UConn President Thomas Katsouleas will leave post, sources say | Page 6 | The Boneyard

UConn President Thomas Katsouleas will leave post, sources say

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CT should make all state universities free of charge for CT residents. Make it so that anyone that goes to a directional state U and has a gpa above a 3.5 are automatically accepted to UConn if they want to transfer. Such an investment by the state will pay itself in a few years. Put the grad schools in Hartford and/or Stamford and partner up with Businesses to provide automatic placement after graduation.

If we want UConn to become a top level school, we need to go all in.
Sounds prohibitively and ridiculously expensive.
UCONN should strive to be elite.
Build up the CSU system (or combine into 1) to make it better than it is and be the school for the bulk of students.
UCONN should be a top tier PUBLIC IVY. Its already pretty close.
 
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I believe there is a stigma among some within the state that private colleges/universities are better. I also believe that a large portion of our wealthier residents (who have the means to support/advocate/donate) shun UConn for smaller schools or out of state schools. Maybe I’m completely off base with these opinions but that’s just what I seem to notice.
I believe VERY STRONGLY that you are absolutely CORRECT.
 

Chin Diesel

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Keep this under wraps but I have heard that the real problem was that he had no handle with his left. He didn't move his feet well on defense either.

Just saying.

CoFirMeD
 
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Connecticut and UConns cost structures are just too large and anticompetitive. We’ve seen it forever.
Good businesses leave.

UConn health’s fringe benefit load is three times that at St Francis or Hartford Hospital which makes that a sinkhole and being anticompetitive has now reared its ugly head in research.

Years and years of kicking the can by legislators and UConn executives all summarized in his departure. And yet no one has the political fortitude to address it and raising taxes is no longer a strategy
UConn's very, very high Indirect Cost rate (IDCs) that they try to add to the direct costs of faculty's research grants are a major barrier to faculty's obtaining research grants from many organizations. Can attest first-hand. TomCat is not BS'ing about that.
Connecticut and UConns cost structures are just too large and anticompetitive. We’ve seen it forever.
Good businesses leave.

UConn health’s fringe benefit load is three times that at St Francis or Hartford Hospital which makes that a sinkhole and being anticompetitive has now reared its ugly head in research.

Years and years of kicking the can by legislators and UConn executives all summarized in his departure. And yet no one has the political fortitude to address it and raising taxes is no longer a strategy
You three critics need to put your heads back in the sand and stop making sensible observations about what the legislators and governors have done to make UConn so non-competitive in real world issues.
 
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If you use Endowments as a gauge I would say you are correct.
UConn has a very small endowment base compared to many other schools throughout the country
Endowments have absolutely nothing to do with how good a school is.
Its completely foolish to even suggest this.
UCONN's endowment is relatively small because the wealthy people here have a long history of going to and supporting private schools. Just a fckup CT/NE thing. They think UCONN doesn;t need or deserve the money and that they'll just get if from the state.
This mindset doesnt exist in the midwest or SE or Texas etc.
UCONN academically is already as good or nearly as good as most state schools with the exception of the obvious Michigan, VA, UCLA etc.
Endowment has no bearing or insight into how good a school is. It only tells you how "rich" they are.
 
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You’re mixing up your rankings. We were a top 20 public school according to US News at the time of my graduation, but as of now we are ranked as the 63rd best school in the nation (as compared to Michigan State at #80). I imagine Michigan State was around the top 25 in the public school listing so the gap is nowhere near as large as you are making it out to be.
Im not mixing anything up.
The ranking I gave was for the State School category.
Of course, I know UCONN wasn't 16 or 18 national school (public/private combined).
My ranking was strictly state school category.
That ranking was/is very high where we are rubbing elbows w/ huge name brand schools. We were ranked higher than over 50% of the B10 schools in the public category.
 
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I believe there is value to saying that the faculty actively and currently involved in knowledge production are also the best faculty to learn from. This is the community college versus university dilemma, because community colleges make it very hard for faculty to be involved in knowledge production. For most students, they might not see the connection, and most might be satisfied with the knowledge presented in community colleges, but if you're the type of student who sees themselves as a future knowledge producer (inside or outside academia), you're going to want to be around people who are doing it now, not those who may have been doing it when they were grad students.

You are generalizing way too much here. Someone teaching philosophy 101 doesn't need to be a researcher. It is totally, totally unrelated. An MA student with a talent for teaching is going to be world's more useful than someone pumping out a book a year, who doesn't care about teaching (and many of them do). If we're talking about specialized higher-level courses that's a different story. But TBH are ANY undergrad courses really that specialized?

There's also the differences between the sciences and humanities. The resources needed for top-tier bio department can only be had at big R1 schools. Less so for any kind of humanities or soft sciences.

How many students "see themselves as a future knowledge producer"??? A tiny number of students actually go into academia. For kids going into undergrad that should be an afterthought.

And community college absolutely does not preclude you from going to high-level schools for grad studies. My fiance started at a comm college, then went to UNC for her BS, Duke law school, and now she's finishing her PhD at Yale (started at UConn) this summer or fall.

Plenty of stupid kids at UConn and Yale. More than plenty. Hell of a lot of brilliant students at MCC and Tunxis.
 
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Sounds prohibitively and ridiculously expensive.
UCONN should strive to be elite.
Build up the CSU system (or combine into 1) to make it better than it is and be the school for the bulk of students.
UCONN should be a top tier PUBLIC IVY. Its already pretty close.
Free education nationwide would cost roughly twice what we pay for national parks. There are 9 million college students in the US currently with an average public tuition of $7,600. We pay so much more for things that are not as integral to the well-being of the country.
 
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You are generalizing way too much here. Someone teaching philosophy 101 doesn't need to be a researcher. It is totally, totally unrelated. An MA student with a talent for teaching is going to be world's more useful than someone pumping out a book a year, who doesn't care about teaching (and many of them do). If we're talking about specialized higher-level courses that's a different story. But TBH are ANY undergrad courses really that specialized?

There's also the differences between the sciences and humanities. The resources needed for top-tier bio department can only be had at big R1 schools. Less so for any kind of humanities or soft sciences.

How many students "see themselves as a future knowledge producer"??? A tiny number of students actually go into academia. For kids going into undergrad that should be an afterthought.

And community college absolutely does not preclude you from going to high-level schools for grad studies. My fiance started at a comm college, then went to UNC for her BS, Duke law school, and now she's finishing her PhD at Yale (started at UConn) this summer or fall.

Plenty of stupid kids at UConn and Yale. More than plenty. Hell of a lot of brilliant students at MCC and Tunxis.
totally disagree but not the place for this discussion.
 

ClifSpliffy

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I am prepared to embrace the old UConn. A fun, vibrant and unapologetically somewhat above average state university with a personality. I’m kind of tired of the overly uptight, overly conscientious nature of the whole place. Let’s play sports and drink some beer. Bring in a president from West Virginia.
this. a thousand times, this. like many other normalcies of olden days, ie pre 2020, the higher education industry has been wrecked, and but for the temporary delay in it's destruction due to the unsustainable gov't largess for the nonce, it ain't coming back. for all but a very few and select members in the industry, the pause should trigger the rational introspection on 'who are we? what do we do well now in a highly competitive market? what should we do in the future to ensure our existence going forward?'
Uconn does not face this very real existential question ('exist'), but it does face some very hard questions. common sense business thinking for most similarily situated state schools should conclude in 'we're a state school. if we provide a wide range of quality programs along with a quality, dareisayit, attractive place to be for the young customers in our state, then word will get out across the nation.' the very obvious business mistake of 'the overly conscientious nature of the whole place' is a very bad marketing decision. students get enuf lectures in the classes that they pay for, and for most, that's more than enuf.
'The primary 4,400-acre (17.8 km2) campus is in Storrs, Connecticut, approximately a half hour's drive from Hartford and 90 minutes from Boston. It is a flagship university that is ranked as the best public national university in New England and is tied for 23rd in "top public schools" and tied for 63rd best national university in the 2021 U.S. News & World Report rankings. UConn has been ranked by Money Magazine and Princeton Review top 18th in value. The university is classified among "R1: Doctoral Universities – Very high research activity". The university has been recognized as a Public Ivy, defined as a select group of publicly funded universities considered to provide a quality of education comparable to those of the Ivy League.' (wiki) pretty cool.
PostcardStorrsCTUniversityOfConn1903.jpg


and oh, moar farming stuff please. like at the beginning. i mean, it's not like farming has exploded up here, albeit smaller ones, in the very recent past.
or has it? food for thought.
 
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HuskyHawk

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Since I'm inside the university system, and we are assessed to death, I would say there is yes, there is empirical evidence, from everything involving faculty achievement and research ( which drives teaching), to student skill assessments (frequent, all too frequent), and student exit exam assessments. There are compiled by non-profit foundations research groups who spend weeks on every campus once every 5 years. It's boiled down into a data pack for each school that is about the size of a thick textbook.

That being said, my research for when my children are of age and they apply is took at the ratio of resources spent on administration versus teaching, adjunct faculty versus tenure-track faculty, flexibility of the curriculum. Those are meat-and-potatoes issues for every parent, but the data is only available from the DOE, unfortunately, so you have to dig.

I believe there is value to saying that the faculty actively and currently involved in knowledge production are also the best faculty to learn from. This is the community college versus university dilemma, because community colleges make it very hard for faculty to be involved in knowledge production. For most students, they might not see the connection, and most might be satisfied with the knowledge presented in community colleges, but if you're the type of student who sees themselves as a future knowledge producer (inside or outside academia), you're going to want to be around people who are doing it now, not those who may have been doing it when they were grad students.

This is exactly the type of information that, for instance, the Carnegie Foundation complies in order to assess every department at every university.

If there is that empirical data, it isn't being reflected in USNews. Or any of the other websites and publications parents and kids turn to. About all you can really see is outcomes, and I still believe those are more impacted by reputation than by educational quality. But I think you'd agree with me (based on your comments) that broad generalizations at the university level are likely less accurate than looking at how strong a department or field is at each school.

I wanted to apply the kind of analysis you describe with my daughter. Instead it largely became about fit and feel and subjective things. I looked for the DOE data based on our prior discussion of this point, but couldn't find those numbers.

Knowledge production is an interesting one. I totally get it in the sciences. In business? The community colleges have a lot of active CPAs teaching accounting on the side. I'd argue that is more valuable than somebody who is a pure academic. My best teachers at UConn business school were a retired NYC lawyer teaching business law, and a finance professor who was very active in business still. I don't know how many people going to college become academics later, but it has to be a tiny percentage. One of the appeals of Northeastern to me was the emphasis on experiential learning, practical applications of knowledge.
 
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Endowments have absolutely nothing to do with how good a school is.
Its completely foolish to even suggest this.

So you don't think that endowments have anything to do with how successful a school's alumni are, the sense of engagement, and attachment that the school fostered when they attended, and how much they attributed their success to that school (giving back). I would think that that is the case in many instances, and it would be one (of many) measurable indicators of how "good" a school is.
 

CL82

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I wasn't really replying to that part. Just to "Wokey."

I'm sure he did contemplate it a lot though since similar programs are already in place in surrounding states, and the schools have been mostly funding them.
Maybe, but as you well know, "contemplating" things doesn't make them a reality. He needed to vet it with the board, make sure if was consistent with their long term planning. He also needed to line up support before going public. It appears that things did not happen and, predictably, tainted his relationship with the board.
 
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Free education nationwide would cost roughly twice what we pay for national parks. There are 9 million college students in the US currently with an average public tuition of $7,600. We pay so much more for things that are not as integral to the well-being of the country.
The cost for Uconn in state with fees/insurance/room & board is almost 35k....The tuition alone is almost 2x your number. Kids need food and a place to live, so saying all it will cost is 7k is disingenous
 

CL82

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You are generalizing way too much here. Someone teaching philosophy 101 doesn't need to be a researcher.
Do philosophy professor research anything?
 
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Do philosophy professor research anything?

Depends. If you're someone who studies ancient philosophy, easter, meso-american, whatever it's "research" a lot more like a history degree than anything.

People in political theory are synthesizing ideas and creating their own, so it's really more "scholarship" than "research" per se.

My fiance is definitely on the "scholarship" side fwiw. She does a lot of comparing old perspective in her field, and comparing ideas, but the bulk of her work is her own theories. Generally in job posting they kind of default to a requirement for an "active research agenda" listed, so I think they tend to use research as a catch-all for the humanities.
 
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Endowments have absolutely nothing to do with how good a school is.
Its completely foolish to even suggest this.
UCONN's endowment is relatively small because the wealthy people here have a long history of going to and supporting private schools. Just a fckup CT/NE thing. They think UCONN doesn;t need or deserve the money and that they'll just get if from the state.
This mindset doesnt exist in the midwest or SE or Texas etc.
UCONN academically is already as good or nearly as good as most state schools with the exception of the obvious Michigan, VA, UCLA etc.
Endowment has no bearing or insight into how good a school is. It only tells you how "rich" they are.
Endowments have everything to do with the financial health and alumni support of a University. UConn is poorly run when it comes to it's finances. Bonding, taxpayers and tuition increases fund UConn.
Academically it is a good University but if the well runs dry it will eventually impact the quality of education. Let's hope that does not happen.
 
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I believe there is a stigma among some within the state that private colleges/universities are better. I also believe that a large portion of our wealthier residents (who have the means to support/advocate/donate) shun UConn for smaller schools or out of state schools. Maybe I’m completely off base with these opinions but that’s just what I seem to notice.
Probably true. Massachusetts has the same issue. There are a lot of private schools in the Northeast. Very highly regarded ones too. That doesn't exist to the same extent in most of the country.
 
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I also notice that Connecticut generally lacks investing in things until it’s to late. I know we are speaking strictly to UConn in this thread but Let’s take our cities as another example. Decades of disinvestment and a lack of planning caused our central business districts to decline. Then cities all became the rave nationwide and we were stuck. Look at GE for example, they would have stayed in CT if we had a city of similar caliber to Boston. It had nothing to do with tax policy, CT was prepared to throw anything at them from a financial standpoint. They wanted the amenities, infrastructure and the talent that we don’t provide as a state.

same thing can be said from an airport standpoint. How the hell does southwestern Connecticut not have a decent functioning airport? Approximately two million people in Fairfield and New Haven Counties and we have to go all the way to Queens or Windsor Locks for a flight? What other metro with that critical mass of people has to go that far? It’s too late now though because no one who lives near Sikorsky, Oxford or Tweed now will ever let the growth of an airport happen.

shortsightedness has been Connecticut’s strength for sometime.
 
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People just love to on CT for a reason. I see a lot of mentions regarding Connecticut being broke, but from what I have read, we will have a budget surplus this year plus our rainy day fund is at the highest level it's ever been.

Issue is that people are afraid to fully commit to what will make this state a destination for people. Cheap/free higher education, large amounts of affordable housing, high speed rail between NY and MA, Free health care.

Yes, all of these matters will cost quite a bit of money up front, but they will pay for themselves down the line. Like I mentioned before, if we want CT and UConn to be a destination of choice, then we need to go all in and stop with all these half ass measures.
 
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People just love to on CT for a reason. I see a lot of mentions regarding Connecticut being broke, but from what I have read, we will have a budget surplus this year plus our rainy day fund is at the highest level it's ever been.

Issue is that people are afraid to fully commit to what will make this state a destination for people. Cheap/free higher education, large amounts of affordable housing, high speed rail between NY and MA, Free health care.

Yes, all of these matters will cost quite a bit of money up front, but they will pay for themselves down the line. Like I mentioned before, if we want CT and UConn to be a destination of choice, then we need to go all in and stop with all these half ass measures.
Agreed some infrastructure improvements are drastically needed but if you analyze the census data the reason people are flooding to states like Texas and Florida are lower costs of living and less taxation, not cheap education or top notch transportation. We almost have to view MA and NY as our financial enemies, do the opposite of what they do or else businesses and families will see no reason to settle here. Allow CT to be an undeniable safe haven for businesses and taxpayers.
 
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Agreed some infrastructure improvements are drastically needed but if you analyze the census data the reason people are flooding to states like Texas and Florida are lower costs of living and less taxation, not cheap education or top notch transportation. We almost have to view MA and NY as our financial enemies, do the opposite of what they do or else businesses and families will see no reason to settle here. Allow CT to be an undeniable safe haven for businesses and taxpayers.
Cut way way back or better yet ELIMINATE the entitlements and reduce taxes. People will stay and/or move to CT.
 

Chin Diesel

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People just love to on CT for a reason. I see a lot of mentions regarding Connecticut being broke, but from what I have read, we will have a budget surplus this year plus our rainy day fund is at the highest level it's ever been.

Issue is that people are afraid to fully commit to what will make this state a destination for people. Cheap/free higher education, large amounts of affordable housing, high speed rail between NY and MA, Free health care.

Yes, all of these matters will cost quite a bit of money up front, but they will pay for themselves down the line. Like I mentioned before, if we want CT and UConn to be a destination of choice, then we need to go all in and stop with all these half ass measures.

Dilemma is there aren't enough residents who want those services who can pay the taxes to support those services. And those who do make enough money to support paying the taxes for that can move and live the lifestyle they want anywhere in the country without having to pay those taxes.
 

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