terrapinsanity.com

Yesterday’s Washington Post education blog didn’t have good news for College Park. It reported the release of “What Will They Learn?” (the third such annual report) by the American Council of Trustees and Alumni.

This report assesses the general education programs of universities and colleges across the nation. Each program gets an individual check on composition, literature, foreign language, government or history, economics, mathematics and science, then a composite score is given.

And College Park’s Gen Ed grade? D As in devastating.

Didn’t they know about our lofty never-the-same-twice I-series courses? About our mandated internships to educational subcontractors in the area?

Err … maybe they did.

Today we learn another example of how college has become the new high school. Prince George’s students will have an option to take courses at Prince George’s Community College so when they graduate from high school they will also get an AA degree at the same time. In this era of credential inflation, where a high school diploma is rarely worth the paper it is printed on, well-intentioned people have obviously tried to help students get a credential that might mean something – at least until credential inflation renders those degrees worthless too.

But College Park, ever one step ahead, declares we can demean higher education even more. Focusing the flagship’s attention on the local community college market, our campus will partner with Prince George’s county to open a new charter school, wherein students will satisfy high school degree requirements by taking Gen Ed courses on our campus.

That’s right. PGCC only advertised that their community college classes are worth what used to be a high school level of education. College Park does that one better. We’re advertising that our brand new CORE – once touted as a national model of excellence – is really just a high school level preparation.

Let’s flash back to the hype, err, preparation for our latest incarnation of CORE. To pave the way forward and serve as a foundation for our role as a leader in the international community, the Director of Admissions cooked up a marketing program we adopted this “visionary” curriculum which will be the “signature” experience on our campus.

But today, College Park’s advertisement is: “Come sit side-by-side with walk-in’s from the local public school system and get another high school education.” Yeah. That’ll really attract top young scholars.

In the Gazette article linked above, President Loh says the charter school is a way to help faculty become more acquainted with Prince George’s county so we all feel more comfortable moving into the county and nearer to campus. Lack of a safe community of high quality really is a barrier to our recruiting (we strongly agree with that point) so his theory is that putting PG kids in our classrooms will somehow make us feel good about relocating into PG county.

Like that’s gonna work.

Message to Dr. Loh: HEY NEW GUY! Speaking as one of the many people who have lived here a lot longer than you have, familiarity with the county is why we moved the hell out in the first place.

We don’t fault PG kids from similarly wanting to get out, but bringing Prince George’s standards and temperament into our classrooms is not the way to attract top scholars to a would-be internationally recognized institution, nor is it going to keep top faculty who instead of just moving residence to Montgomery or Howard will flee to another university system altogether.

The Bloomberg news report is titled “China’s Ban on U.S. Professors Elicits Silence from Colleges”.

We commend it to you … and to the College Park committees tasked with finding ways to find even more intellectual property and service to give to China. Obviously our colleagues must be careful in what they try to give away, since the present article confirms yet again that there are some things China doesn’t want to hear.

College Park’s international partner, for whom all campus business processes are being optimized, continues its war on America, as reported today in the Washington Post and BBC.

Never mind the obvious military technology that is lost to China this way, the economic loss of intellectual property is estimated (in the above stories) to be as much as $20 billion annually, a figure that may understate the real situation according to the FBI’s briefing to campus on this last spring. UM leadership of course does its part to keep those costs to China down by using Maryland tax funding to subsidize the technology transfer. Way to go, Terps!