The Fora: A Higher Education Community

Today, taking it easy and sneaking in fifteen minutes or so on T5.

New month, new thread.


New hatchling, more modest goals:

• Work on T5
• Work on B2
• Work on New Paper

Quote from: Parasaurolophus on June 01, 2025, 10:11:26 AM

• Polish off T4, send out the proposal.
• Complete referee report.
• Draft up most of invited chapter 1.
• Start on the co-authored paper.
• Do some admin work cleaning up our course offerings (ugh, but this needs doing very soon)

Some plugging away at B2 would be very nice, but I doubt I can swing it.

I also completed two additional referee reports, and drafted up most of a new paper. And started drafting that chapter. So, pretty good!

Quote from: MarathonRunner on June 30, 2025, 04:51:42 PMClass ended two weeks ago for the compressed spring semester. Final exam was last week. Today student sends me their letter from accommodations, and student is asking to submit work late. Said letter says nothing about extensions on assignments (some students have an accommodation to ask for extra time on assignments, if they contact the instructor ahead of time). Sorry student, you sent me the letter after class ended, but even if I had had it earlier, it says nothing about asking for assignment extensions. I've granted such extensions to several students who sent their letters on time and had that as an accommodation. You did neither. I'm sure you'll trash me on the student evaluations if you bother to complete them. Being registered with accessibility services doesn't mean you can simply get away with ignoring deadlines.

I certainly benefited from extensions as a student after suffering a severe concussion, but my letter said I could negotiate extensions. So I do provide them to students with that accommodation, as I know how valuable it can be. This student is asking, after the fact, for an accommodation that is not on their letter/file. I guess they think simply being registered with accessibility services means they should get special treatment? Yeah, no. I provide whatever accommodations are documented.

That is some very wishful thinking from Stu!  Did they pass?

Well, we're fucked now. Instead of doing something worthwhile, like improving Social Security, the billionaires voted to deny about 11 million people Medicare coverage.

If I'm lucky I will die before the national debt has to be repaid.

Nailed it. It's a shame, truly, but these shabby, lovable zoos can't last.

Good morning!

I am pangramful today and probably at genius.  Yesterday we also needed help for paella, which we usually get.  I remembered helluva just because I am mad that they accept that but don't accept hella. 

I forgot to mention that the first call I had on Sunday, with a friend I met at work years ago, was fruitful in that I found out that he and his wife are also bee nerds.  So I am looking forward to sharing that with him in the future.

Cathwen, it's great that you have middle daughter and grandson visiting! And that there is a pool to make good use of! I guess it has cooled down a little from the heat dome and humidity, but I'm sure it's still a welcome respite. Have fun!

Happy solving!

What a difference a few hours makes!
I drove by on the way to physical therapy... $2.51.
Driving home after physical therapy ...  $2.49!


Which is perfectly logical... my tank is full.  They are taunting me! 

Quote from: Puget on June 30, 2025, 06:13:52 PM

Quote from: Hibush on June 30, 2025, 05:24:28 PMTried adding a lot of online students.

It is very mysterious to me why failing institutions think this will work. Why would students pick a small no-name institution for an online degree when they could do one probably for less money and certainly with more course offerings at one of the big ones?

I know of a small town--well under 10,000 people--that used to have its very own municipal zoo.  In the 1950s a local roadside menagerie attraction went out of business, and the city took it over.  Back then it cost a little bit of nothing to run.  It made a nice place for local families to visit on a pleasant afternoon.  The local main employer gave them a bit of financial aid now and then to get new animals and build new enclosures for them.

Over the decades the zoo business became much more highly regulated.  Older facilities got grandfathered in, with the understanding that they would eventually modernize.  The money to do so never became available in this case.  Eventually even the little bit of corporate aid they got dried up.  The increasing regulations meant that the city was draining its tiny coffers just barely keeping the little zoo open.

They kept telling themselves that it was worth it to keep the place open, because it was a great tourist attraction.  But they had no advertising budget.  There wasn't even a sign on the main highway pointing toward the zoo.  You could drive right through town and never know it was there.  I knew people within an hour's radius of the town who had never heard of their zoo.  The only way to find out about it was to visit the town and have somebody take you there.  Eventually the city ran into a budget crisis, and the zoo was the only low-hanging fruit they had to close, so they did.  They should have done it long before they did.  But the City Council didn't want to upset everybody by taking away the zoo.  And so everybody kept telling themselves that they had a "tourist attraction."

Why would anybody drive an hour or more to see this threadbare little menagerie?  How would they ever find out about it in the first place?  People didn't ask these questions.  They knew about the zoo, and it was fun and important to them, so they assumed it would be to others too.  Right?  They just didn't have enough perspective to realize how insignificant and unsustainable their local pride and joy actually was, for anybody from out of town.

I suppose a similar sort of wishful thinking explains why certain little endangered colleges thought that online classes with their name on it would pull students in.  They simply didn't realize just how little their brand name counted for out in the wider world.

Showing my ignorance: I was quite surprised to find it wasn't the *only* college in Adrian, Michigan, pop. 20, 645.