terrapinsanity.com

Congrats and a tip of the hat once again to Freeman Hrabowski’s UMBC chess team for placing well (second) in a prestigious national competition. In the last decade they have been regulars in win, place or show at the national level, and garner some great visibility for campus scholarship along the way.

Today’s news cycle handily illustrates some contrasts between UMBC and College Park campus leadership, contrasts which are increasingly noticed around the state even if not in the rarefied reaches of Main Admin. At the same time readers learn that UMBC canvasses donors to support chess scholarships which enable nationally-recognized cerebral achievements, they learn that UMCP canvasses donors to support construction of a new President’s Residence. With a reported price tag of $7.2 million, the move is described by campus as necessary because the old residence was a “lousy place to throw a party.”

Scholars who lack updated facilities for research, students who study in classrooms with leaky roofs or live in housing with untenable plumbing, and staff who have endured years of furloughs while working under the whip of tone-deaf, self-absorbed leadership will all sleep easier tonight knowing that their president will soon have a better place to throw a party.

Taxpayers will surely see other kinds of news from these campuses over time. After all, this is just one news cycle. Or as chess-master Hrabowski knows it, just the next move in a long game.

An interesting summary of legislators’ educational backgrounds is found at the Chronicle today. It would probably be a little more credible if it did not describe Maryland as having a full time legislature. (Our General Assembly only meets in regular session for 90 days of the year, though it is busy enough passing new laws that the body may seem like a year-round operation.)

A large number of our state officials apparently hail from College Park. How many of them were shown the value of having a flagship stand for excellence in the state is unclear, but obviously not all ‘got it’ judging by policies which treat all state campuses the same. Many officials appear as having post-Bac education as well, but by observation this is increasingly from their obtaining law degrees. The state is rapidly distancing itself from its citizen-legislature roots.

For a good use of a few moments of your quality time this holiday between semesters, we commend to you the short article A Perfect Storm in Undergraduate Education.

The author asks a key question about national leaders’ priorities: “What good does it do to increase the number of students in college if the ones who are already there are not learning much? Would it not make more sense to improve the quality of education before we increase the quantity of students?”

Hmm, excellence. Where have we heard that before?

The article gives a laundry list of the sundry barriers to improvement, and the author might well have been studying the College Park campus when painting this sad picture.

Yet another coach with an expensive contract is being let go from College Park, bringing UM’s cost of keeping America’s coaches off the bread lines to something like a bazillion dollars. Is there an athletics coordinator still not employed somewhere? The inhumanity of it all! Quick, let’s hire him so he can be protected too!

Never mind losing seasons, budget in the toilet and other sports getting the axe. We simply can’t make do with just any coaches, you know, even the kind who get half a mega-buck per year guaranteed. Time to axe some more programs so we can get the coach who is just right.

Same question as before, though: do we know any human being at UM who is involved in achieving educational outcomes of any kind and who gets even half this cash?

“University’s chemistry discovery center has substantially increased pass rates for introductory classes”, said the headline. And at the center of it all? Another (UMBC President) Freeman Hrabowski coup.

Where’s the Maryland flagship these days?

Part of Randy Edsall’s new training regimen perhaps? We knew he was tough but this does seem a little over the top…

Let’s listen in as the locals discuss expenses in Main Admin:

If you want the homecoming parade in my town… you have to pay.

Carmine, I think it’s wrong to extort money from the college.

Look… as the mayor of Faber, I’ve got big responsibilities. These parades are very expensive. You’re using my police, my sanitation people, my free Oldsmobiles. If you mention extortion again, I’ll have your legs broken.

I’m sure I can arrange a nice honorarium from the student fund.

Oh, sorry, right conversation, different era. Here’s what goes on today: campus administrators get entertainment, faceless Athletic Association fat cats get fatter, and students get the bill. As usual.