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| Authored by: Prabhakar Ragde on Tuesday, May 17 2005 @ 11:33 AM CDT |
1. Because before 1992 there was no continuation average, no complete term
requirement, and no notion of academic probation. There was a limit on the
total number of failures and there was a graduating average requirement. The
rules were changed in 1992. Now, this is not the only reason for attrition, but
it is the main faculty-wide reason.
2. Yes. Something like 20% of this year's incoming class is on academic
probation or worse. That is a higher percentage than before. You could
believe that the overall attrition rate will not change, only that those who
leave will leave earlier, but this is unlikely to be the case.
3. It's probably a combination of factors: lower rates of application resulting
in lower cutoff averages for admissions, a new four-year high school
curriculum that not only has less material in it but is still going through
implementation shakeout; insufficient attention to these points by instructors
of first-year courses.
4. As a former Fed president, you should know how long it takes to make
changes, especially in the face of opposition. The weight of accumulated
evidence has to be considerable, and changes tend to happen in a reactive
fashion, in response to some crisis or emergency.
5. I think all of these are true to some extent, though you have to interpret
the questions carefully. "Quality of our students is decreasing" could very well
mean that historically we have had strong enough students to survive the
neglect and stress we put them through, and now more are succumbing. If
that is true, it is less the students' fault than the program's. But it's very
difficult to assess the truth.
6. I suspect it is not so much a conspiracy as a matter of wheels grinding
slow and deadlines creeping up. The problem wouldn't have become apparent
until marks processing was complete in January some time, and due to the
lengthy approval process going all the way up through Senate, there isn't a lot
of time to consult at lower levels. I agree with you that more could have been
done, though.
--PR[ Parent ]
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