The Fora: A Higher Education Community

What publicly available info can show administrative bloat? I can imagine trying to glean it form IPEDS, or maybe from the top end of a form 990, but don't know what could get at it with accuracy.

Morning!

No Northern Lights for us - apparently they were visible here but we are in town with a lot of light pollution so didn't notice them.

QBw2LL, last word cancan. LB brushwork-kempt which I found annoying because that's not really a word. Quick 2fer this morning.

ab_grp Congratulations! I think it's sweet that he asked.

cathwen We are starting and ending in Lisbon to use up some tickets we bought for a trip back in June 2020. From Lisbon to Bordeaux for family, then Montlucon, Annecy, Geneva to see my cousin and back to Lisbon.

And then, back to work!

Quote from: Wahoo Redux on May 11, 2024, 05:35:32 PMCNN: Dozens of professors among those arrested in campus protests

If profs could have been restricted to only "supporting" student protesters on the "other" side; i.e. ones who they didn't agree with politically, (so it was just about the principle of free speech), I'd wager you could count them on one hand. With fingers to spare.

Quote from: Langue_doc on April 06, 2024, 07:45:34 AM

Quote from: fleabite on April 05, 2024, 05:56:36 AMI had a good look at sparrows when they gathered around me to prospect for crumbs as I was eating a snack. I looked up their identities after I got home (I didn't have a camera with me). One of the group, very attractive, was a male house sparrow just taking on its breeding plumage. The others were, I think, non-breeding/immature males, but I didn't think to check the bill color. Sparrows are so omnipresent where I live (and zip about so rapidly) that it never occurred to me to try and distinguish among them before.

Depending on where you live, some of these could be song sparrows or even their white-throated counterparts.

Thanks for the reply, which I just saw. There are many of the tan-type of white-throated sparrow in my area, but what I saw were definitely house sparrows. They struck my eye because the markings were unfamiliar to me.

AmListHist: I hope all four eggs in the robin's nest hatch!

I recommend the 9/11 Report. I recognize that reading in full would not be in the scope of your course, but it is very well written, and I remember thinking that the chapter on the reasons for the attack was excellent. As it was a bipartisan report, it might be particularly acceptable to students who do happen to be engaged politically on one side or another.

Let There Be Water: Israel's Solution for a Water-Starved World, by Seth M. Siegel, is a very accessible read about how Israel turned desert lands into fertile land, as well as the other technologies that it uses to conserve water that could be copied around the world. I think that students would enjoy it, particularly those who are environmentally minded.

I've heard good things about Start-up Nation (also about Israel) but haven't read it.

Editing this to add that I also wanted to recommend The Ghost Plane: https://www.amazon.com/Ghost-Plane-Rendition-Torture-Program/dp/031236024X. I think most students will be shocked by the actions taken by the US in the Middle East, but it could help them to care about voting and politics.

This is a non-issue:

"All assignments are available from Day 1 of the semester. Plan ahead."

"There are five exams. Lowest exam score is dropped from the calculation of the course grade. There are no make-up exams."

Quote from: Asymptotic on May 10, 2024, 05:38:06 AM

Quote from: EdnaMode on May 08, 2024, 04:59:37 PMNot sure where the money is going because their tuition is among the highest in the Big Ten.

Administrative bloat. Main campus has an absurd number of redundant administrators. They sign our emails so I know.

For grins, I decided to compare my doctoral alma mater to Penn State using publicly available data. Two institutions of similar size, similar number of students, smaller campuses dispersed across the state, similar types of programs offered in engineering, the sciences, humanities, etc. so a relatively equal comparison. Penn State has nearly twice the number of administrators (at similar salaries) and charges twice the in-state tuition of my alma mater. I think you may be correct, they seem to have an astounding amount of administrative bloat going on, and that may be where at least some of the financial problems come from. And the whole state seems to have problems in higher ed funding, from what others have posted. If I taught there, I'd be very concerned.

Anyone see the new Planet of the Apes movie yet?

Just T1 again, I think.