Today, in mid-2008, BGSU finds itself in a considerably different landscape from past years. Two major factors impacting us are the existence of the University System of Ohio and our search for a new president following President Ribeau’s departure.
What are your thoughts about our landscape?
5:23 pm - 8-27-2008
While the search for a new president at BGSU is extremely, extremely important for the future of BGSU, I expect that it is the actions/values of our future president that will affect BGSU. The search itself does not affect BGSU to the same degree that the University System of Ohio affects us now!
4:12 pm - 9-8-2008
Hi,
I would just like to say ditto.
5:44 pm - 9-9-2008
My understanding of the University System of Ohio leads me to believe it is the Governor’s way of insisting on accountability and improved efficiency in Ohio’s institutions of higher education. This is not so much a “new educational landscape” as it is a new “business model”. I suspect the day to day experiences of students in my classes and the resources available for my running of my classes will remain largely unchanged as tenets of the University System of Ohio take effect. What will change is how each Department/Division /College proves to the unit superior to it that it is deserving of reward. Until these rewards are forthcoming and it large enough quantity to make a difference, the landscape experienced by students will look the same.
1:19 pm - 9-12-2008
I disagree that it is merely a new business model. One of the forces of change that was under way and causing stresses in the old divisions of universities is the CAS system (now known as U.Select: https://oh.transfer.org/cas/index.jsp), but more specifically, the Course Applicability Matrix (click the earlier link, then “guest login” and then “Equivalencies by School”), which was intended as and still serves as an online resource for tracking transferable classes to make advising and credit transfer work easier. Several hitches cropped up educationally in the ongoing process of developing the transferable course database:
1. Some courses presented as transferable were not actually equivalent in terms of content. One serious example of this was, while I was working at OSU-Mansfield, the Psychology 100 class from the co-located North Central State College and it’s counterpart at OSU. The problem was that OSU’s course contained several more elements of than the NCSC class, including, but not limited to, a survey of biopsychology. This resulted in problems for students transferring to OSU-Mansfield to complete the Psychology degree offered there because the next biopsychology class required in the degree program assumed the missing foundation from Psychology 100. It was further problematic due to a push by politicians to have what was called “transfer modules” that supposedly took care of whole blocks of credit from the community college level to the university level and falsely presumed that the education received was equivalent. Again, this resulted in student frustrations, failures, and needing to take classes they were assured by community colleges they would not need to take later. Interestingly, students are adults that can vote and contact their political representatives, so angering them by wasting their time and money wasn’t the best idea in the world.
2. A new issue that I am certain is not just my own concern was that individual transferable courses that DID have similar content showed other problematic issues. My studies (unpublished) and work has revealed one of these issues to be differences in course entry requirements between transferable courses at different universities. For example, Biology 205 at BGSU transfers as Biology 113 at Ohio State. Looking at the course descriptions for these classes, OSU requires a college Chemistry class before entering Biology 113 while BGSU’s Biology 205 has no requirement. Having been in a position to help OSU students from BG and BGSU verify their transfer credit for these classes, I know the syllabus for the two look very similar. The PASS rates at BGSU, however, are lower. While others have been working independent of me, I know that advisors across the state have been running into similar information over the last 6+ years. Last year I decided to take my study of this issue one step further by starting a comparative chart of transferable classes between OSU, BGSU, UT, and Miami University. Differences in transferable classes kept cropping up. The most disturbing differences showed up when someone asked if I’d check one or two universities out of state. Having been the first university I attended, I decided to check Harvard. After all, Harvard is known for having a high rate of graduation in 4 years and is considered a top notch university in the country and our vision statement DOES say we intend to aim that high… So I checked Harvard. It wasn’t easy. The transfer matrix hasn’t expanded that far, so I had to do considerable work sorting out which classes were a best fit. Luckily, as I was searching for lower level introductory classes, I was able to find matches. What I learned fascinated me. Harvard has even more entry requirements for this class than our state schools. Their retention and graduation rate is higher and Harvard is known as a top medical school. Another class other than Biology also fascinated me and, until looking at Harvard, was not showing any interesting results, Economics 202. The only possible equivalent class at Harvard requires students to at least be concurrently enrolled in calculus. State schools in Ohio? OSU and BGSU have no entry requirements to Microeconomics, but Miami University, which happens to have created and sponsored the CAS transfer matrix for many years, has two foundation classes and a math requirement (coincidence?). Miami’s graduation and retention rates are likewise higher than the other comparison universities aside from Harvard, which is at least one step more restrictive on the math requirement. Having had Econ 200 at UT, I know Economics students would find math skills such as graphing, algebra, and geometry rather handy in terms of passing the class. In our state schools, students wash out of the competition for Business school entry as if failing was going out of style. Harvard’s rate of retention and graduation is closer to 100%. Miami continues to have a more competitve edge. Suddenly I was remembering how I decided to attend Miami University instead of Harvard due to accusations of grade inflation back in the 1980s, but now I’m thinking maybe the grades were not inflated at all if the professors simply made certain that students entering their classes were better prepared than anywhere else.
So if we don’t look at college coursework preparation for classes, what DO we look at? High school preparation. Checking the State of Ohio information on Math instructor preparation, Ohio (and Michigan in case you were curious) has an abysmally low number of qualified Math teachers. Did you guess less than 50%? Try less than 40%. So considering my experience when I was providing placement tests and advising students in the sciences at OSU-Mansfield, it is now no surprise that I have NO idea what high schools across the state mean by words such as “Algebra II.” I saw the whole gamut of placements for my students claiming to have completed that class in high school, even remedial placements! THAT is the level of reliability we are banking on if we set high schools as our standards of college course entry.
This self-discovery has led me to my next level of comparative study with the question “To what level of significance do the presence of more restrictive course entry requirements correlate to retention rates, graduation rates, and overall university prestige?” Of course, I’m spending my lunch hour writing this and not getting lunch and I DO like lunch…
But I will leave you all with this thought:
If my studies were to lead to the conclusion that tightening up course entry requirements is strongly correlated to retention and graduation, what other things might be connected to this issue? Admissions? Quality of classroom discussions? Alumni giving?
Could it be possible as well, given that I notice some of my first generation, low-income, and disabled students that enter the university with lower test scores or placement scores end up on the dean’s list repeatedly, that college success has less to do with the failing of derths of students and pretentious ideas about admissions standards but more to do with making sure people get the preparation they need to succeed? Somehow it’s good enough for Harvard, but it’s not good enough for BGSU? I find that nothing puts the mission of this university to the test like this issue and it leaves us with my final question: do we want to be one of the best in the nation (and therefore competing globally) of just the best in a 30 mile radius?
Is it more impressive of a goal to only admit the elite and get outstanding results or to admit those who people say cannot succeed and have them show outstanding results?
Which result shows that the reputation is merely built upon the backs of students and which shows outstanding teaching ability?
So, if I’m right, this could be an outrageous opportunity: if we took just some minor steps in ensuring student preparation, could we beat Harvard? If our graduation and retention rates responded as I suspect they might, would we be worried about admissions or worried about overcrowding?
Anyhow, my microwave meal is getting cold…