One year since Pres. Hall

[UAalum72]

A vision for excellence put to test at UAlbany

 

Story on the presidential search, the future of UAlbany, and following thru on Hall's initiatives. No mention of athletics, however.

 

I blame the T-U for dredging up the Princeton Review - party school story again, but it's not helpful to have a professor saying we confer baccalaureate degrees on semi-literate students.

[scrabbleship]

A vision for excellence put to test at UAlbany

 

Story on the presidential search, the future of UAlbany, and following thru on Hall's initiatives. No mention of athletics, however.

 

I blame the T-U for dredging up the Princeton Review - party school story again, but it's not helpful to have a professor saying we confer baccalaureate degrees on semi-literate students.

 

Having the professor in question (who can be difficult at times), I can say that he's a relic of an old time who has stuck around this long because his job is mostly all he has. He probably won't see any of the long-term changes for the better given that he'll retire or die before the time goes through. At least he's somewhat optimistic, I know of another professor who is a jaded, ultra-liberal cynic whose retirement will be a great day for the school.

 

Who wants to take a pool that by 2010 we have no president at the rate things are going? Typical pessimistic, anti-UA, TimesUseless drivel.

[ATL_DANE]

Here's a counter article to the above doom and gloom TU story. The synopsis is that SUNY is getting a lot tougher across the board. The story focuses a lot on Binghamton but does reference tougher standards at UNY (aka Albany).

 

http://www.syracuse.com/articles/news/inde...&thispage=1

[madDOG]

Here's a counter article to the above doom and gloom TU story. The synopsis is that SUNY is getting a lot tougher across the board. The story focuses a lot on Binghamton but does reference tougher standards at UNY (aka Albany).

 

http://www.syracuse.com/articles/news/inde...&thispage=1

 

Droczak graduated from Union Springs High School with a GPA in the high 80s. She played varsity tennis and was in the National Honor Society and Amnesty International.

 

Her first choice was SUNY Albany, where she wanted to study Russian, but she didn't get in. She hopes to transfer there after a year.

 

wow

[Oldtimer]

In the late 50's a GPA in the High 80's wouldn't get you into NYSCT, SUCE, Albany State et al, so why do you say "wow"?? With the inflation of grades at the high school level we should not be admitting students with less than a 90 average because they are in the bottom half of the graduating class---sad but true.

[madDOG]

In the late 50's a GPA in the High 80's wouldn't get you into NYSCT, SUCE, Albany State et al, so why do you say "wow"?? With the inflation of grades at the high school level we should not be admitting students with less than a 90 average because they are in the bottom half of the graduating class---sad but true.

 

Are H.S grades really "inflated" these days? High 80's translates to over a 3.5 which sounds good to me. She's also a member of the National Honor Society. They dont mention SAT scores though. I'm certain there are plenty of students with lesser pedigrees attending UA. It's good to see them becoming much more selective.

[ASP Guy]

A vision for excellence put to test at UAlbany

 

Story on the presidential search, the future of UAlbany, and following thru on Hall's initiatives. No mention of athletics, however.

 

I blame the T-U for dredging up the Princeton Review - party school story again, but it's not helpful to have a professor saying we confer baccalaureate degrees on semi-literate students.

 

 

Just had a conversation with Roberts. He said he was simply trying to make the point that UAlbany needs to get better.

 

As many of you know, I'm the first one to offer constructive criticism but I thought he was way off line. Perhaps if professors like Roberts were more engaging, students would be more inspired to read (his biggest problem is that his students simply aren't interested)

 

I'd rather UAlbany be ranked number 1 party school than have its own professors calling its graduates semi-literate.

[Patch]

we confer baccalaureate degrees on semi-literate students. - Prof. Roberts

 

Quotes like this speak volumes about long standing professors who have fallen asleep on the job. How do students graduate unless lazy professors have low standards and allow semi-literate students pass.

 

The tone of education at UAlbany and any other school/university it set by the standards of the instructors.

 

If instructors are engaging, demanding and interesting the quality of student work would rise significantly. On the other hand if teaching is just secondary - a means for a professor to do their research or write their books - then what results should be expected from their students.

 

"You reap what you sow"

[scrabbleship]

A vision for excellence put to test at UAlbany

 

Story on the presidential search, the future of UAlbany, and following thru on Hall's initiatives. No mention of athletics, however.

 

I blame the T-U for dredging up the Princeton Review - party school story again, but it's not helpful to have a professor saying we confer baccalaureate degrees on semi-literate students.

 

 

Just had a conversation with Roberts. He said he was simply trying to make the point that UAlbany needs to get better.

 

As many of you know, I'm the first one to offer constructive criticism but I thought he was way off line. Perhaps if professors like Roberts were more engaging, students would be more inspired to read (his biggest problem is that his students simply aren't interested)

 

I can't more than agree with that statement, even though the course I had with him was a writing intensive the lecture portion just...dragged...on.

(on a tangent is this obeservation, Roberts and the Six Flags guy: separated at birth?).

 

I'd rather UAlbany be ranked number 1 party school than have its own professors calling its graduates semi-literate.

 

Agreed, however the sting of a critical uber-veteran professor being critical is a little less than being ranked #1 in a shameful category in an extremely flawed survey (which afterwards every teacher I had tried to scientifically disprove). At least they didn't pick Barnard from Humanities or Barlow from English, both of them make Roberts look like an optimist.

[UAalum72]

Op-ed page of today's T-U has several letters from Helen DesFosses, teaching professors, students, and officers complaining about and refuting last week's story. Half a page, but I couldn't find it online.

[madDOG]

Op-ed page of today's T-U has several letters from Helen DesFosses, teaching professors, students, and officers complaining about and refuting last week's story. Half a page, but I couldn't find it online.

 

Looks like the letters are a day behind online. They'll probably be published tomorrow, or later today.

 

click

[madDOG]

Op-ed page of today's T-U has several letters from Helen DesFosses, teaching professors, students, and officers complaining about and refuting last week's story. Half a page, but I couldn't find it online.

 

Looks like the letters are a day behind online. They'll probably be published tomorrow, or later today.

 

click

 

8/21 letters are up on the TU website now, but nothing refuting last week's story. hmmmm....

 

In other news, UA enrollment up 2%

[madDOG]

Letter published today in the TU by Warren Roberts, Prof. of History @ UA

 

University at Albany must discuss quality of its undergraduate students

 

First published: Tuesday, August 28, 2007

 

Fourteen distinguished faculty, the vice president for student success, an associate professor of public administration and policy and an undergraduate student take exception to negative characterizations of undergraduate education at the University at Albany, as set forth in Marc Parry's Aug. 12 article (letters, Aug. 21).

 

One person who shared my feeling (included in the article) that undergraduate students at UAlbany are less than they might be was Kermit Hall; he was willing to face harsh realities, unlike some of my colleagues.

 

When President Hall met with the history department before his tragic death, he said his first commitment was to academics and academic study. I could not have been in fuller agreement with this priority; this, in my judgment, should be the first goal of a university president.

 

In that spirit, I told President Hall that as outstanding as many of our students are, there were problems: Some students were indifferent to academic study, and did not perform at a level worthy of one of the four university centers of the State University of New York. I was struck by President Hall's candor: he had just taught a course in the history department and said, frankly, that he was disappointed in the quality of students.

 

Of course, President Hall was keenly aware of the many outstanding students at the University at Albany, as I am and I trust all faculty members are. The largest folder by far in my file cabinet contains papers written by undergraduate students over a period of many years. It is impossible for students to be better than many of mine have been in a long teaching career.

 

At the same time, I feel there are problems in undergraduate education at the Albany campus. Perhaps the 14 distinguished faculty members who responded to Parry's article and I are not far apart in our perceptions of undergraduate students. They write, "some (undergraduates) have not fully lived up to our expectations," even as they are "gratified by the high quality of students we encounter every day and by their consistently deft exercise of intellect and imagination."

 

I agree with this sentence. I would like nothing more than for a debate to take place this coming academic year about undergraduate education at the University at Albany, with students, faculty and members of the administration participating.

 

WARREN ROBERTS

 

History Department

 

University at Albany

 

http://www.timesunion.com/AspStories/story...sdate=8/28/2007

[ATL_DANE]

Our academic shortcomings should be discussed in an appropriate forum. The Times Union newspaper is not the place for professors to be making their arguments for or against our academic progress… nor is this sports board the proper place. If we get a university president, he or she will have to handle the issue along with government leadership. We should turn our attention to the point of this board, which are sports.

 

Speaking of sports, 4 days to kick off!!!

 

 

Never too off topic… I better be watching a game in a stadium by 2010 and I don't mean at GT either.

[scrabbleship]

Our academic shortcomings should be discussed in an appropriate forum. The Times Union newspaper is not the place for professors to be making their arguments for or against our academic progress…

 

Right, however what Roberts did is valid as it is a rebuttal to a response to what he said in the article. If it was any other professor, you may have a point, but the concept of the Opinion page does allow Roberts to give a rebuttal. Still, it's become a dead issue and it makes Roberts out to have some bad feelings to keep this going though I wonder how much the TU warped things to make it bleaker than it was?

 

Besides, the issue is moot at this point as TU policy for Letters to the Editor bars him from giving a rebuttal to any rebuttals to his rebuttal until November. Who knows if some other long-tenured prof will do the same...

 

If we get a university president, he or she will have to handle the issue along with government leadership.

Good to see someone carries the same degree of doubt as me on that matter .

 

Never too off topic… I better be watching a game in a stadium by 2010.

 

Ah ATL_Dane, that nice Southern air really does knock out the Upstate cynicism and mistrust of governing bodies, doesn't it? Try 2015...