The Fora: A Higher Education Community

Quote from: kaysixteen on August 15, 2023, 10:37:15 PMAny serious scholar in a wide variety of disciplines (not all, of course), not just humanities, must be able to at least read German and probably also French.   Etc.   It is not possible, simply put, for Bubbaville St U to retain its serious university status without foreign languages.

Not that I'm in favor of eliminating languages at all, but what fields outside of the humanities do you think require reading German and/or French? If you're thinking of anything in the sciences, you are about a hundred years out of date-- even the Germans and French largely publish in English, which is the international language of science.

Honestly, one can be a humanities scholar without speaking anything other than English.

 

Quote from: Wahoo Redux on August 16, 2023, 07:29:59 AMHonestly, one can be a humanities scholar without speaking anything other than English.

 

Totally. I never hear anyone talk about their reading material in French or German, except for French Canadians.

Furthermore, some people learned their ancient Greek or Latin in a Clasics dept, not Foreign Languages.

One school I teach has a Languages Dept. They have a bunch of minors don't offer any majors. There are 4 faculty in French, 4 in Spanish, and 2 in Italian, but the faculty member in German doesn't seem to exist when you search for them. That may just be because the search function is so bad. I expect a large number of language classes are taught by adjunct faculty. I was surprised there are that many language faculty -- I've never encountered them.

Quote from: kaysixteen on August 15, 2023, 10:37:15 PMAny serious scholar in a wide variety of disciplines (not all, of course), not just humanities, must be able to at least read German and probably also French.   Etc.   It is not possible, simply put, for Bubbaville St U to retain its serious university status without foreign languages.

A sampling of R1's with no/limited graduate-level foreign language representation:

Colorado School of Mines - none
University of Rochester - none
Virginia Tech - Master's level only
University of Maryland, Baltimore County - none
University of California, San Diego
University of California, Santa Cruz

Honestly, when I found that Phi Beta Kappa does not recognize ASL as a legitimate foreign language, it really changed my whole perspective on language learning and communication.

But alas...this digresses a little too far from the spirit of this forum topic.

Quote from: kaysixteen on August 15, 2023, 10:37:15 PM...It is not possible, simply put, for Bubbaville St U to retain its serious university status without foreign languages.

"Bubbaville St U"? Seriously- how patronizing is that.

Quote from: Puget on August 16, 2023, 07:14:14 AM

Quote from: kaysixteen on August 15, 2023, 10:37:15 PMAny serious scholar in a wide variety of disciplines (not all, of course), not just humanities, must be able to at least read German and probably also French.   Etc.   It is not possible, simply put, for Bubbaville St U to retain its serious university status without foreign languages.

Not that I'm in favor of eliminating languages at all, but what fields outside of the humanities do you think require reading German and/or French? If you're thinking of anything in the sciences, you are about a hundred years out of date-- even the Germans and French largely publish in English, which is the international language of science.

In the US, I see a stronger argument for Mandarin and Spanish in natural science, and probably in most social sciences as well.

The Chronicle of Higher Ed has a series of articles posted today regarding schools that are somewhere between struggling and circling the drain. This profile- of St. Andrew's College University in Laurinburg NC has it all. Desperation moves away from liberal arts, a sudden influx of college athletes, massive deferred maintenance,  and a partnership with a for profit mogul. And yet they continue to hold out hope.

It sounds a lot like what Polly described at Super-Dinky.

https://www.chronicle.com/article/the-college-that-refused-to-die

Quote from: mythbuster on August 16, 2023, 01:17:32 PMThe Chronicle of Higher Ed has a series of articles posted today regarding schools that are somewhere between struggling and circling the drain. This profile- of St. Andrew's College University in Laurinburg NC has it all. Desperation moves away from liberal arts, a sudden influx of college athletes, massive deferred maintenance,  and a partnership with a for profit mogul. And yet they continue to hold out hope.

It sounds a lot like what Polly described at Super-Dinky.

https://www.chronicle.com/article/the-college-that-refused-to-die

St. Andrew's sounds a lot more egregious than what polly described at Super-Dinky.  The campus is practically in ruins from a hurricane a couple of years ago.  Dorms sometimes only have cold water.  Classrooms don't always have heat.  There have been multiple reports of sexual assaults.  The campus sounds like descriptions of a war-torn Third World country. 

And there was that partnership with a crooked for-profit school that encouraged failing students--of which there were many, the school having apparently rid itself of academic standards for enrollees--to transfer mid-semester to phony Mickey Mouse four-week online "courses" to maintain their eligibility requirements. 

Those poor students were paying a fortune to pursue a pathetic dream of playing "college-level" sports, on a semi-ruined campus, in moldy uniforms, getting cheated every step of the way.  Many were reportedly first-generation students, which means they and their families probably didn't even know enough to realize that they were being cheated in far more ways than just the sub-standard facilities.

It's just a disgrace.  If I were a St. Andrew's alum from back in the day, I'd feel ashamed for my alma mater.

I agree that it's an extreme case. But what struck me was how Polly and others here have identified these red flags. I'd say any college that is exhibiting at least two of these "symptoms" is one to be concerned about.

Quote from: mythbuster on August 17, 2023, 08:09:36 AMI agree that it's an extreme case. But what struck me was how Polly and others here have identified these red flags. I'd say any college that is exhibiting at least two of these "symptoms" is one to be concerned about.

That sounds like a fair assessment.  And unfortunately there are a lot of them.  It's striking how many of St. Andrews' strategies--let's eliminate the humanities (which were originally central to the school's mission) and promote programs that sell!--let's start sports teams to lure paying students to campus!--let's partner with a for-profit so we can go big with online ed!--are the same ones being pursued by so many other colleges that have appeared on this thread.

I found spork's comment above to the effect that most of these failing schools don't offer anything worthwhile and distinctive rather dismissive.  But spork's not wrong about what these schools have become in their later years.  What saddens me is that there was a time when most of them truly did offer something different (Maybe not so much Pine Manor and other jumped-up trade schools like that).  But what they offered, for an assortment of reasons, isn't enough in today's world to keep them from falling on hard times.  They take increasingly desperate measures to keep afloat, sell out, abandon what once made them distinctive and worthwhile, perhaps even become no better than some of the for-profit scam schools.  They become ruined shells of their former selves before they finally go out of business.  It's a tragedy that what were often once worthwhile institutions have come to this.

What's even a greater tragedy is that neither the feds nor more or less any state gov does anything about it.

Regarding St. Andrews, the article is very informative, showing exactly the idiocy and incompetence at each of many steps. With shrinking cohorts starting four-year college, some institutions must shrink or die. The worst run will die, indeed, must die.

The president

QuoteMalik estimated that the university needed a minimum of $100 million to address hurricane damage, deferred maintenance, and academic programs.

There is absolutely no reason for anybody to give or lend $100 million to that failure on a lake. It'd just be pouring good money after bad. Forced bankruptcy by the State is the best answer.

Non-paywalled version:

https://www.theassemblync.com/education/higher-education/st-andrews-university-survival/

Quote from: Wahoo Redux on August 17, 2023, 03:42:38 PMNon-paywalled version:

https://www.theassemblync.com/education/higher-education/st-andrews-university-survival/

The text is the same on this version, but it appears to have more/different photos.  There's a photo of Mecklenberg Residence Hall (now derelict) that made me do a double-take.  I thought at first that it was a photo from the campus of Henderson State University!  The building looks enough like one at HSU (not derelict) to suggest that they may have had the same architects.

It looks like St. Andrew's had such a beautiful campus before the storm wrecked so much of it....

Was this mentioned here before?
https://allianceu.edu/about-au/accreditations/