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Revamped UM Student Recruitment

argh! said:
reinell30 said:
This is what happens when you put a military man in charge!

my cat could have identified the problems as well as bodnar, they weren't exactly hidden. and none of what bodnar is doing now is any different than what universities have been doing since circa 2005. what are the results so far? a small increase in retention? that's easy enough, just pressure instructors to not fail anybody. get back to me with the bodnar loving after there has been an actual improvement in enrollment.

Bodnar fully identified the problem early in his tenure. Discussed it in a Leadership Missoula address he gave. Unfortunately, he had about as much money to begin correcting the problem as your cat. Takes time to work it into an already hemorrhaging budget. And yes, he realized “you can’t afford not to find the money”.
 
Art Spooner said:
argh! said:
my cat could have identified the problems as well as bodnar, they weren't exactly hidden. and none of what bodnar is doing now is any different than what universities have been doing since circa 2005. what are the results so far? a small increase in retention? that's easy enough, just pressure instructors to not fail anybody. get back to me with the bodnar loving after there has been an actual improvement in enrollment.

Bodnar fully identified the problem early in his tenure. Discussed it in a Leadership Missoula address he gave. Unfortunately, he had about as much money to begin correcting the problem as your cat. Takes time to work it into an already hemorrhaging budget. And yes, he realized “you can’t afford not to find the money”.

understand the problem of not being able to correct a problem when nobody is willing to give you the resources to do so. the whole virus mess is going (or already has) made trying to rectify the problems that much more difficult. also makes evaluating the job he's doing much more complex. going to have to give him a couple years now, at least, before making and kind of even preliminary conclusion about the job he's doing. hope he surprises me and figures out a good solution. if he gets rid of tenure without risking academic freedom, i'd give him a temporary a+, regardless. those who profit from it despite being non-productive would screech and complain, though. might even use their brains for the first time in a while to come up with arguments against removing tenure. not that i have a bias against tenure (which i have at two universities).
 
Here's a NYU professor saying 1/4 to 1/2 of universities might be gone in 5 to 10 years due to the corona virus and the impact of off campus learning due to this virus & students/parents revaluation of the cost of education.

https://www.dailywire.com/news/almost-half-of-universities-may-be-gone-in-5-to-10-years-professor-admits
 
https://missoulian.com/news/local/montanas-top-high-school-seniors-opting-for-msu/article_4f3b55fe-68a1-58c1-af7d-c5b77fb1d4e5.html#tracking-source=home-top-story-1
interesting to hear what kids are thinking
 
Another embarrassing metric for UM recruiting announced in today’s Missoulian. The U system awards full tuition scholarships to many of the brightest high school seniors in MT. More than 70% say they’re going to MSU. Fewer than 20% going to UM.
 
hokeyfine said:
https://missoulian.com/news/local/montanas-top-high-school-seniors-opting-for-msu/article_4f3b55fe-68a1-58c1-af7d-c5b77fb1d4e5.html#tracking-source=home-top-story-1
interesting to hear what kids are thinking

I'm fascinated by these numbers also. Where are the other 8 percent going? Tech or Western? Or are they headed for Eastern or Northern? I know Waded sliced 23 programs in Billings before this virus hit.

As an educator, I'd be interested in looking at the number of kids who qualified for the scholarship but opted for other schools out of state such as MIT, the Ivies, the Methodist or Catholic schools such Duke or Notre Dame, the service academies, etc. before getting too emotional about 214 seniors.

I'm concerned that the 38 who chose the U of M had a 3.9 GPA and a 30 ACT average. What's a school like a Georgia Tech, Baylor, Texas, Texas A & M, etc. overall freshman average?
 
CatGrad-UMGradStu said:
hokeyfine said:
https://missoulian.com/news/local/montanas-top-high-school-seniors-opting-for-msu/article_4f3b55fe-68a1-58c1-af7d-c5b77fb1d4e5.html#tracking-source=home-top-story-1
interesting to hear what kids are thinking

I'm fascinated by these numbers also. Where are the other 8 percent going? Tech or Western? Or are they headed for Eastern or Northern? I know Waded sliced 23 programs in Billings before this virus hit.

As an educator, I'd be interested in looking at the number of kids who qualified for the scholarship but opted for other schools out of state such as MIT, the Ivies, the Methodist or Catholic schools such Duke or Notre Dame, the service academies, etc. before getting too emotional about 214 seniors.

I'm concerned that the 38 who chose the U of M had a 3.9 GPA and a 30 ACT average. What's a school like a Georgia Tech, Baylor, Texas, Texas A & M, etc. overall freshman average?

Tech 10, MSUB 5, UMW 2, FVCC 1
 
CatGrad-UMGradStu said:
hokeyfine said:
https://missoulian.com/news/local/montanas-top-high-school-seniors-opting-for-msu/article_4f3b55fe-68a1-58c1-af7d-c5b77fb1d4e5.html#tracking-source=home-top-story-1
interesting to hear what kids are thinking

I'm fascinated by these numbers also. Where are the other 8 percent going? Tech or Western? Or are they headed for Eastern or Northern? I know Waded sliced 23 programs in Billings before this virus hit.

As an educator, I'd be interested in looking at the number of kids who qualified for the scholarship but opted for other schools out of state such as MIT, the Ivies, the Methodist or Catholic schools such Duke or Notre Dame, the service academies, etc. before getting too emotional about 214 seniors.

I'm concerned that the 38 who chose the U of M had a 3.9 GPA and a 30 ACT average. What's a school like a Georgia Tech, Baylor, Texas, Texas A & M, etc. overall freshman average?
What's the particular interest in the Texas schools? Best I could find (during a very rapid and totally lazy search) says for UT the middle 50% on the ACT is 27-33 and the average HS GPA is 3.8.
 
bearister said:
Another embarrassing metric for UM recruiting announced in today’s Missoulian. The U system awards full tuition scholarships to many of the brightest high school seniors in MT. More than 70% say they’re going to MSU. Fewer than 20% going to UM.

that is embarrassing. i am curious what happens if no improvement in enrollment or balanced budget is made in 2 - 3 years, which is an extended period due to all the closures, etc...
 
Berkeley_Griz said:
CatGrad-UMGradStu said:
I'm fascinated by these numbers also. Where are the other 8 percent going? Tech or Western? Or are they headed for Eastern or Northern? I know Waded sliced 23 programs in Billings before this virus hit.

As an educator, I'd be interested in looking at the number of kids who qualified for the scholarship but opted for other schools out of state such as MIT, the Ivies, the Methodist or Catholic schools such Duke or Notre Dame, the service academies, etc. before getting too emotional about 214 seniors.

I'm concerned that the 38 who chose the U of M had a 3.9 GPA and a 30 ACT average. What's a school like a Georgia Tech, Baylor, Texas, Texas A & M, etc. overall freshman average?
What's the particular interest in the Texas schools? Best I could find (during a very rapid and totally lazy search) says for UT the middle 50% on the ACT is 27-33 and the average HS GPA is 3.8.

You really don't get it? High schools in some states with an enrollment of 2000-4000 kids have graduating classes with higher ACT and GPA scores than those who are going to be in the U of M Honors Program. That is discerning to say the least. Those schools average freshman scores are essentially equal to or greater than the 38 kids who will be in the Honors Program at the U of M.
 
CatGrad-UMGradStu said:
Berkeley_Griz said:
What's the particular interest in the Texas schools? Best I could find (during a very rapid and totally lazy search) says for UT the middle 50% on the ACT is 27-33 and the average HS GPA is 3.8.

You really don't get it? High schools in some states with an enrollment of 2000-4000 kids have graduating classes with higher ACT and GPA scores than those who are going to be in the U of M Honors Program. That is discerning to say the least. Those schools average freshman scores are essentially equal to or greater than the 38 kids who will be in the Honors Program at the U of M.

No, I don't get the interest in a comparison to the Texas schools, specifically, which is exactly what I said. I'm a professor. I obviously understand the larger context just fine.
 
Although I suspect I'm going to read the fall semester enrollment numbers as a continuation of the trend prior to the pandemic, I'm more concerned than ever. Those who know me know I was raised in and around academia and I still recall a relative telling me "Never confuse academia with intelligentsia."

Great article.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/most-of-todays-intelligentsia-cannot-think/2020/06/25/987cf0c4-b714-11ea-a8da-693df3d7674a_story.html
 
CatGrad-UMGradStu said:
Although I suspect I'm going to read the fall semester enrollment numbers as a continuation of the trend prior to the pandemic, I'm more concerned than ever. Those who know me know I was raised in and around academia and I still recall a relative telling me "Never confuse academia with intelligentsia."

Great article.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/most-of-todays-intelligentsia-cannot-think/2020/06/25/987cf0c4-b714-11ea-a8da-693df3d7674a_story.html
Headline seems like an interesting premise (which I agree with, BTW, from personal experience). However, the article is behind a sign-up wall.
 
CatGrad-UMGradStu said:
...
You really don't get it? High schools in some states with an enrollment of 2000-4000 kids have graduating classes with higher ACT and GPA scores than those who are going to be in the U of M Honors Program. That is discerning to say the least. Those schools average freshman scores are essentially equal to or greater than the 38 kids who will be in the Honors Program at the U of M.
The overall ACT score comparison may have some meaning. On the other hand, it may simply indicate that fewer Montana parent have the means, or desire, to run their student through one of the huge number of tutoring mills. Under the best-case scenario, those things do seem to be able to add maybe 2-4 points to the final ACT score. Given the relatively small "top" score, that's pretty good ... if true.

As for GPA ... forget it. Utterly worthless, except in a negative way. You simply have no way of knowing how badly grade inflation has corrupted the results for different states. Only a bad GPA is likely to be significant ... in our current environment, a HS school student with a GPA less than 2.5-3.0 is either not really too bright, lazy, or has discipline issues.

As many have said during diversion from football on here, employers looking to hire new graduate pay little to zero attention to the college GPA ... even in the STEM areas. It's frustrating to interview a candidate who waltzes in with a 3.8 (or better) GPA and – with a few well-chosen questions – discover they don't really know anything important and lack basic skills in their supposed major. I myself interviewed far too many of those, and that was a long time ago. I had a friend who had a startup business here (he has since moved to Boise, so we've lost touch). He got hugely frustrated trying to fill entry-level positions with new graduates, who turned out to be duds. He finally spent the money to hire a service that would run potential candidates through a series of tests and manual exercises to gauge their actual competence. He was seriously pissed at the extra cost, but figured it was cheaper in the long run.
 
IdaGriz01 said:
CatGrad-UMGradStu said:
Although I suspect I'm going to read the fall semester enrollment numbers as a continuation of the trend prior to the pandemic, I'm more concerned than ever. Those who know me know I was raised in and around academia and I still recall a relative telling me "Never confuse academia with intelligentsia."

Great article.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/most-of-todays-intelligentsia-cannot-think/2020/06/25/987cf0c4-b714-11ea-a8da-693df3d7674a_story.html
Headline seems like an interesting premise (which I agree with, BTW, from personal experience). However, the article is behind a sign-up wall.
I got it fine without sign-up. I'm generally not a fan of Will, but he get's it on this.

Much of today’s intelligentsia cannot think

Opinion by George F. Will Columnist; June 26, 2020 at 6:00 a.m. MDT

A nation’s gravest problems are those it cannot discuss because it dare not state them. This nation’s principal problem, which makes other serious problems intractable, is that much of today’s intelligentsia is not intelligent.

One serious problem is that the political class is terrified of its constituents — their infantile refusal to will the means (revenue) for the ends (government benefits) they demand. Another serious problem is family disintegration — e.g., 40 percent of all births, and 69 percent of all African American births, to unmarried women. Families are the primary transmitters of social capital: the habits, dispositions and mores necessary for flourishing. Yet the subject of disorganized families has been entirely absent from current discussions — actually, less discussions than virtue-signaling ventings — about poverty, race and related matters.

Today’s most serious problem, which annihilates thoughtfulness about all others, is that a significant portion of the intelligentsia — the lumpen intelligentsia — cannot think. Its torrent of talk is an ever-intensifying hurricane of hysteria about the endemic sickness of the nation since its founding in 1619 (don’t ask). And the iniquities of historic figures mistakenly admired.

An admirable intelligentsia, inoculated by education against fashions and fads, would make thoughtful distinctions arising from historically informed empathy. It would be society’s ballast against mob mentalities. Instead, much of America’s intelligentsia has become a mob.

Seeking to impose on others the conformity it enforces in its ranks, articulate only in a boilerplate of ritualized cant, today’s lumpen intelligentsia consists of persons for whom a little learning is delightful. They consider themselves educated because they are credentialed, stamped with the approval of institutions of higher education that gave them three things: a smattering of historical information just sufficient to make the past seem depraved; a vocabulary of indignation about the failure of all previous historic actors, from Washington to Lincoln to Churchill, to match the virtues of the lumpen intelligentsia; and the belief that America’s grossest injustice is the insufficient obeisance accorded to this intelligentsia.

Its expansion tracks the expansion of colleges and universities — most have, effectively, open admissions — that have become intellectually monochrome purveyors of groupthink. Faculty are outnumbered by administrators, many of whom exist to administer uniformity concerning “sustainability,” “diversity,” “toxic masculinity” and the threat free speech poses to favored groups’ entitlements to serenity.

Today’s cancel culture — erasing history, ending careers — is inflicted by people experiencing an orgy of positive feelings about themselves as they negate others. This culture is a steamy sauna of self-congratulation: “I, an adjunct professor of gender studies, am superior to U.S. Grant, so there.” Grant promptly freed the slave he received from his father-in-law, and went on to pulverize the slavocracy. Nevertheless . . .

The cancelers need just enough learning to know, vaguely, that there was a Lincoln who lived when Americans, sunk in primitivism, thought they were confronted with vexing constitutional constraints and moral ambiguities. The cancel culture depends on not having so much learning that it spoils the statue-toppling fun: Too much learning might immobilize the topplers with doubts about how they would have behaved in the contexts in which the statues’ subjects lived.

The cancelers are reverse Rumpelstiltskins, spinning problems that merit the gold of complex ideas and nuanced judgments into the straw of slogans. Someone anticipated something like this.

Today’s gruesome irony: A significant portion of the intelligentsia that is churned out by higher education does not acknowledge exacting standards of inquiry that could tug them toward tentativeness and constructive dissatisfaction with themselves. Rather, they come from campuses, cloaked in complacency. Instead of elevating, their education produces only expensively schooled versions of what José Ortega y Gasset called the “mass man.”

In 1932’s “The Revolt of the Masses,” the Spanish philosopher said this creature does not “appeal from his own to any authority outside him. He is satisfied with himself exactly as he is. . . . He will tend to consider and affirm as good everything he finds within himself: opinions, appetites, preferences, tastes.” (Emphasis is Ortega’s.)

Much education now spreads the disease that education should cure, the disease of repudiating, without understanding, the national principles that could pull the nation toward its noble aspirations. The result is barbarism, as Ortega defined it, “the absence of standards to which appeal can be made.” A barbarian is someone whose ideas are “nothing more than appetites in words,” someone exercising “the right not to be reasonable,” who “does not want to give reasons” but simply “to impose his opinions.”

The barbarians are not at America’s gate. There is no gate.

Read more from George F. Will’s archive or follow him on Facebook.
 
kemajic said:
IdaGriz01 said:
Headline seems like an interesting premise (which I agree with, BTW, from personal experience). However, the article is behind a sign-up wall.
I got it fine without sign-up. I'm generally not a fan of Will, but he get's it on this.

Much of today’s intelligentsia cannot think

Opinion by George F. Will Columnist; June 26, 2020 at 6:00 a.m. MDT

A nation’s gravest problems are those it cannot discuss because it dare not state them. This nation’s principal problem, which makes other serious problems intractable, is that much of today’s intelligentsia is not intelligent.

One serious problem is that the political class is terrified of its constituents — their infantile refusal to will the means (revenue) for the ends (government benefits) they demand. Another serious problem is family disintegration — e.g., 40 percent of all births, and 69 percent of all African American births, to unmarried women. Families are the primary transmitters of social capital: the habits, dispositions and mores necessary for flourishing. Yet the subject of disorganized families has been entirely absent from current discussions — actually, less discussions than virtue-signaling ventings — about poverty, race and related matters.

Today’s most serious problem, which annihilates thoughtfulness about all others, is that a significant portion of the intelligentsia — the lumpen intelligentsia — cannot think. Its torrent of talk is an ever-intensifying hurricane of hysteria about the endemic sickness of the nation since its founding in 1619 (don’t ask). And the iniquities of historic figures mistakenly admired.

An admirable intelligentsia, inoculated by education against fashions and fads, would make thoughtful distinctions arising from historically informed empathy. It would be society’s ballast against mob mentalities. Instead, much of America’s intelligentsia has become a mob.

Seeking to impose on others the conformity it enforces in its ranks, articulate only in a boilerplate of ritualized cant, today’s lumpen intelligentsia consists of persons for whom a little learning is delightful. They consider themselves educated because they are credentialed, stamped with the approval of institutions of higher education that gave them three things: a smattering of historical information just sufficient to make the past seem depraved; a vocabulary of indignation about the failure of all previous historic actors, from Washington to Lincoln to Churchill, to match the virtues of the lumpen intelligentsia; and the belief that America’s grossest injustice is the insufficient obeisance accorded to this intelligentsia.

Its expansion tracks the expansion of colleges and universities — most have, effectively, open admissions — that have become intellectually monochrome purveyors of groupthink. Faculty are outnumbered by administrators, many of whom exist to administer uniformity concerning “sustainability,” “diversity,” “toxic masculinity” and the threat free speech poses to favored groups’ entitlements to serenity.

Today’s cancel culture — erasing history, ending careers — is inflicted by people experiencing an orgy of positive feelings about themselves as they negate others. This culture is a steamy sauna of self-congratulation: “I, an adjunct professor of gender studies, am superior to U.S. Grant, so there.” Grant promptly freed the slave he received from his father-in-law, and went on to pulverize the slavocracy. Nevertheless . . .

The cancelers need just enough learning to know, vaguely, that there was a Lincoln who lived when Americans, sunk in primitivism, thought they were confronted with vexing constitutional constraints and moral ambiguities. The cancel culture depends on not having so much learning that it spoils the statue-toppling fun: Too much learning might immobilize the topplers with doubts about how they would have behaved in the contexts in which the statues’ subjects lived.

The cancelers are reverse Rumpelstiltskins, spinning problems that merit the gold of complex ideas and nuanced judgments into the straw of slogans. Someone anticipated something like this.

Today’s gruesome irony: A significant portion of the intelligentsia that is churned out by higher education does not acknowledge exacting standards of inquiry that could tug them toward tentativeness and constructive dissatisfaction with themselves. Rather, they come from campuses, cloaked in complacency. Instead of elevating, their education produces only expensively schooled versions of what José Ortega y Gasset called the “mass man.”

In 1932’s “The Revolt of the Masses,” the Spanish philosopher said this creature does not “appeal from his own to any authority outside him. He is satisfied with himself exactly as he is. . . . He will tend to consider and affirm as good everything he finds within himself: opinions, appetites, preferences, tastes.” (Emphasis is Ortega’s.)

Much education now spreads the disease that education should cure, the disease of repudiating, without understanding, the national principles that could pull the nation toward its noble aspirations. The result is barbarism, as Ortega defined it, “the absence of standards to which appeal can be made.” A barbarian is someone whose ideas are “nothing more than appetites in words,” someone exercising “the right not to be reasonable,” who “does not want to give reasons” but simply “to impose his opinions.”

The barbarians are not at America’s gate. There is no gate.

Read more from George F. Will’s archive or follow him on Facebook.
Thanks! Odd about the signup thing. I tried the link and then tried to ease in through a Google search. Nada.

Lots of good stuff in the article, and the ailment goes back a long way. A quibble: He's probably only partly right in saying they "can't" think ... i.e., don't have the proper tools for clear thinking. Some might, but they refuse to try, because it might threaten their cast-in-stone beliefs/opinions and take them to a very uncomfortable place.

I particularly liked his bit about U.S. Grant. Toppling a statue of Grant (Portland?) tells you that the current hysteria has little to do with black lives matter (lower case). It is most likely an attempt to create chaos and disorder to further some political agenda. Or perhaps they are people who want to vent because they basically have no useful purpose in life. How about in Madison, Wisconsin, where rioters (not "protesters") pulled down the statue of a man who was a vocal, committed abolitionist years before the Civil War? He further showed his anti-slavery stance by leading a Wisconsin regiment into battle ... and was killed at the Battle of Chickamauga in 1863.
 
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