Higher Ed. firings and resignations

[Thump]

Remember that tOSU did something like reduction in offerings couple of decades ago. Cut out 'Eskimo studies' or somesuch, losing a chair, various profs, which were all there for about 22 students. Memories fuzzy certainly, but there wasn't much of a clamor when this occurred. In education, when one cuts classes/departments, an uproar occurs when the people involved lose out, on either a paycheck or course credit. At the K-12 level, state funding cuts required elimination of many electives - art, music etc. and mighty big hub-bub. 'Cut athletics' was their response. Well, the answer was/still is that the electives are what keep kids interested, not the solids like English and history. Anyway, the on-line proponents seem to be winning, as it's easier/cheaper to hire a prof to teach from home. Heck, he puts on a shirt and tie, but wears sweats below the camera. Once more, glad I'm out of this now.

Why wear sweats?

 

[Steve19]

At one of South Africa's largest English-medium universities, there was an Afrikaans language department, with a large Afrikaans-medium university literally a couple of miles down the road. The department and several of the European language programs also having minute class sizes and running at considerable loss. Unfortunately, the humanities disciplines worked together to ensure that every motion to close those departments would fail. It turned out that the humanities departments were largely away for one Senate meeting and the prior motion was brought up again for a vote with the provision that the departments could remain if they ran profitably.

It's amazing how the hangman's noose focuses one's attention. The socks and sandals brigade learned how to offer language courses to the general public at nights on weekends and broke even. We sat in the business school enthralled to witness such creativity and energy on display. Why hadn't we thought of...oh, right, nevermind.

 

[ORD_Buckeye]

Talking about the situation at Ohio State, why should Arts & Sciences gut themselves to please the business or ag colleges. A&S is by far the largest college by enrollment and thus is bringing in by far the most tuition dollars. Research dollars are a different story. but business isn't nowhere near the top in it.

Undergraduate enrollment by college
A&S 34.8% (almost double the next two)
Engineering & Architecture 19.6%
Business 18%
Education 6.6%
Ag 4.4%

Public Affairs is only 0.5%. Should we shut down the John Glenn College? We have four title VI "national resource centers in area studies: Russia/East Europe, Middle East, East Asian and Latin American. I doubt they're huge enrollment magnets (some I believe are only Masters), but they're highly prestigious (each category will only have around 12-15 spread across the country). Should they be shut down?

As for research, I'd assume it goes like this:
Medicine (inc Pharmacy) by far the largest
Engineering
Ag (inc the vet school)
Hard Sciences (part of A&S)
Business

 

[Steve19]

The situation was very different here. In South Africa, the medical and business/commerce faculties would represent about two-thirds of enrollments, with undergraduate business dwarfing arts and sciences. Where something like the Public Affairs situation exists in South Africa, those centers would receive additional subsidies to make them profitable. The subsidy model accounts for differences by providing higher degrees funding for teaching, graduate outputs, and research outputs. Funding is higher in the first two categories for national priorities (e.g., ag, health sciences, physical sciences, performing arts) and lower for those with less need in the economy (e.g., psychology, sociology, and some arts). Business is only in the second funding category out of 4 because of the high student numbers and the overwhelming demand. The other differentiation is level of degree with a PhD (5x) and Masters (3x) being multiples of the undergrad degrees. Research subsidies are the same for all disciplines, largely based on outputs in approved journals, which correspond to international accredited journal lists in Europe, Australia and the US. and rigorous independent reviews of books and other non-journal outputs.

Here, business school alums are very important in direct or indirect effects on donor funding for all faculties (as that kid who started in Kingsdale Shopping Center has been for the OSU medical school, I think to your dismay, ORD). I think research outputs vary across universities but business usually is well-represented. I can't comment on the Ohio State or US numbers. Here, the constant problem for every business school dean is to stop the constant attempts to further cross-subsidize unprofitable programs that few students want.

 

[calibuck]

Too hard for me to compare Steve and Ord's examples. Am viewing as undergrad vs grad schools. Doubtful whether undergrad schools pull in many donor dollars - or research subsidies, as compared to the graduate programs. And tOSU is a pyramid, bigger at the base (undergrad), and smaller at the top (professional schools, PhD's etc). Steve's SA school sounds almost like an inverted pyramid, which might suggest a college/university designed to teach the higher level courses, with an eye toward satisfying demand, and/or adding research dollars. Or I could be talking through my a**.....Harder to get my head around how they do things in South Africa, versus what I know about how the US works. Both interesting business models. Thanks for sharing guys.

 

[Steve19]

Werner was in the BScBusAdmin program, IIRC

 

[BuckBackHome]

6 of one 69 of the other.

Merge and name the new school Akrent.

If Kent and Akron merge, do you think the combined football program will be able to get more than 4 wins a season?

 

[NJ-Buckeye]

If Kent and Akron merge, do you think the combined football program will be able to get more than 4 wins a season?

That's mean... and the answer is no

 

[sparcboxbuck]

Talking about the situation at Ohio State, why should Arts & Sciences gut themselves to please the business or ag colleges. A&S is by far the largest college by enrollment and thus is bringing in by far the most tuition dollars. Research dollars are a different story. but business isn't nowhere near the top in it.

Undergraduate enrollment by college
A&S 34.8% (almost double the next two)
Engineering & Architecture 19.6%
Business 18%
Education 6.6%
Ag 4.4%

If A&S is that big of a deal at tOSU, then they need to start treating it as such. It’s been LONG known that the undergrads shoulder a huge burden for the graduate research programs within the college. Hell, they don’t even hide the fact that the undergrad experience is completely at the expense of the grad / research funded work.

So, say what you will about Fredo and make your Bevis and Butthead comments all you like… just know that a lot of our undergrad programs are a thinly veiled sham that sucks a disproportionate amount of resources from the undergrads who are in classes and expecting more than what they are getting.

Fuck, my youngest saw that shit a mile away when he applied — and tOSU made a very rich academic aid package for him. It still wasn’t worth it as a Chem E major.

Bottom line, in A&S, the undergrad experience at tOSU is nowhere on par with the reputation that comes from the work put in on the graduate level programs in A&S.

It’s a tier 1 research institute and it is seemingly very clear that they could give two shits about the kids who are funding a third of their undergrad tuition.

That doesn’t seem sustainable. And that’s ok… just stop offering the shitty undergrad experience and focus on the grant generating graduate programs. But let’s be honest with ourselves as to what tOSU is and what it isn’t. Not that what it is is bad… but it sure as shit is not an undergrad focused school in A&S.