No? What did he call Antonio Shelton? I recall that he called him retarded but my memory is not always correct. What did he say?
Ballot set for Penn State Board of Trustees Elections:
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Correct me then, as I said to the other poster. That’s my recollection.No. He didn't. But keep banging that drum - you'll at least end up with forearms like a professional arm-wrestler (or maybe even Bob).
I'll leave it at that, as it deserves no more than that.
Edit: Just read elsewhere in this thread that term was “intellectually retarded”. I take that as exactly the same as calling him a retard. As it is, people should vote as they feel appropriate.
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Let the record show that 91Joe95 doesn't care if something is homophobic or misygonistic, just as long as it furthers his goals of ... whatever his goals are. We'll point you to the children's table as well. We'll be over to mash up your veg'tables as soon as the adults are all set.
I agree. This thread has engendered the kind of lively discussion that makes it worthwhile to spend time on the McAndrew Board. It's exciting to have such a controversial candidate running for the BOT and canvassing for votes here. I wish that Bushwood and 21guns were running too. I almost forgot. At one time, Felli threatened to run as a humanist. That would have been something. Can you imagine a board sanctioned debate with Barry and Felli? Tom could have advertised it as "The Humanist vs The Pugilist."
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BF's penchant for profanity is tough to swallow (no pun intended)
OTOH, I can share that two alums who know their way around numbers did a break even analysis when the Abington dorm was being considered. It showed that the dorm would still be under water when a major renovation will be needed. In other words, the dorm will never break even (in finance terms it is a negative net present value project). This information was shared with the alumni trustees. It's unknown what happens behind closed doors, but at least in the public forum none of them asked leadership when the dorm would be paid off. I think we can all agree that BF would ask that question out in the open. Whether he would do it in a respectful manner is unknown
So quite the dilemma when the my ballot arrives
OTOH, I can share that two alums who know their way around numbers did a break even analysis when the Abington dorm was being considered. It showed that the dorm would still be under water when a major renovation will be needed. In other words, the dorm will never break even (in finance terms it is a negative net present value project). This information was shared with the alumni trustees. It's unknown what happens behind closed doors, but at least in the public forum none of them asked leadership when the dorm would be paid off. I think we can all agree that BF would ask that question out in the open. Whether he would do it in a respectful manner is unknown
So quite the dilemma when the my ballot arrives
Why is Barry presenting himself as somebody else in this thread? Is he suggesting that there's another person who's a totally indefatigable and devoted supporter of his, so a mini-bandwagon?
I give up. Your vote, your choice.
I give up. Your vote, your choice.
I’ve always wondered that myself. Especially since I’ve been yelled at by his supporters
for anonymously criticizing him. Him, being the king of anonymous criticism. I wouldn’t be surprised if I have received anonymous criticism from him for my objections to him.
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It changes when PSU has a President who drives change, for better or worse. Boards seldom initiate, they usually rubber-stamp what the president proposes.
So deliberately wasting millions upon millions of dollars is preferable to a sometimes caustic attitude? Dear Lord...
Good boards hold management accountable for implementing their agendas. The boards I’m most familiar with set compensation for management including bonus and deferred comp., have governance committees to ensure compliance with all laws, regs, and internal controls, and audit committees to meet with independent auditors, and also do performance reviews of the CEO. A lot of the difficult work would be done by these board committees which in turn would report back to the full board, or make recommendations to them for adoption. My board would interview at least 20 members of management about our CEOs performance each year and then conduct an approximately 3-4 hour long meeting with him/her to review that performance. It was very rigorous.
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I don’t know what they do within their board committees. I doubt that academic boards are as rigorous as private sector companies. Penn State Health may be another matter as hospital management is a whole different animal, and the finances from that operation can dominate the educational mission of the university. I don’t know enough about it to comment. There are enough people on here who don’t have a clue who can comment for me.
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For the three cents it's worth, I've heard that PSU's Board is disillusioned with Barron. Nothing speciific, just that they're unhappy with the decline in perception of PSU overall. These things don't happen overnight. So my question is where have they been?
Um, you assume he could stop the waste fraud and abuse. Unlikely
Stop it? No, but he could shine a light on it.
He can ask the on point, oftentimes uncomfortable questions that need to be asked, and just might draw attention to a problem.
They've done everything they can to trash the university's reputation and destroy it's goodwill, alienate their alumni, drive up the costs for prospective students, drive down admission standards, needlessly and carelessly spend hundreds of millions at every opportunity, and they think it's all the fatman lackey's fault? That's just precious.
That , as we all know is not the Penn State way Then we have deeper problems than many think
Participatory pillaging can be conveniently accompanied with myopia.
For the past several years the university has been rebranding itself to become more accessible and inclusive. Remember the PSU “commercial” that no one seemed to like? The one which played the alma mater and showed scenes from around the state of Pa, including some inner city neighborhoods? Over the past several years PSU has hired and promoted several highly visible minority and or gay or lesbian faculty, coaches, and administrators. And most recently they selected an Indian woman to be the next university president. All of these individuals are likely excellent hires. But the point I’m trying to make is that the university has been undergoing a very deliberate and well orchestrated change for a number of years, directed by the Board, and President Barron is no longer representative of the “new Penn State”, whose goal it is to attract a much more diverse student body composed of a higher proportion of minority and international students, and of world campus students. This transition is complex, and Penn State is not alone in its attempt to accomplish what it is doing. This is in fact becoming the norm among many highly respected universities around the country. Look at other recent hires - U of Penn, Ohio State, Stonybrook, Widener, …. This is higher education in 2022 like it or not. And it’s happening in the private sector as well. It’s all about DEI now. Is this good for Penn State? Good for society? I’ll leave this open to others and avoid the politics of it. I just wanted to state what I think is the obvious.
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Not once did you mention quality education at an affordable price. Here's guessing you don't even see the problem with it.
I didn’t comment on whether there were any problems with any of these things. That wasn’t the point of my post. I didn’t make any value judgements - I’ll leave that to others. There are a lot of geniuses on this board who have ideas about how to cut costs or increase revenue. I was only pointing out the context under which all of the changes were occurring. Sure costs are important, quality is important, yada yada yada. These are all related and important issues. I was just providing the context, not expressing an opinion about whether it was good or bad. It is what it is. Don’t read any more into my post than what I’ve stated - which is the current trend at Penn State, and in higher education more broadly.
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Driven by Fats and his coterie. Sure they sat back and let it happen, maybe even cheered and participated. If the next President reverses these trends (not likely in my estimation), I doubt the Board gets in her way.
That’s a good question. It depends how you define “better”. If you believe the mission of the university is to serve students of first generation Americans, minorities, disadvantaged groups, or others who are underserved, than the answer would be yes. If you believe the university should strive to attract the best students without consideration for their socioeconomic background and rival the Ivy League for quality applicants, the reverse would be true. I think the Board sees PSU, as a State related institution, more as the former than the latter but that doesn’t mean you abandon quality considerations all together I suppose, but there is definitely a tension between competing priorities. DEI does not correlate to lower academic standards. The goal would be to attract very high performing disadvantaged applicants who are diverse in their backgrounds without any decline in academic performance. Better is a very subjective term. Better for who?
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So how are these groups "served?' Are there standards that define success, or is admission the be all and end all?
If you want to attract and help those groups lower costs and offer some financial aid instead of looking to lull them into taking on the equivalent of a mortgage payment upon graduation.
Well there are ways of measuring long term impacts of higher education by comparing things like income, taxes paid, etc. over the lifetime of the individual with those who are not admitted. But these data take years to accumulate. You’ve probably seen statistics published which show income of college grads compared to non graduates, etc.
Only top 500 and trending in the wrong direction with every several hundred million dollar outlay.
www.on3.com
New database ranks 4,500 US colleges and universities by return on investment
Some Big 10 schools from https://finance.yahoo.com/news/new-database-ranks-4500-us-colleges-by-return-on-investment-155443063.html: Northwestern is 68 Michigan is 81 Illinois is 117 Wisconsin is 207 Rutgers is 215 Michigan State is 316 Indiana is 352 Penn State University Park is 486 Ohio State...
Yes, and for quite a while schools have been tracking various measures for underrepresented minorities compared to whites. Ever wonder why those results are seldom released?
I think the data are readily available and tracked by the Dept of Education, but I don’t know if it’s broken down by school. I’m not sure about what’s available at the granular level. I think it’s all public information. Do you believe there is some conspiracy at play? Companies like American Institutes for Research (AIR) do a lot of work in this area. You may want to check their website.
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