terrapinsanity.com

A long-awaited, much sought – and quite feared – study of graduate programs finally appeared from the National Research Council, and the reaction from those in the rarefied regions of Main Admin make clear they know what everyone else is eagerly vanity surfing to find out: it may not be good news for College Park.

Several years in the making and reflecting data initially collected several years ago, the report has been available to leadership here but was embargoed from release for weeks. It only broke today, and first reports suggest an eagerness to make it old news with confusing tech talk quickly. The Sun report just tracks the College Park press release, which discusses at length the different statistical ways some programs might actually be seen as having fared well.

On campus, the pre-released information to legislators was controlled as if launch codes to a missile defense system, and inquiries as to status only met with denials, stony-faced stares or dour shrugs. Everyone was ordered to direct all external requests to an official spokesman in public relations, and then the stonewall was erected.

The truth is, this NRC study does take a fair amount of reading to decipher, but since the Provost has had this for weeks, you can bet that if the news was good for doctoral programs, their press releases would lead with that as the punch line – not dump a mealy-mouthed discourse on how in some circumstances with the right phase of the moon you can just barely see how the programs could have been doing well here.

Who are big losers? Time will tell, but likely one will be Steve Halperin, dean of the College of Computer, Mathematical and Physical Sciences, which will soon absorb Chemical and Life Sciences in a hostile takeover. This “merger” was an exercise in empire building, engineered and rammed through as the ultimate ego-trip for a few administrators. More to the point, it was based on some hand wave at how great a job Halperin has been doing. Awkwardly, early data from the new NRC report may actually show a decline in programs that were once more highly rated and – before Halperin’s watch – on the rise. Oops.

Let’s have at those numbers, shall we?