terrapinsanity.com

What a perfect Halloween topic – the Chronicle article about interstate campus recruiting, where once again we are reminded how Maryland is a net donor to the nation’s pool of college-bound students.

That Chronicle of Higher Education site gives a nice graphic presentation, and we commend it to you. Go play with the numbers and see if you agree. What you’ll see is the ghoulish reality that other other states feast on the brains of our young … another illustration of Maryland’s long-standing brain drain.

According to that article College Park experienced a 3 percent drop in yield of new freshman from in-state in recent years, no surprise in light of aggressive leadership by the bean counters who know out-of-state tuition pays bills. Increasingly, the flagship campus brings in new freshman from elsewhere and as shown in the Chronicle reporting this is a phenomenon matched at the majority of Maryland schools. This is not matched by some big boost in objective quality measures of our student base or graduation rates – but in that point we get ahead of ourselves…

On the other graphic at the referenced site, you see what are the nation’s top recipients of out-of-state freshman, and you learn whence they come. Of the top ten states for taking new freshman from out of state, only Indiana and Illinois do not name Maryland as either the top or among the top donors of students to their programs. Add it up and you find more Maryland kids go elsewhere than attend the top several in-state institutions combined.

It gets worse. While the above situation may be desirable in some perverse way – if only we are somehow attracting the best kids and getting rid of the ‘worst’ ones by some measure, however much that statement overlooks our social mission in education – the numbers look worse when you drill down further. It takes a little work at that site, but pull the reports for schools that College Park lists as aspirational peers, especially in the mid-Atlantic. They’re pulling from Maryland in big numbers. Translation: the cream of Maryland’s high school crop increasingly by-pass the flagship to go elsewhere for college educations.

The awkward reality: our fearless leaders in Main Admin (and Mitchell, for this topic) have these data, and have known about the state brain drain for years. They know who we are losing out to, and they know (as is stated in one of the reports whose release they stonewall) the extent to which many of these students don’t come home to our state after they graduate. They know – and largely don’t care, since their reward structure is not based on bringing in the best and brightest.

They know these things, and what changes with the Chronicle data is you can start to know these things too.

We’re much entertained this morning by a nice little report in the Diamondback on where we are with the new General Education requirements. (See General Ed curriculum moves forward) It begins…

With 10,000 freshly printed copies of an entirely new recruiting brochure and a redesigned website launching next week, university officials are several steps closer to phasing the current CORE curriculum into the newly revamped General Education program.

Sounds grand! Of course … nobody yet knows what a lot of the new requirements will be since we have not yet figured them out. It was only a week ago that some of those responsible for papering over the gaping holes in Farvardin’s Folly held a working lunch to talk about what the upper level ‘scholarship in practice’ component might be, for example, and memos are just going out to faculty inviting discussion of same.

So to translate the DB article: “We decided on an advertising program and are excited to print up new color glossies, and we’re sure we will have some of that academical content figured out by the time y’all would ever get here.” Sure gives you a sense of confidence that we are serious about scholarship, huh?

President Loh’s comments in the same DB article were the most refreshing we have seen on the new Gen Ed program, however:

University President Wallace Loh said the biggest challenge in implementing the new program lays in funding new courses and recruiting faculty members to teach them.

“The major issue is not the quality of the proposal — it’s implementation. Implementation means, among other things, money,” Loh said in an interview. “I’m certainly very supportive not only of the general education program, but also of its implementation, so it’s not just on paper and we bring it into an operational reality.”

Many people observed right from its start that the revised Gen Ed model was high in cost, disruptive to many other campus business processes and all for little measurable scholastic gain. In classic College Park fashion, those who voiced questions were pummeled by the Main Admin knee breakers who quickly assured everyone that this Admissions Undergraduate Studies initiative would simply look fabulous. Nice to see a frank acknowledgement that maybe there are some cost issues after all.

What are some of the unreal aspects? They’ve been written of in the past (here and elsewhere) and will be demonstrated graphically stating with the next freshman class, but greatest among them is the I-series. Each I-series course is almost inextricably bound to a professor who crafted it. We have yet to see the first example of such a course (of the handful on which I-series was patterned) carry over into a successful offering by any other faculty member, and indeed the calls for courses make clear that Main Admin anticipates huge turnover. What this churn means is that:

• Students can’t make four-year plans since nobody knows for sure what I-series courses can run even a semester in advance in some cases, much less a couple years. Courses dependent upon specific faculty members become dependent upon that professor’s professional schedule.
• Most students who find they’ve done poorly in a class likely won’t get an opportunity for re-take to repair the GPA. So much for freshman forgiveness. Big advising issues down the line.
• Department chairs who once had a stable target for fulfilling their Gen Ed tithe now have a moving target. When doing enrollment management they once knew which courses met core and could anticipate how many seats they would need to cover, and when making decisions about, say, sabbaticals or hiring, they only needed to think in terms of aggregate teaching capacity. Did they have enough to cover their teaching obligations? Now chairs will be further constrained as they either need to keep faculty tethered to the I-series courses they created (which will chaff in departments where teaching ‘service’ courses is not rewarded in promotion decisions) or hand an I-series course – which by definition lacks enduring content and is heavy on a prof’s ‘unique flair’ – to someone else, wishing them luck. And we know that an outline with attached powerpoint slides simply are not an adequate carrier of the essence of a course even in ordinary classes – this simply won’t work where the essence of the course is based on a specific professor. Students will be the big losers here. At least the instructor will still get a pay check.

The list goes on but the definitive reason we know the new Gen Ed is broken is also contained in the DB article: “…some faculty members are still in the process of being trained to teach the new courses.” Wow. And we thought faculty were the ones in the drivers seat for their classes.

Repeated blasts of the warning horns, police racing about in cars with lights and sirens, and all over the period of about 40 minutes, counting down until a “forecast” tornado was going to hit campus. This tornado warning had to be the real deal, and we all took it seriously as such.

Except Officer Chicken Little seemed to have been in charge tonight. After frantically checking other weather sites, surfing to NOAA and even eyeballing the comparatively clear sky, we concluded nothing was up and went home. The all clear was texted a bit later, without explanation of what it was that campus officials saw that nobody else did.

Leaving aside how hard it is to find ‘urgent messages’ from campus by going to the main campus page (seriously – people on this campus research this stuff, you’d think we could do better), once we got there it wasn’t of much value:

Probably not what you want to see when sirens are wailing and a tornado is bearing down on you in three, count ‘em, three minutes.

The alert system itself, however, works great. It’s too bad fewer people will be inclined to pay attention to it in the future.

Nothing projects the real reason we have a campus better than telling scholars to get the hell out of town to make room for football.

If you are graduate student working hard on your PhD, a faculty research assistant responsible for the care of key experiments or any student who needs access to campus facilities, then don’t park around these parts or else you will be towed to make way for revelry that rakes in big money for the athletic association.

Faculty and staff? Good news – you can park here as usual, unless of course your lot is one of the list of exceptions (which is about all of the likely lots.) If you make the mistake of needing to work with students then, as you see in your DOTS parking alert (copied below), you can try to get to campus, as they have grudgingly made a handful of slots available to you so long as you all promise not to distract the party-goers apply for a permit enough in advance. To do this each person must contact the DOTS office during business hours, documenting your need, being sure to provide your “a UID, a printed schedule of classes or a letter from an academic advisor or professor.” Remember, “Documentation must be presented to staff at the main lobby desk.”

Kind of makes you feel all warm and fuzzy, huh.

Date: Mon, 10 Oct 2011 09:45:57
From: DOTS 
Subject: [PARKING-ALERT2] MD Football vs. Clemson - Saturday, October 15

October 10, 2011

Dear Parking Registrant:

Welcome to the 2011-2012 school year!  Periodically throughout the fall
semester, the University of Maryland football team will play at Capital One
Field at Byrd Stadium, which will result in parking modifications. This
year, seven home games are scheduled. The fourth home game against Clemson
will be held on Saturday, October 15, 2011 at 7 p.m. 

If you are planning to travel to campus during these event days, please
consider using Quick Bus to avoid the traffic congestion.  You can take the
Quick Bus from the College Park Metro Station to Lot Q, which is very close
to Byrd Stadium.  It runs every 20 minutes three hours prior to kick-off,
and every 10 minutes two hours prior to kick-off from the College Park Metro
station to Lot Q.  Quick Bus also runs back to the College Park Metro
Station from Lot Q for one hour after the game.

Quick Bus is also available from lots 4, 9, and 11 (Comcast), and from Lot
16 (Frat Row) to Lot Q.  Service from Mowatt Lane Garage to Cole Field House
is available on a more limited schedule.

Academic Commitments - The Department of Transportation Services will
provide those UMCP faculty/staff and students with classes or other
documented academic commitments on game day Saturdays a one-day, temporary
surface lot permit valid at Regents Drive Garage, Mowatt Lane Garage, and
Terrapin Trail Garage on game day Saturdays only. 

We recommend that arrangements be made in advance through the academic
department to secure enough permits for the entire class prior to the start
of the season. All are encouraged to secure the permit as early as possible.
Students should check with professors to determine if arrangements have
already been made.

Permits will be available immediately at the Department of Transportation
Services located in Regents Drive Garage. Office hours are Monday-Friday,
8:15 a.m. - 4 p.m. A departmental representative may call the Department of
Transportation Services at (301) 314-PARK to make arrangements.
Documentation will be required and includes a UID, a printed schedule of
classes or a letter from an academic advisor or professor. Documentation
must be presented to staff at the main lobby desk. 

Faculty/staff Parking Registrants on campus for any academic commitments
WILL have full access to their assigned parking areas Any faculty/staff
permit holder having difficulty accessing their assigned areas may call 301
314-0318 for immediate assistance. The following exceptions apply: 

Lot C Parking Registrants - Lot C1 will not be available for use during
football games. Lot C Parking Registrants may park in Lot C2 or L on game
days. Overflow parking is available in Lot K or 16 behind Ritchie Coliseum.

Lot FF Parking Registrants - Lot FF1 will not be available for use during
football games.  FF1 Parking Registrants may move their vehicles to Lot K4,
FF2 or RDG beginning six hours prior to kick-off.

Lot JJ Parking Registrants - Lot JJ3 will not be available for use during
football games. Lot JJ3 is the row of numbered spaces located directly
behind Tawes Theater. JJ Parking Registrants may park in JJ1 or JJ2 on game
days.  

Lot MM Parking Registrants - Lot MM3 will not be available for use during
football games. Lot MM Parking Registrants may park in Lot MM1 or MM2 on
game days. Overflow parking is available in Lot 2f.

Lot Q Parking Registrants - Lot Q will be used as a staging area for the
buses taking spectators to and from the Metro station. Access to Lot Q will
be restricted after 6 p.m. the Friday evening before each game. After 6
p.m., Lot Q Parking Registrants will be given limited access to the
restricted Lot Q spaces closest to the Computer Science Building. When
parking is not available in these restricted spaces, Lot Q Parking
Registrants will be permitted to park in Regents Drive Garage, free of
charge.  

Stadium Drive Garage Parking Registrants - The south side of SDG (SD*) will
be unavailable after midnight the Friday evening before each game. Those SD*
Parking Registrants needing to remain on campus during this time should move
their vehicles to the spaces on the north side of the garage.  SD* permits
will be allowed access to the north side of the garage ONLY during the
games.

Lot Z Parking Registrants - Lot Z will be unavailable for use during
football games.  Limited space will be available in Regents Drive Garage and
Mowatt Lane Garage. Lot Z Parking Registrants working at the Stamp Union or
in its vicinity on game days will be permitted to park in Union Lane Garage
free of charge. Parking in Union Lane Garage is subject to space
availability.

Faculty/Staff Parking Registrants Attending the Game - There will be limited
space available at Regents Drive Garage (RDG) for faculty/staff Parking
Registrants who plan to attend the game. The overflow areas will be Mowatt
Lane Garage (MLG) or Terrapin Trail Garage (TTG). Campus Parking Registrants
attending the game are expected to utilize these free areas. Parking for
faculty/staff parking registrants in Regents Drive Garage will be limited to
Lot 5 on the roof of the garage.

Parking Registrants who are planning to visit the campus on a Saturday
should refer to the following home game schedule:  

If you require additional information or have questions, please feel free to
call (301) 314-PARK or visit our Web site at
 http://www.transportation.umd.edu/. We
appreciate your patience and cooperation.

Go Terps!

Sincerely,

Department of Transportation Services

Terrapinsanity seems to be on a roll. Over the weekend we posted on the poor presentation we make to the outside world, and as part of it mentioned that the President’s office has no diversity officer. A day later, Loh and behold we see announcement of a new diversity officer.

We similarly made reference to Vice President Brody Remington as a “doofus”, in the context of his running development operations that neglected to mention important things like where to send a check. Moments ago the campus announced Brodie is stepping down (see appended text.)

Obviously we need to start posting about raises and free ice cream for everyone.

Date: Thu, 6 Oct 2011 14:11:10 -0400 (EDT)
From: "President Wallace D. Loh" 
To: "University of Maryland Community"
Subject: Vice President for University Relations

Dear University of Maryland community:

Mr. Brodie Remington has informed me of his intention to step down as
Vice President for University Relations.

For 12 years, Brodie has served our University in one of its toughest
and most demanding positions.  Fundraising is exceedingly difficult,
even in normal times.  But he has led enormously successful campaigns
even during the economic downturn of the past few years.  For that,
Terps and I everywhere are very grateful.

He performed his most important job with an energy, a dedication, and a
commitment that were recognized and appreciated by all who worked with
him.  During his tenure as vice president, the University of Maryland
has dramatically risen in prominence and impact, and we are now
rightfully considered among the world's best research institutions.
Brodie was a very important part of the University's successes.

I am pleased that Brodie has agreed to stay in his position until a new
vice president is in place.   And I am very grateful that he has agreed
to stay on in an advisory capacity from that time until the end of
December 2012.

During the transition, Brodie also plans to continue to work with the
UMCP Foundation Board of Trustees, campaign volunteers, University
Relations staff, and the campus community to complete the Great
Expectations campaign, and to advance our fundraising, alumni relations,
and marketing and communications efforts.  For that, all of us can be
grateful.

Brodie will be missed.  He has been an outstanding administrator.  His
exemplary leadership, professional collegiality, and extraordinary
abilities to engage our communities will not be easily replaced.  I
thank him for his outstanding service to the University of Maryland, and
wish him the very best with his future endeavors.

Plans for a national search will be announced in the next few weeks.

Sincerely,

Wallace D. Loh
President

The deadline for early application is coming up fast. If a spring 2012 high school graduate wants consideration in any competitive program to start here in the following fall, now is the time to get those materials in. The cutoff is November 1st.

Which makes us wonder … how are we doing in advertising to the best and the brightest?

We know a majority of top college-bound Maryland high school students end up going out of state for higher education – and many don’t come back. This is the state’s chronic brain drain that a flagship operation is supposed to reverse. Today Maryland is a net donor of top kids into the nation’s college pool. College Park is supposed to change us into a net recipient. How vibrant and exciting is the environment? Let’s do a quick check of what we present to visitors on our web that might rope them in to examine us more closely:

• How about the President’s office? Community relations – that sounds like a good indicator. Oops – it invites us to a Terrapin Pride Day in the capital – in March of 2010. So much for vibrant. Federal relations is still representing President Dan Mote, but maybe prospective freshman won’t notice that Loh is now in charge. After all, Federal Relations staff didn’t notice. The President’s chief diversity officer is a vacant position – kind of a disconnect with the ‘commitment to diversity’ text over at Admissions.

• Donor relations will tell a lot about whether a campus is on its way up. Is the alumni base fired up? Do they make resources available to keep improving their alma mater? The banner link at that site advertises their 2010 office golf retreat at a resort in Easton. Looking at vacation photos of staff members wearing silly hats and beach sunglasses really says “give”, doesn’t it?

  One snapshot we can’t show you from university relations’ site is a page showing how to donate or where to send a check. Someone there forgot that. Seems like an important detail. [This is completely consistent with the reputation of Brodie Remington as being the number one doofus in the president's cabinet. Donors walk elsewhere because of how hard it is for people to give here. Maybe a prospective freshman notices this, maybe not, but he will see the effects. Using a search engine on the archives, we were able to turn up a 2010 page for giving to campus which looked promising but then seemed to wedge a server, so maybe it was an old page, or maybe just broken computers.]

• Whether first or last, prospective students would end up at the Admissions site. Besides a web motif different from most of the rest of campus, what will they see?

  If they are interested in not just one major but credentials in other specializations in order to improve their prospects, they might seek a certificate in one of several areas. But 30 percent of those links are 404. Women’s Studies? Science, Technology and Society? Dead links. Goes to a physics page which talks about something unrelated.

  Bad news if you’re interested in our major in Turf and Golf Course Management. That link timed out over on the “academics” page. Dietetics? Food Science? Same story, as with all the web presence associated with Agriculture and Natural Resources. Japanese? 404. Over in Special Programs they do a better job, but the “First Year Learning Communities” link is 404. Guess there is no learning in the first year? The most entertaining dead link: “Recommend this page” in the footer. (Seriously. Is a link checker too deep a technology for Admissions office staff?)

  Same story if you want to look up faculty in departments. (Dead links are highlighted in red.) Too bad if you are interested in UM to study English, African-American Studies, Anthropology, Physics, Aerospace Engineering, or Electrical Engineering.

  The Student Life page there sounds great! But … there aren’t links to most of the features cited. How can we find more about these great things, the prospective student might wonder, these gourmet eateries and recreational facilities? Let’s cut and paste one into the search tab at top of the screen. Center for Health and Wellbeing, that sounds promising. Oops. Even UM’s search engine can’t find it. No wonder Admissions didn’t even try to add links.

Okay, you get the idea. There are some good sites too – the golf course has a great site. Now we know the priorities!

Probably of lesser interest to prospective students, but tremendously telling about leadership here is the new One Stop Shopping site for businesses interest in this campus. As we write this, both the banner M-Square initiative and something called “Corporate Initiative at University of Maryland” show as links to nowhere.

If people were trying to connect with us, whether to give, partner or just apply, they couldn’t do it. And that doesn’t bode well for our recruiting of the best and the brightest. The picture we paint to the outside today is one of an uncaring leadership that doesn’t sweat details. That at least would be truth in advertising.

The Diamondback reported on last week’s chemistry lab accident, in which two students were injured (thankfully not badly in the scheme of things) in an explosion as two acids being disposed of in a lab activity reacted violently in a waste receptacle. The essence of the campus message is, we never slacked off on implementation of safety procedures and we promise not to do so again.

A full accounting of what happened has still to be written, of course, and for all the expense involved at both state and federal levels one would expect a report to be thorough. (Local first responders get credit for a job well done, but really … deploying Department of Homeland Security helicopters and setting up hazmat gear two hours after the incident was contained was more than a little over the top. Guess if free tax money lets you buy a lot of toys you look for excuses to use them.) Early indications, however, are that this will be another campus issue swept under the rug.

The circumstances initially reported are as routine an activity as you will see in any class, and safe processes for waste disposal at this basic level have been thoroughly figured out for years. What is important is that the processes are known and followed. Obviously, this wasn’t the case last week. The truly awkward fact is: this incident happened in facilities run by the college whose breakneck merger last year cut administrative operations to the quick.

CMNS – the College of Computer, Mathematical and Natural Sciences – came into being in the fall of 2010 after the Dean in Computer, Mathematical and Physical Sciences, Steve Halperin, enacted a hostile takeover of College of Chemical and Life Sciences, riding roughshod over the process to get it done in time for what critics said was his – and then-Provost Farvardin’s – desire to claim a grand achievement in service of own personal ambitions. (As one department chairman stated publically: “We’re doing this for Steve.”) Last year was supposed to be one of assimilation between the two offices, but in reality Halperin did nothing but cut. The new CMNS dean (who arrived this fall) still has all the heavy lifting in front of him.

Among the many things Halperin gutted were facilities and business operations. He eliminated “duplicate” roles so that in many cases a single staff member would end up carrying the load for what had been job enough for two before. Among those people affected were the Safety Officers – those responsible for enforcing the safety procedures that were obviously ignored in this accident. Did Halperin’s facilities director (brought from his old CMPS side of things) not have enough capacity to give due diligence to more than double the responsibilities? Was he not familiar with the more-than-doubled facilities for which he instantly became responsible?

Were students just injured because of campus leaders’ haste and greed … or just incompetence?

We’ll be looking for the full report. We bet one will never emerge. Time will tell.