Colleges in Dire Financial Straits

[Ruralguy]

We've been struggling to get even one solid CS person who justifies his or herself doing only CS by getting, say, at least half a dozen majors every year for a few years, then double it. They've done worse than half that, and at one time we had 3 CS people...they all had to teach mostly service math to justify themselves . Some of them are among our least solid teachers, can't keep up with research, and aren't the type to be too into service either. Some are getting 10s of thousands more than much more valuable colleagues at same rank.

So...engineering at a small school...maybe you can limit to a couple of fields that overlap with engineering...but full on ABET program......no (even if you could fit in an ABET program considering the likely prohibitive size of liberal arts core at such a school).

[jimbogumbo]

U of Evansville didn't have much competition in the area for years, but that is not the case anymore. The University of Southern Indiana has grown significantly, and has an ABET accredited Engineering program. Across the river in Owensboro KY there is a CC, a small private Catholic college and a regional campus of Western Kentucky University as well.

[polly_mer]

So...engineering at a small school...maybe you can limit to a couple of fields that overlap with engineering...but full on ABET program......no (even if you could fit in an ABET program considering the likely prohibitive size of liberal arts core at such a school).

New Mexico Tech has multiple full on ABET-accredited programs with smaller undergrad enrollment than St. Rose.  I can think of several other small engineering schools (under 2500 undergrad enrollment) that do it and do it well.  However, those places don't pretend to be liberal arts places that happen to have some engineering.  They are STEM institutions that may have some other majors, but also have significant industrial/government ties to sponsor the programs and keep the technology current.

Those other small STEM institutions also have modest graduate programs and well-established mechanisms to ensure faculty can be research active.  Those institutes are not at all like a S(mall)LACs in terms of faculty expectations and residential life on campus.  Those institutes tend to excel in teaching, but the vibe on campus is usually much more about small group problem sets (first and second year) and then living in the project space to get the design work done (third and fourth year) while having summers away for internships/research experiences.  The professors aid in that vibe by guiding research and design projects.  The types of non-academic service that are common at places like Super Dinky are not common at these places.

[dr_codex]

So...engineering at a small school...maybe you can limit to a couple of fields that overlap with engineering...but full on ABET program......no (even if you could fit in an ABET program considering the likely prohibitive size of liberal arts core at such a school).

New Mexico Tech has multiple full on ABET-accredited programs with smaller undergrad enrollment than St. Rose.  I can think of several other small engineering schools (under 2500 undergrad enrollment) that do it and do it well.  However, those places don't pretend to be liberal arts places that happen to have some engineering.  They are STEM institutions that may have some other majors, but also have significant industrial/government ties to sponsor the programs and keep the technology current.

Those other small STEM institutions also have modest graduate programs and well-established mechanisms to ensure faculty can be research active.  Those institutes are not at all like a S(mall)LACs in terms of faculty expectations and residential life on campus.  Those institutes tend to excel in teaching, but the vibe on campus is usually much more about small group problem sets (first and second year) and then living in the project space to get the design work done (third and fourth year) while having summers away for internships/research experiences.  The professors aid in that vibe by guiding research and design projects.  The types of non-academic service that are common at places like Super Dinky are not common at these places.

This.

My place is smaller, but has multiple ABET programs. But we're not a liberal arts school, and while there was muttering about us being reclassified as a Comprehensive, we are really still a Technical College.

[polly_mer]

One thing hurting many small colleges being competitive for the students who get good advice is those colleges haven't changed to provide the undergraduate research experiences and/or coops/internships/sponsored projects that are an integral part of most undergrad educations that result in good jobs.  The S(elective) LACs have research and internship opportunities that provide the expected non-classroom experiences, even when those internships aren't directly in the field.

Not having the accreditation/certification when that's common is bad.

Worse is still delivering a 1970s education in fields that have changed dramatically in the past 40 years.  The American Physical Society has put in place resources for BS aspirants (https://www.aps.org/careers/).  The American Chemical Society has similar resources for undergrads (https://www.acs.org/content/acs/en/education/students/college.html).  At no point is the advice: Go to a tiny program with almost no professionalization activities, a non-existent alumni network in the field, and rely on your degree alone to get a good job right out of college.

[Aster]

Yeah.  Many SLAC's just don't have the faculty, infrastructure, or student numbers within STEM majors to support the "standard" undergraduate research experiences found at larger and more STEM-balanced institutions.

But that's part of why they're called SLAC's, isn't it? Small Liberal Arts College.

S(elective)LACS. Heh. I'm going to have to remember that one.

[Ruralguy]

Well. We're small and rural, but fortunately not too far from some national facilities that have enjoyed working with our grads. That is, we do have something of a network that punches above its weight.

Also, we do have one physical science major, related to engineering, that is very design and project based. We modeled it after ABET programs, but in the end , just couldn't squeeze in the credits due to our large core.

I'm not saying we don't have some big issues...enrollment being the biggest, but our program isn't as bad as you might think, and our grads do tend to get into decent grad schools or decent jobs (some join military doing related work).

What we have and what people want, in the end, just may not be scalable for a typical SLAC with enough funds to chug, but not enough to ensure a strong confident future.

[polly_mer]

I'm not saying we don't have some big issues...enrollment being the biggest, but our program isn't as bad as you might think, and our grads do tend to get into decent grad schools or decent jobs (some join military doing related work).

A small physics program is not the same as a bad physics program, especially if students will be joining a good professional network.  That's why students need to be doing their research on the individual programs instead of buying the idea that any college degree is a good one in a field where they know no professionals.

[polly_mer]

Yeah.  Many SLAC's just don't have the faculty, infrastructure, or student numbers within STEM majors to support the "standard" undergraduate research experiences found at larger and more STEM-balanced institutions.

But that's part of why they're called SLAC's, isn't it? Small Liberal Arts College.

S(elective)LACS. Heh. I'm going to have to remember that one.

Math, physics, chemistry, and indeed most physical and life sciences are liberal arts fields.  Engineering is not a liberal art.  Nursing, social work, and education are not liberal arts fields.

Program size doesn't automatically mean that one isn't providing the necessary experiences to succeed in the field.

However, an institution at which Liberal Arts really means humanities isn't providing a liberal arts education and a good many of the tiny, rural, originally religiously affiliated colleges aren't providing a Liberal Arts education, no matter how loudly they insist they are.

A S(elective) LAC like Grinnell (under 2000 undergrads with a 24% acceptance rate and a 87% graduation rate) is somewhere that one would get an excellent liberal arts education.

The Super Dinkies of the US who think that one math course at the college algebra level and one lab science course that may not require any math above arithmetic makes for a liberal arts education is sorely mistaken.

[marshwiggle]

Well. We're small and rural, but fortunately not too far from some national facilities that have enjoyed working with our grads. That is, we do have something of a network that punches above its weight.

Also, we do have one physical science major, related to engineering, that is very design and project based. We modeled it after ABET programs, but in the end , just couldn't squeeze in the credits due to our large core.

These points fit with my experience. First, small places can't be good at lots of things, so having a small number of quality programs is more feasible. Second, it's pretty apparent that this program was carefully developed, rather than created as a simple copy of something available elsewhere.
These niche programs require a lot of buy-in from faculty and administration. Anyone just wanting to not have to change how they've been doing things for years while jumping on a current trendy bandwagon isn't likely to succeed.

I'm not saying we don't have some big issues...enrollment being the biggest, but our program isn't as bad as you might think, and our grads do tend to get into decent grad schools or decent jobs (some join military doing related work).

And companies that have hired one of these grads may hire more as they see the quality.  This helps to make up for the lower profile of a smaller institution.

[Aster]

Math, physics, chemistry, and indeed most physical and life sciences are liberal arts fields.

Uh hmm. That's contrary news at all four universities I've worked at. I'm going to have a hard time convincing any of our faculty to actually swallow that. They'll stare at me like I'm an idiot. What is the source of this, a historical piece off of a wikipedia page?

Oh wait, nevermind, I found it. Yeah, if one stops reading after the first historical paragraph and doesn't cross-index further (e.g. "liberal arts college"), yeah... someone could technically make an argument. What a delightful historical documentary this article is. "Disciplines of the mediaeval quadrivium", that's some groovy stuff.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liberal_arts_education

[Ruralguy]

I guess it depends on how you use the term. At liberal arts colleges, we tend to use the  term "liberal arts" to apply to all of the traditional  natural and social science disciplines of the last 100+ years as well as Humanities. Many universities would call this division of their school something like "College of Arts and Sciences."  Engineering would tend not to fall into either of those, though some liberal arts colleges have indeed started such programs. I would agree that if they want to do this well, they probably have to split off the Liberal Arts from Engineering (or Business or Nursing).

By the way, some LAC's only offer BA's.  Others, for various reasons, offer both BA and BS, though often the requirements are identical (other than one's field of study).

[Hibush]

Math, physics, chemistry, and indeed most physical and life sciences are liberal arts fields.

Uh hmm. That's contrary news at all four universities I've worked at. I'm going to have a hard time convincing any of our faculty to actually swallow that. They'll stare at me like I'm an idiot. What is the source of this, a historical piece off of a wikipedia page?

Oh wait, nevermind, I found it. Yeah, if one stops reading after the first historical paragraph and doesn't cross-index further (e.g. "liberal arts college"), yeah... someone could technically make an argument. What a delightful historical documentary this article is. "Disciplines of the mediaeval quadrivium", that's some groovy stuff.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liberal_arts_education

The wikipedia article on the medieval university lists 21 extant universities that presumably taught this curriculum at some point during the 11th through 14th centuries. It fails to mention how many experienced dire financial straits when the curriculum fell out of fashion with the Renaissance and closed. Nor whether the ones that survived did so by making their curriculum contemporary.

The Renaissance, Age of Reason, and Age of Enlightenment are today regarded as more supportive of the kind of scholarship that we pursue today, than the Dark Ages during which the quadrivium represented science education in the liberal arts curriculum.

[Hegemony]

The Dark Ages are the period from around 400 to around 650, so called because there is very little evidence, written or archaeological, for what happened during that period. That period is also known as the Late Antique period. The Middle Ages are not synonymous with the Dark Ages. Those who want to know more may be interested in Seb Falk's new book The Light Ages, which seeks to explode many of the stereotypes around this. https://www.sebfalk.com/the-light-ages

[Hibush]

The Dark Ages are the period from around 400 to around 650, so called because there is very little evidence, written or archaeological, for what happened during that period. That period is also known as the Late Antique period. The Middle Ages are not synonymous with the Dark Ages. Those who want to know more may be interested in Seb Falk's new book The Light Ages, which seeks to explode many of the stereotypes around this. https://www.sebfalk.com/the-light-ages

Whoops, I got over excited there at the end.