), controlled by none other than Jonathan Gapen, an ex-commodore. NOTE: the Sailing Club commodore is an employee of the State of Wisconsin.

[5/17 UPDATE: Yeah, maybe there were really only 100 subscribers after pseudonyms, and no, it's not hard to set up a google group. But there were also eleventh-hour messages to the old list from club leaders encouraging people to try the club's impotent new "forum". Two plus two still adds up to three in Hoofers.]