http://www.easternecho.com Retention rates among FTIAC’s—students who attend school for the first time in any college— have increased while the number of individuals on probation has seen a decrease following several initiatives put into place by Eastern Michigan University. en-us Gryphon 2.3.1-dsw (pewabic)/Foundry5 Sat, 24 Mar 2012 12:09:14 -0400 webmaster@easternecho.com http://www.easternecho.com/index.php/comment/view/3388 This article is complete garbage. It is not only completely inappropriate to single out one sentence of a man’s quote to make the story seem catchy and controversial to an individual reading the front page, but to have one professor as the representative of the entire EMU community is terrible journalism. How many times is the Echo going to consistently fall short of appropriate interviewing? If you are going to trash General Education, why not ask them about their actual program? Why did we shrink the auditorium sizes when we renovated Pray-Harrold? Because we shrunk our class sizes. The goal of Gen. Ed. is to eliminate these large class sizes. The largest class offered this semester is likely the BIO 120 course of 128 students. That’s not a Gen. Ed. course, and was done out of necessity due to budget cuts and limited faculty. So to say that General Education is producing dropouts is pathetic. Should be become an elitist institution that doesn’t let anyone in? Absolutely not. Individuals that get admitted are not illiterate or incompetent, it seems to be cynics at the university that are so used to the same old story that just want to moan and complain about what’s wrong with the university instead of being part of a solution. This administration is different, the student body is different. Our goal is to make EMU homely and a great university, not just living in other university’s and the state’s shadow. Tue, 14 Feb 2012 14:56:41 -0500 http://www.easternecho.com/index.php/comment/view/3388 http://www.easternecho.com/index.php/comment/view/3389 And yet, despite all of these “improvements”, I’ve had more success navigating my academic career with a pencil and a piece of paper that lists my Gen. Ed. requirements, than having the “help” of the various Academic Advising groups on campus. I wouldn’t trust Academic Advising at this university to guess my weight, much less guide me through four plus years of academia with accuracy, integrity, and a sense of ownership. Oh, and whether Prof. Higbee’s comment was taken out of context or not, he’s right- we do produce dropouts. Lots of them. Not me; I’m a 3.85 GPA. But make no mistake, they’re out there. oh, and what’s up with the Academic Success Coaches? So now Eastern is really collecting that low-lying academic fruit, huh? Now we’re accepting people who need a babysitter to tell them how to go to class and do their homework?! Newsflash, idiots! This is COLLEGE!!! If you can’t do the basics, like show up,you shouldn’t be admitted! And yet we just take ‘em on in; give them money, hold their hands, wipe their noses and asses for them, and then wring our hands when they mysteriously are incapable of performing basic academic tasks themselves. A scholarship for being a flunkie? Are you effin’ kidding me?! Give me a break, Eastern. Tue, 14 Feb 2012 15:54:17 -0500 http://www.easternecho.com/index.php/comment/view/3389 http://www.easternecho.com/index.php/comment/view/3390 Dropouts and under-performers are everywhere. When I was a MSU, I knew a lot of people who were complete disasters academically. My roommate during my freshman year, I swear, I can count on one hand the amount of times he went to class during the first semester and he was expelled. Getting to college is one thing but sometimes when people realize no one is holding their hand and pushing them to go to class or study they simply don’t. If graduating from college was easy, everyone would. Tue, 14 Feb 2012 17:28:00 -0500 http://www.easternecho.com/index.php/comment/view/3390 http://www.easternecho.com/index.php/comment/view/3391 Why do we admit students that seem to be unqualified to attend EMU? Maybe it is because our funding is so offensive from the state legislature, we are forced to admit more students than we normally would to maintain any sort of funding. At the same time to say we aren’t helping those students is false. EMU has Math 97 and Math 98 which are practically 9th and 10th grade math courses and English 120 for those who still need comprehension skills. When the government tells us we need to be more helpful to those, yet cut money from us, it puts the university in a position to not only admit students for dollars but aid them in order to actually have them succeed. It’s sort of a morally immoral obligation. We may or may not should admit students with lower standards but we do have avenues to get them help. The help is not there to babysit, so quit oversimplifying. The help is there to tutor and help them with strictly academics. Are you saying that a student who was tutored through high school isn’t allowed to go to college because they weren’t smart enough? What about unequal secondary education? Just because an individual grew up in Detroit and was poorly taught doesn’t mean they aren’t able to get an education beyond 12th grade. There are bright people that develop late or in different areas than the standard cookie cutter ACT and high school GPA. The General Education system changed in 2007, and if you actually look at the charts they put in the Echo, the retention rates since its implementation have increased. Why is it that because one professor who has been here for X years and is part of the tenured was brainwashed by colleagues in Ann Arbor to think he goes to a ghetto school is the voice of the masses? Why? What about the people who actually have gone through General Education program? What do the students have to say? Students drop out, and they drop out everywhere. However, did we ever take into account economic and social issues as to why they dropped out, not just their academic ability? Michigan students are of the traditional 4-year breed. We aren’t them, and we don’t want to be. We are accommodating because we maintain integrity and dammit the administration and students are trying to make chicken salad out of chicken poop with the negative old professors, negative stereotypes and our needs consistently falling on deaf ears in Lansing. Our students go from full-time to half-time. Take semesters off because of families, money and life. I’m sick of people listening to one thing and because they’re used to things sucking they automatically think it does. Especially from a professor who’s integrity and ethos are at best questionable. Tue, 14 Feb 2012 18:47:53 -0500 http://www.easternecho.com/index.php/comment/view/3391 http://www.easternecho.com/index.php/comment/view/3392 I agree, chicken or egg. I believe that if EMU wasn’t so close to UM, you wouldn’t get so many negative perceptions. I think EMU students are very bright on the whole. Non-traditional students may scew the numbers a far as graduation rates are concerned and emu has more than most. Tue, 14 Feb 2012 19:08:08 -0500 http://www.easternecho.com/index.php/comment/view/3392 http://www.easternecho.com/index.php/comment/view/3394 Re: Retention rates— Let me point out that “retention” is not the same as “graduation.” This last metric is the one that already is being used by this Governor to fund State Universities. Retention simply means students stay enrolled and pay tuition (or get aid). We take their money and don’t track where they go or if they even graduate. Our graduation rates are very poor by any State or national measure (and that’s using a 6 yr base!). We are just not delivering the educational opportunities to our students that we promise them when they enroll. The New York Times and the Free Press have both pointed out our the low grad. rates in the past and nothing seems to be changing. — It’s time we all took ownership of the problem directly— call it by its real name (not “retention”) and start planning some more effective strategies. Happily, our new Provost is making improving graduation rates one of her highest priorities. Wed, 15 Feb 2012 12:48:55 -0500 http://www.easternecho.com/index.php/comment/view/3394 http://www.easternecho.com/index.php/comment/view/3395 Hello Professor Scott, The first part of this two-part series examined the graduation rates and I included PDF files of the four-year and six-year graduation rates for readers to look over. The rates are broken down by race and the various academic colleges within EMU. Here’s the link: http://easternecho.com/index.php/article/2012/02/emu_graduation_rates_low Wed, 15 Feb 2012 13:20:03 -0500 http://www.easternecho.com/index.php/comment/view/3395 http://www.easternecho.com/index.php/comment/view/3545 I’m glad for any and all efforts at retention and graduation increases. It would be sad to think that EMU (or any school) just wanted to take students’ money for as long as possible. General Education programs are an attempt to give students a well-rounded education and I approve of them. However, I think it is a huge, huge mistake that academic advising is organized around the gen ed program. Advising should be organized around the individual majors. For example, it is almost universally acknowledged by STEM majors that the Advising Center sucks. Do they really? No. But do they provide accurate, helpful information to science, math and technology majors? No. In fact, they are counterproductive. Potential STEM majors should be advised to take required classes asap and add gen eds as they go along. The counter-argument is that students should go to their faculty advisors. Faculty advising in STEM majors is almost as bad. Why? Because faculty are very very busy and advising is not high on their priority lists. I know faculty advisors who drop students without telling them or getting them new advisors; advisors who cannot be reached; and advisors who are out-of-date on requirements. I know many STEM students who end up putting in extra semesters/years or changing majors for lack of good advising. My recommendation is intrusive advising. Change the focus of the academic advising center to individual majors. Have the advisors become experts in 2 or 3 majors, and require freshmen, sophomores and juniors (senior year is too late for a degree audit!) be REQUIRED to meet with an advisor BEFORE they are allowed to register. BTW, increasing graduation rates has many far-reaching benefits. For the cash-focused administrators – more graduates graduating faster makes for a larger, happier alumni pool. More happy alumni are more inclined to donate to their alma maters. Sat, 24 Mar 2012 12:09:14 -0400 http://www.easternecho.com/index.php/comment/view/3545