University president allegedly says struggling freshmen are bunnies that should be drowned

[n2doc]

By Susan Svrluga

Amid a conversation about student retention this fall, the president of Mount St. Mary’s University told some professors that they need to stop thinking of freshmen as “cuddly bunnies,” and said: “You just have to drown the bunnies … put a Glock to their heads.”

Simon Newman was quoted in the campus newspaper, The Mountain Echo, on Tuesday, in a special edition that reported the university’s president had pushed a plan to improve retention rates by dismissing 20 to 25 freshmen judged unlikely to succeed early in the academic year. Removing students who are more likely to drop out could hypothetically lead to an improvement in a school’s federal retention data; the deadline for submitting enrollment data is in late September.

Newman, a private-equity chief executive officer and entrepreneur who was appointed president of the private university in Emmitsburg, Md., in 2015, said Tuesday that there are some accurate facts in the Echo story, but “the overall tone of the thing is highly inaccurate.”

“The inferences, the innuendo, it’s not accurate at all — the conclusions one would naturally draw from reading it,” Newman said in an interview with The Washington Post. He described an intensive, multi-pronged effort to improve retention rates, because the school loses 20 to 25 percent of its first-year students. School administrators, he said, want to be sure their customers, the students, are successful.

He said he didn’t remember exactly what he said in the conversation that was quoted, but acknowledged he has sometimes used language that was regrettable.

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https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/grade-point/wp/2016/01/19/university-president-allegedly-says-struggling-freshmen-are-bunnies-that-should-be-drowned-that-a-glock-should-be-put-to-their-heads/

[tularetom]

1. As long as he can get more bunnies to pay ridiculous costs associated with higher education

what does he care?

If he drowns a few bunnies this year new bunnies will arrive next fall and the university's bottom line will be unaffected.

[global1]

2. It's Regrettable Enough To Get His Can Kicked Out Of His Job.....nt

[eppur_se_muova]

3. ... and he's probably right.

All too many students head off to college with no clear idea -- or very wrong ideas -- about why they're going there. Some manage to figure out it wasn't a good decision for them and drop out. Others have to be pushed out, and can't take the hint unless it's applied with a clue-by-four. Most, of course, manage to get at least something out of it, and graduate.

I taught at one school whose policies seemed to encourage students to stick around as long as possible before flunking out. Remedial classes were not identified as remedial, which encouraged less capable/prepared students to take the "intro" course before taking the "real" course (which would have been the intro course anywhere else) and delayed the realization that they were not going to cut it in their chosen major for another year. But they paid another year of tuition to learn that lesson ... THEN dropped out.

[xocet]

4. Interesting...

Out of curiosity, what approximate (for the sake of anonymity) field did you teach?

My opinion of various introductory "weed-out" courses is:

Introductory chemistry requires a lot of memorization, but not a lot of mathematics.
Introductory physics requires a lot of mathematics, a lot of calculation, a lot of approximation and a lot of practice.
Introductory mathematics requires a lot of proof and a lot of philosophy for the proofs to make sense - otherwise, one is stuck with relying on "mathematical maturity."

Based on my experience and being a TA*, I don't believe that most high schools adequately prepare students for pursuing chemistry, physics* or mathematics. (Chemistry, though, would be the easiest of the three.)

I am not sure that many of the students who are applying themselves but not succeeding are at fault for their failure or for their poor performance. The gulf between the regular "football" high school and college is significant.

Your thoughts would be interesting. (I don't totally disagree with your opening sentiment.)

[eppur_se_muova]

5. Chemistry. It's actually weak math skills that frustrate most freshmen ...

who never bothered to take much math or science prep in high school (or who didn't have much option).

Basic, basic algebra is a mystery to many students who wait until college to get any kind of science education. More frustratingly, many students seem to believe that if they just argue enough with the instructor, their answer will magically turn out to be correct after all. The absence of detailed, technical abilitites is only about half the problem -- attitude is a big factor. "Rules" in science are not a matter of policy, as they are in so much of quotidian life. They *have* to be consistent with every experimental observation that can be thrown at them, and many students seem not only not to grasp that idea, but to resist it.

Organic and other sophomore courses are a whole different problem (there's very little math in Organic, for example), but the insistence that a wholly wrong answer which somehow includes some of the relevant words or phrases (but flawed or absent logic) should be good for major partial credit persists.

ETA: From my experience, the single greatest shortcoming of most students is that they virtually equate memorization and learning, no matter what the class. Memorization got them through high school, but they need actual problem-solving abilities in science and engineering, and they have never developed them. I don't know what guidance counselors actaully do, for the most part -- I don't remember talking to one in HS at all, though I probably did once or twice. But they should be letting students know that if they are going to try to enter medical or pharmacy school, or any scientific field, they damned well better start taking science classes ASAP, and take as many as possible before they get to college. The later you start to develop those skills, the harder it is to do so.

[xocet]

6. Thank you for your extended reply...

I agree with your assertions that many students believe that memorization is learning and that students need to develop the ability to analyze and solve problems before they attend college.

Maybe with the emergence of the internet, these students can (by themselves) gain some perspective on what is needed for college and not have to depend on either guidance counselors or on mentors that may not be there.