2008 Woodie Awards
MT's New Year's Resolutions
Some changes that could make things easier for students, faculty
Evan Barker
Issue date: 1/14/08 Section: Opinions
Viva la 2008! With the new year come new opportunities for change, both personally and for the University as a whole. Change is good, unless you work for the Tennessee Board of Regents, in which case, change is very, very bad.
However, the mere start of a new year is not a sufficient impetus for change; MTSU will need some encouragement. The following is a handy list of New Year's resolutions that deserve to be considered, at least, before they are relegated to administrative birdcage liner, or used to housetrain Sidney McPhee's puppy.
The first New Year's resolution would be to drop the silly general education requirements that offer a disincentive to work. At MTSU, students who opt to take classes above and beyond the general requirements get elective credit, but are still required to take the lower classes. Oh, and this elective credit brings them incrementally closer to being dropped from their HOPE lottery scholarships.
For example, a student who enjoys Russian literature may decide to take classes on the subject, but will still be required to take the basic English composition and literature classes, instead of substituting harder classes. And so it goes.
At other, more prestigious state university systems, students are encouraged to challenge themselves into upper-division classes. Here, they are encouraged to do the bare minimum in order to graduate in four years, and thus help MTSU's pitiful retention statistics. There are other, sneakier reasons for this as well.
Anyone who has taken one of these lower-division classes in English or Mathematics has probably noticed that full professors teach only a miniscule percentage of these classes. Adjuncts or staff instructors teach the rest. The reason for this is that the full professors would rather teach graduate or doctoral students. They receive more credit hours for these classes, which contain far fewer students. They are also credited more for planning time. Ask a tenured professor, if you can find one, how many lower-division classes they teach.
However, the mere start of a new year is not a sufficient impetus for change; MTSU will need some encouragement. The following is a handy list of New Year's resolutions that deserve to be considered, at least, before they are relegated to administrative birdcage liner, or used to housetrain Sidney McPhee's puppy.
The first New Year's resolution would be to drop the silly general education requirements that offer a disincentive to work. At MTSU, students who opt to take classes above and beyond the general requirements get elective credit, but are still required to take the lower classes. Oh, and this elective credit brings them incrementally closer to being dropped from their HOPE lottery scholarships.
For example, a student who enjoys Russian literature may decide to take classes on the subject, but will still be required to take the basic English composition and literature classes, instead of substituting harder classes. And so it goes.
At other, more prestigious state university systems, students are encouraged to challenge themselves into upper-division classes. Here, they are encouraged to do the bare minimum in order to graduate in four years, and thus help MTSU's pitiful retention statistics. There are other, sneakier reasons for this as well.
Anyone who has taken one of these lower-division classes in English or Mathematics has probably noticed that full professors teach only a miniscule percentage of these classes. Adjuncts or staff instructors teach the rest. The reason for this is that the full professors would rather teach graduate or doctoral students. They receive more credit hours for these classes, which contain far fewer students. They are also credited more for planning time. Ask a tenured professor, if you can find one, how many lower-division classes they teach.
Viewing Comments 1 - 2 of 2
Gretchen
posted 1/15/08 @ 2:16 PM CST
And I quote "However, the university would do well to consider its next steps, because we all wants a good edumacation and to get more smarterer"
i don't think this could have had a better ending. (Continued…)
David
posted 1/15/08 @ 10:37 PM CST
PREACH! For your next sermon, can you find out where all those yearly 10% tuition increases improved the system?
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