But Tom Crady, vice president for student services at Grinnell College in Grinnell, Iowa, is sympathetic about the anxieties of homesick freshmen, particularly those who "come home Thanksgiving and realize their room is gone." Parents, he said, "should probably include their son or daughter in a decision like that."
Thursday, September 20, 2007
Crady in the Times
Tom Crady, the incoming Dean of the College, was quoted in The New York Times today in an article about parents redoing their children's rooms once they leave for college:
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18 comments:
Sounds reasonable to me.
And you thought the lacrosee lessons when you were five, the SAT prep courses, and the church trips to Central America to help the poor were acts of love?
We'll have to see how Mr. Sensitivity comes down on "Paarkhursting". After all, some students might really need their rooms at home. . .
Whose side are on you on, Mr. Bruce? The "clubbable preppies" left home at 14 and their houses are big enough such that their parents don't need an extra den. It sounds like your "Mr. Sensitivity" is looking out for the average kid. What's wrong with that? Sounds like you are on Wright's side.
Re: Parkhursting.
Amazingly enough, students at Grinnell had NO ALCOHOL VIOLATIONS in 2004-2005:
http://ope.ed.gov/security/InstIdCrime.asp?CRITERIA=R
Either Crady has a lovely and tolerant attitude to alcohol, unlike Wright & Cronies, or the school is full of teetotalers.
"unlike Wright & Cronies"...
You saw the recent Valley News bit quoting Wright extensively on the drinking age? He very firmly wants it returned to 18 and the state to stop telling Dartmouth to enforce its drinking laws.
Although Wright supports lowering the drinking age, that doesn't mean the college goes easy on enforcement.
I can tell you that firsthand, from tonight. It's still freshmen orientation and they haven't matriculated yet, so if a freshman gets caught drinking they can be potentially thrown out of the college, first offense.
There were about 3 cars simultaneously petrolling Webster Ave. tonight - two S&S vehicles and one Hanover police SUV - and they were using flashlights to shine on the faces of students as they walked by.
Of course I'm biased, but I think this is terrible. It is one thing to put in jeopardy the matriculation of a student because they outrageously and flagrantly broke the rules, but another when they are caught via maximum security enforcement. And it is hypocritical to throw incoming students out of a college for something that the president views as an unjust law.
A friend of mine got picked up during his Dimensions (where newly accepted H.S. seniors come to visit Dartmouth) with a .03 BAC - one beer. Safety and Security simply rounded up everybody on a dorm floor. Because he wasn't a Dartmouth student, S&S called the police. He got arrested, spent the night in jail (despite being obviously sober). As a result, he almost got thrown out of his high school and came incredibly close to getting his Dartmouth matriculation taken away. The point of this story is that the activities of S&S go far beyond a mere concern for student safety, and instead delve into very serious enforcement and policing.
Observations from Fantasyland:
Telling students one thing- "I am on your side" and telling S&S another- "more dorm-wide floor sweeps" is nothing new for the president.
He told his faculty what they wanted to hear- "We are a university in all but name" and told the alumni what they wanted to hear- "our emphasis is on undergraduate teaching". Go read speeches to these groups if you want confirmation.
This approach worked when alumni were out there in NeverNeverLand, separate from faculty on their ivory tower. However, open up communications... the internet, election campaigning, Daily Dartmouth letters from alumni who actually live in Hanover, and the forked-tongue game gets harder to play. Time to change the rules.
The College will not take a position on the proposed constitution. Wait, the President and the College trustees vote to endorse it.
The Great and Powerful Wizard in the Land of Oz. Check behind the curtain.
So again, we'll have to see if Mr. Sensitivity, Dean-designate Crady, signs onto the current policies or acts like he's got a pair. My experience of administrators -- or in fact, nearly anyone in power -- suggests there's not much cause for optimism.
Let's hope Wright has a pair - a pair of years before retirement.
I'm not sure that faculty wanted to hear that "We are a university in all but name," but it's the truth, and that's why Wright said it.
Dartmouth College is a university in all but name and has been since the Dartmouth Medical School was founded.
Dolt: Stop being such a semantic prat. The definition of university that is widely accepted is of a place where equal or more weight is placed on graduate programs. Dartmouth is a college because we have four times as many undergrads as graduate students and that is where the administration's chief focus should be and remain.
Uncle Walt: you have nailed it dead on! As soon as people realize that Wright is simply dishonest in his spin, then a lot of what goes on at Dartmouth becomes clear. The 10,000 alums who voted for Stephen Smith (ugh, sorry Dolt, actually only 9,984 alums) see the falseness of Wright's doublespeak. Time for him to get out of town.
Actually, the thing that most clearly identifies a "research university" is production of PhDs. Dartmouth awards very few of these.
PhDs are funded by giving graduate students teaching assistantships, so that TAs staff many lower-level courses with big enrollments. This is a cash cow, since the TA is working for subsistence money, while students at a place like Dartmouth are paying several thousand dollars per course. The surplus from the big-enrollment courses pays for the small-enrollment graduate seminars. The result is that few name professors teach undergraduate courses.
Graduate students in this system also become readily available for romantic dalliances with faculty, babysitting, grocery shopping, limo service, etc.
This is why the faculty is so hot to be a research university.
The definition of "university" that is widely accepted is not "a place where equal or more weight is placed on graduate programs."
You're making up definitions to try to keep Dartmouth out of a category it's been in for decades, you semantic prat. If Dartmouth had 4,000 graduate students (or spent just a little less on them than on the undergrads), would it still not be a "university"?
Pick an accepted definition.
American Heritage: "An institution for higher learning with teaching and research facilities constituting a graduate school and professional schools that award master's degrees and doctorates and an undergraduate division that awards bachelor's degrees."
Wikipedia: "A university is an institution of higher education and research, which grants academic degrees at all levels (bachelor, master, and doctorate) in a variety of subjects."
Webster's (1913): "An institution organized and incorporated for the purpose of imparting instruction, examining students, and otherwise promoting education in the higher branches of literature, science, art, etc., empowered to confer degrees in the several arts and faculties, as in theology, law, medicine, music, etc."
Dartmouth has had three professional schools since 1900; has awarded Ph.D.s since the 1880s and en masse since the 1960s; it awards more than one type of undergraduate degree; it permits teaching assistants to teach some classes; the college ("Arts & Sciences") awards both ABs and master's degrees. Dartmouth has been a university in all but name for 40 years.
Dolt - Do you have a point to make?
Dolt is trying to explain to all of us that when Jim Wright said in his inaugural speech in Alumni Hall on April 6, 1998 that "Dartmouth is a research university in all but name, and we are not going to be deflected from our purposes", Wright was simply explaining that because the College has professional schools and graduate programs, Dartmouth is really a university.
Dolt believes that Wright was not making any statement of policy in his speech; he was just helping us use appropriate language. How kind of Jim...
I see things a little differently; but Dolt it repeating the Administration's current spin.
"Dolt it repeating the Administration's current spin."
It's also "spin" when the administration sez Dartmouth's in New Hampshire and borders the Connecticut River and gets some snow in the winter... because those things aren't obviously true either.
But the President didn't say those things in a major policy address that inaugurated a new administration. If he had, you'd have to wonder why he brought those things up... unless they had another meaning.
Wright was setting forth one of the core values of his administration: aligning Dartmouth with other research universities. The second core value came later: the SLI.
But then perhaps you believe that the SLI simply stood for the proposition that each student has a life....
Regarding my earlier comment: it turns out that non-matriculated students during orientation are treated exactly the same as regular students. There's a long-lived rumor floating around that they are treated differently, but it's false. I apologize.
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