Colleges in Dire Financial Straits

[research_prof]

There are also highly successful efforts to prevent lower-income people from having opportunities to advance ... .

Hard to believe. My impression is the opposite. Any examples?

Further to that, is anyone arguing that scholarships* are a bad idea?

*Since scholarships enable academically-capable low income people to attend, then that would be necessary to "prevent lower-income people from having opportunities to advance".

The real question is not whether scholarships are bad, but how many low-income people are out there that would like to attend a university but cannot attend a university without a scholarship and how many scholarships are available. Because there are folks out there that believe university is a waste of time and that profs are liberals that have never worked an entire day in their life. If you take a look at the comments posted on certain news outlets, I am sure you will find comments like that.

How many "would like to attend" is not the same as how many "are academically capable of attending". Even setting a very low bar for "scholarships", they should be limited to people who have a high probability of success. Anyone who has taught first year students will know that there are many, even among those NOT from low income homes, that are not prepared.

And since the original claim was that people were actually victims of "efforts to prevent" them from attending, that's a lot more intentional than merely the existence of fewer scholarships than might be desired.

My opinion again is we should not be focusing on whether one is academically prepared, but rather if they will be willing to learn and work hard. Why depriving someone willing to work hard and learn of an opportunity because they might be unprepared?

I have seen people that were unprepared to become successful and catch up in major ways. The most notable example is my first PhD student: he comes from a relatively good undergrad school in his country, but other than that, he did not have any major credentials.

Did this guy on paper look academically unprepared for a PhD program? For sure--senior faculty were telling me not to admit him.
However, this guy during his first year has learned so much. Combined with the fact that he is very smart and hard-working, he has all the skills that a first/second year PhD student at a top-tier university might have.

I gave him a chance and he took it and now he is thriving.

[marshwiggle]

How many "would like to attend" is not the same as how many "are academically capable of attending". Even setting a very low bar for "scholarships", they should be limited to people who have a high probability of success. Anyone who has taught first year students will know that there are many, even among those NOT from low income homes, that are not prepared.

And since the original claim was that people were actually victims of "efforts to prevent" them from attending, that's a lot more intentional than merely the existence of fewer scholarships than might be desired.

My opinion again is we should not be focusing on whether one is academically prepared, but rather if they will be willing to learn and work hard. Why depriving someone willing to work hard and learn of an opportunity because they might be unprepared?

Willingness to work hard is part of preparedness. Most of the first year students who fail do so by lack of effort rather than lack of ability. Even from poor schools, it should be possible to identify which students put in effort to learn, and which simply do the bare minimum.

[Parasaurolophus]

Update on Ithaca College: 116 FTE instructional positions to be cut (but not from tenured and tenure-stream faculty), along with the closure of 26 departments, majors, and programs.

[Hibush]

Update on Ithaca College: 116 FTE instructional positions to be cut (but not from tenured and tenure-stream faculty), along with the closure of 26 departments, majors, and programs.

Quite an interesting mix there. 

This is a school with unusual strengths in music and in broadcasting, tying in business, advertising and sports. If you want to make money in popular culture, it seems like an prime place.

The article reads like a table, so I made one to simplify interpretation of two years.

College	AY19-20	AY21-22	% loss
Hum & Sci	247	222	25
Health	102	87	15
Music	87	66	24
Communications	80	53	34
Business	40	27	33

The MMus in Suzuki performance teaching is apparently a goner. Are there still a lot of precocious violinists in need of that?

The Department of Leisure Studies is gone. Have fun with that one, but it is a serious department.

[marshwiggle]

Update on Ithaca College: 116 FTE instructional positions to be cut (but not from tenured and tenure-stream faculty), along with the closure of 26 departments, majors, and programs.

Quite an interesting mix there. 

This is a school with unusual strengths in music and in broadcasting, tying in business, advertising and sports. If you want to make money in popular culture, it seems like an prime place.

The article reads like a table, so I made one to simplify interpretation of two years.

College	AY19-20	AY21-22	% loss
Hum & Sci	247	222	25
Health	102	87	15
Music	87	66	24
Communications	80	53	34
Business	40	27	33

The MMus in Suzuki performance teaching is apparently a goner. Are there still a lot of precocious violinists in need of that?

The Department of Leisure Studies is gone. Have fun with that one, but it is a serious department.

:)


One interesting quote from the article:

In October 2020, Cornish announced that approximately 130 FTE faculty positions were going to be eliminated at the college, that tenured faculty were at risk and that entire departments and programs could be eliminated. Cornish has said this decision aligns with the strategic plan Ithaca Forever, which had to be accelerated because of the COVID-19 pandemic's effects on the college's finances.

"had to be accelerated" suggests, as in many cases, that the problems were there pre-covid and the pandemic has mainly ripped off the band-aid.

[lightning]

Update on Ithaca College: 116 FTE instructional positions to be cut (but not from tenured and tenure-stream faculty), along with the closure of 26 departments, majors, and programs.

Quite an interesting mix there. 

This is a school with unusual strengths in music and in broadcasting, tying in business, advertising and sports. If you want to make money in popular culture, it seems like an prime place.

The article reads like a table, so I made one to simplify interpretation of two years.

College	AY19-20	AY21-22	% loss
Hum & Sci	247	222	25
Health	102	87	15
Music	87	66	24
Communications	80	53	34
Business	40	27	33

The MMus in Suzuki performance teaching is apparently a goner. Are there still a lot of precocious violinists in need of that?

The Department of Leisure Studies is gone. Have fun with that one, but it is a serious department.

Darn. I was hoping to get a degree in Leisure Studies, when I retired.

There are still a lot of violinists in need of Suzuki music lessons, due mostly to hyper-competitive parents who have over-estimated their child's talents. A masters degree specifically for something so niche as early childhood violin lessons was probably an attempt to be the king of a niche.

[mamselle]

The MMus in Suzuki performance teaching is apparently a goner. Are there still a lot of precocious violinists in need of that?

The Department of Leisure Studies is gone. Have fun with that one, but it is a serious department.

Sigh.

No, the original value of Suzuki was the fact that they took children's smaller sizes into account and created the possibility for them to learn on instruments that didn't dwarf them or make it impossible for them to play well-written pieces until they were so much older that they could handle a "full-sized" instrument.

They also approached music theory in innovative ways for children, allowing them to "get" certain concepts in an additive fashion when they were still too young to understand the more multiplicative structures of chords, keys, etc. that require further mental development for full absorption.

I use adapted elements of their teaching forms for my youngest music students and they are much more able to work ahead than the students I work with who've been formed in some other system. 

it's about accessibility. It's unfortunate that it's been leveraged into something else, but the basics of their systems are pedagogically well-developed, and it does take a level of teacher training that is different, often, than the ways players who want to become teachers have been brought up. Other music conservatories' youth programs also teach it, of course, but having a program rooted in a music school where Music Ed. crossovers could occur was important.

As for Leisure Studies, that has been a serious and growing field tied to healthcare and personal wellness as well as for atheletic self-care and teaching development. One of the original people with that degree sits on the board of the non-profit I've worked for for several years, and she is no slouch, philosophically, historically, pedagogically, or theologically.

One thrust has been the effort to offer alternative modes of working for individuals who are consistently stressed in their daily lives because of their work requirements, and to provide a psychological space from which to address the pressures and high burnout various careers can impose, especially those which involve personal caregiving.

Jest if you will, but those are worthwhile areas of study and will be a loss overall.

M.

[lightning]

The MMus in Suzuki performance teaching is apparently a goner. Are there still a lot of precocious violinists in need of that?

The Department of Leisure Studies is gone. Have fun with that one, but it is a serious department.

Sigh.

No, the original value of Suzuki was the fact that they took children's smaller sizes into account and created the possibility for them to learn on instruments that didn't dwarf them or make it impossible for them to play well-written pieces until they were so much older that they could handle a "full-sized" instrument.

They also approached music theory in innovative ways for children, allowing them to "get" certain concepts in an additive fashion when they were still too young to understand the more multiplicative structures of chords, keys, etc. that require further mental development for full absorption.

I use adapted elements of their teaching forms for my youngest music students and they are much more able to work ahead than the students I work with who've been formed in some other system. 

it's about accessibility. It's unfortunate that it's been leveraged into something else, but the basics of their systems are pedagogically well-developed, and it does take a level of teacher training that is different, often, than the ways players who want to become teachers have been brought up. Other music conservatories' youth programs also teach it, of course, but having a program rooted in a music school where Music Ed. crossovers could occur was important.

As for Leisure Studies, that has been a serious and growing field tied to healthcare and personal wellness as well as for atheletic self-care and teaching development. One of the original people with that degree sits on the board of the non-profit I've worked for for several years, and she is no slouch, philosophically, historically, pedagogically, or theologically.

One thrust has been the effort to offer alternative modes of working for individuals who are consistently stressed in their daily lives because of their work requirements, and to provide a psychological space from which to address the pressures and high burnout various careers can impose, especially those which involve personal caregiving.

Jest if you will, but those are worthwhile areas of study and will be a loss overall.

M.

That's how I remember Suzuki, when growing up. Suzuki violin lessons were offered to everyone, for free, in the neighborhood elementary school that I attended. It was accessibility on steroids. That public program got de-funded and crowded out in the curriculum to prioritize other things. Now, in that neighborhood school, you can only have Suzuki violin lessons if you can afford it. . . . <liveBait> but instead there is a "mall cop" security guard, metal detectors, security doors, administrators with nebulous roles, a whole lot of poverty in the neighborhood, a whole lot of social services hosted by the school to mitigate the poverty, and a police presence that only shows up to intimidate residents. </liveBait>

; ) 

[kaysixteen]

WRT the young childhood violin lessons, obviously they are valid (though that does perhaps beg the question of what instructors in such areas are supposed to, ethically, tell those hyper-competitive parents of less-than-talented young'uns, regarding the overall prospects of their children in said areas), but does someone planning on teaching something like this need a college degree?

As to 'leisure studies', is this something that is perhaps also overacademicized by offering a degree in it?  Sounds like 50 years ago people did this sort of thing without specific college training in it...

[mamselle]

Those of us who learned a fair bit about music theory, pedagogy, and history in our college degree courses would indeed reply, "Yes." My teaching of a one-octave scale to a 6-year-old is informed by the knowledge of the goals and techniques the student will require to perform a three-octave scalar passage in a Mozart concerto ten years later.

It's the difference between going to a bunch of Bible Studies and proclaiming yourself a theologian, vs. taking a formative degree at an ATS-approved theological seminary and passing your GOE's (General Ordination Exams).

Contextualization, rigorous literature reviews, and an understanding of human physiology and psychology in Leisure Studies, likewise, could hardly be considered frivolous scholastic work. (There may indeed be programs at "sports schools""--like good old OSU, my own alma mater--that offer this topic, 'lite,' as a gut course for athletes in need of easy credits, but that is not where the study and publication efforts in the field are directed.)

If you read Joseph Pieper's 1948 work, "Leisure, the Basis of Culture," or check out instructional programs at schools like Gordon-Conwell, they're well-explicated and well-grounded. This site also offers insights from the specifically theological side of Sabbath/Sunday observance among interfaith/Abrahamic communities:

   Www.ldausa.org

The academic I mentioned above is among their e-magazine's contributors. See:

  http://ldausa.org/about/sunday-magazine/

    "Rest Theology," p. 11, Spring 2020
   and
      "What Happened to Leisure?," p. 12, Spring, 2017 (this outlines a history of the study program itself)

as well as, of course, J. Heschel's "The Sabbath, Its Meaning for Modern Man" (1951). And this is a serious topic among millennials and younger groups, including the 'nones,' as well: while it has theological--even ritual--dimensions, it is considered an area of ethical study worth more attention on its own merits. 

M.

[apl68]

Update on Ithaca College: 116 FTE instructional positions to be cut (but not from tenured and tenure-stream faculty), along with the closure of 26 departments, majors, and programs.

Quite an interesting mix there. 

This is a school with unusual strengths in music and in broadcasting, tying in business, advertising and sports. If you want to make money in popular culture, it seems like an prime place.

The article reads like a table, so I made one to simplify interpretation of two years.

College	AY19-20	AY21-22	% loss
Hum & Sci	247	222	25
Health	102	87	15
Music	87	66	24
Communications	80	53	34
Business	40	27	33

The MMus in Suzuki performance teaching is apparently a goner. Are there still a lot of precocious violinists in need of that?

The Department of Leisure Studies is gone. Have fun with that one, but it is a serious department.

At least it appears to be a thought-out strategic plan for managed decline in an institution that is losing students, and not a set of desperate reactive cuts.

[AmLitHist]

A colleague in my discipline at another campus is retiring in May.  I told her that I'm jealous (as I'll likely need to work til I'm 90 and/or drop over in the classroom), but I'm also happy for her.  She said that at least 5-6 in her department, maybe more, are very likely to take the early buyout that's almost assuredly coming within the next year-18 months.  That's good news for me:  even as I probably can't afford to take it (not old enough for Medicare until 2026 and can't afford the insurance), there are also 2, possibly 3 in my own department (and likely a few more on the other two campuses) who will retire if/when the offer comes.  That helps me in terms of both job security and also scheduling preference, which I currently don't always get, as right now I'm more or less in the middle of the pack.

I'm actually fortunate this spring:  one virtual lecture class, with 3 filled online load classes, plus one overload with the strong possibility that I'll pick up another one (maybe two) second-8 weeks online sections is an OK place to be.  Lots of my FT colleagues who don't teach online have been given load made up of live virtual sections with only 5-8 students in each.  I can only imagine what kind of grief they'll get from admin, if/when things go back to normal:  those low student counts are probably going to be held over their heads for a long time and used to pressure them into more service and such.

Overall, these days I'm veering wildly between happy/optimistic and barely able to get out of bed and log in to the LMS.  That's a function of a lot of things, but money and job security worries are a big part of it. I just have to keep reminding myself that I have a job and insurance, mostly full classes, and the ability to pick up any late-added online overload.  I can't control the rest of it and need to just keep my head down, do my work, and let it go.

[polly_mer]

Jest if you will, but those are worthwhile areas of study and will be a loss overall.

<sigh>

They are only a loss in the big picture if the college is cutting areas in which people were beating down the doors to enroll at that college for those areas.  Discontinuing programs that are already all but dead at a given institution is not a comment on the general value of the human knowledge area, but is merely an acknowledgement of how people in the region have already voted with their time, energy, and money for something else.  People who are eager to study those things still have options in the world and even within a few hours drive of Ithaca.  Promoting a handful of very healthy programs over having many zombie programs is a huge benefit to the students enrolled in the worthy programs.

I can't remember any programs on this extended thread that were true losses in terms of closing programs that had healthy enrollment.  Instead, I remember a lot of angst over the general value of the human knowledge area regarding officially declaring dead specific programs that were objectively zombies for years before the death declaration.  Apparently, people would rather have the appearance of value over actual value while spreading resources so thin that programs that could have survived are instead starved into submission as well.

[marshwiggle]

Discontinuing programs that are already all but dead at a given institution is not a comment on the general value of the human knowledge area, but is merely an acknowledgement of how people in the region have already voted with their time, energy, and money for something else.  People who are eager to study those things still have options in the world and even within a few hours drive of Ithaca.  Promoting a handful of very healthy programs over having many zombie programs is a huge benefit to the students enrolled in the worthy programs.

One of the programs in our department that got closed a few years ago was quite innovative and of good quality. It was sad to see it go. Two courses I teach were part of that program. However, since that program ended, there are more students taking my two courses as electives than were taking them as requirements of that program.*

So, if people perceive value in studying something, there are lots of ways they can do it that are not economically difficult for the institution. (Since the enrollment for my elective courses is high enough, they pay for themselves, so they're not in danger of being cancelled.)

*So now there are fewer students getting the depth that they would have with the program that got cancelled, but more students getting a foundation in the area than did before.

[mamselle]

Back to the thread topic...

This school's geology department (discussed above, somewhere among all the verbiage) has responded to calls for its dismantling by re-vamping their program.

   https://www.sciencemag.org/careers/2021/01/my-university-plans-terminate-my-department-we-re-trying-save-it

A good response? Too little, too late? What say the geologists here? (Do we have any left?--or have they given up in favor of nice, easily-read rock strata?)

M.