Balsy

I'm very curious about what "filled positions" means, if anyone could enlighten me.

Does 1350 ever post the podcasts? I'm going to be in a lab for the rest of the day

Not that I'm defending A-Zip, or that I'm against UA athletics...but it is a lot to do about something. $800 a year going to athletics is absurd. It's even more absurd when the main product of your college (education...or at least it should be education) is being taught by instructors whom are not contingent-faculty (meaning that they are part-time, non tenure track, and don't have a personal investment in the university, or frankly the students). I graduated from UA only a couple of years ago, and had to deal a lot with the part-timers. The quality between them and full-time faculty was huge. The classes I had with run by part-time non-contingent faculty weren't even in the same league as the others. Not to mention with fewer full-time faculty, there's fewer mentors avialable to students to find in departments. All this talk about "cost savings for students" and demands from legislatures to reduce cost savings for students, impacts the educational quality of the students; by cutting full-time faculty and incorporating online classes.

haha, now you finally understand Dave

Even worse. Making comments about a situation that you do not have all the information on.

a-zip, I'm pretty sure I'm the only one here who thinks TB is here to stay, and I stand by that sentiment that he'll retire from coaching as an Akron Zip. As for everything else you say...we're not mischaracterizing you or Scarborough. I'm pointing out that Scarborough's comments are not that of a good leader. He's leading from behind, and hasn't proposed anything of merit in regards with how to deal with the reality of our athletics situation. If it's such an important issue, which it seems to be important enough to warrant a statement that he wouldn't have built THAT stadium, than what's the plan SS? Cue the crickets because he apparently doesn't have one. SS deserves the criticism.

It doesn't matter if we shouldn't have built that stadium, because the reality is that we have that stadium, and none of this negative press or perceptions could have been predicted. So, as a leader of an institution that has THAT stadium, you need to rise to it. A leader is supposed to rise the occasion. Scarborough seems to love plans and initiatives, what are his plans and initiatives foor THAT stadium? Oh...it's to go out and blame other people, and to do nothing. Poor, poor, poor leadership.

I have a novel idea for the state legislature; stop cutting funding from state schools in order to fill the gap left in the budget by massive tax cuts. My tuition, city and county taxes have all been increased as a direct result of the sweeping tax "cuts" made by the state in the last decade. It's hardly a cut, if it causes the price other service to increase.

Everything Scarborough has dones has pretty much shown he's a poor leader. This recent bumble is just icing on the cake. The problem with the NCAA article is that it didn't address, or bring up the other factors that likely were the biggest contributors to the decrease in attendance. As written the article would leave the reader to believe that Akron has lost attendance because it's...well, Akron. Kick them while they're down who cares about facts? Where as the like contributor to why Akron was worst is the weekday games, and not the team. If that weren't the case, Akron should have won the title of least attendance after 3-33.

What you just described already existed in Post Secondary, without the selection of a college choice. There are CCP classes offered through districts, as required by the law, classes that are alligned with a major or career pathway. These CCP courses that are offered through the district must be identical to a cooperating institution's in regards to curriculum of a participant university. Akron, for example, is a partner organization. For a Biomedical pathway, the class UA offers as a CCP class that can be taught at local highschools by the schools staff is called "Natural Science Biology". It's a 3 credit, non-lab based biology course, for non biology majors. The AP Biology curriculum is that of a major level biology, lab based course. A student interested in taking the dual-credit biology course through the school might do so believing they are completing the standard Bio-I class. They are not. Now, if that student were interested in Nursing, and only Nursing, the credit they recieve for Natural Science Biology would benefit them. If, for example, that student were to later consider changing majors (to another biology, or life-science based field that requires completion of a standard lab based biology course), the student will not have credit for completion of the course at the college level. We're both talking about the same thing here Hilltopper. The parts which you refered to already existed in PSEOP (Post Secondary) and have been added to CCP. I'm refering to the pathways, which I find potentially misleading to parents and students. And it worries me that some of my students may end up taking a biology, or other science course, that won't end up best serving their future career interests. I hope that clarrifies my stance on CCP, and not an evil teacher out to make a little extra money.

It's also the destruction of education as we know it. HS students should be taking HS classes. College students should be taking college classes. If we want to make college affordable, than that's a discussion we should have as a society. I'm a high school science teacher. Though College Credit Plus sounds good, in principal, the quality of education the students are recieving is not the same quality. Everyone in my department is against this push. Why you'd might ask? We already have classes for students to get college credit: it's called AP. There's already a system called post secondary, which costs students nothing. Our AP curriculum is 100x better than the College Credit Plus curriculum, and it better prepares students for the field of work. Sorry about the rant, but it's important to know an educators perspective on this.

Good take zip-O-matic. I'd like to see Scarborough role out a plan on how to better our educational quality. So far I've only seen him role out a plan to reduce educational quality. I'll confess my bias, I don't believe online courses and MOOCs are positive for education, especially in the early college freshman year courses. Those are the courses that you should rely on heavily for the next 3 years of your college education, not slop through a slopped together course to gain credit. Many here have mentioned that those entry level courses are a joke, and I agree with them. But should they be? That's where we should start. Improving the quality of those courses. I think she hits a homerun on the faculty issue though. We need less administrators, who seem to jump ship all the time, and more tenured faculty who are deeply invested in the university.

A distinguished professor at UA's response to Scarborough's rebranding.

If it's 17k, I'll take the over.

Unfortunately I have to defend Lee Adams on his point about the students. Yes, you will always find students at every school who feel negatively towards athletics...but at Akron, trust me when I say this, it is not the minority. When students learn that $800 of their $5000 tuition goes to athletics, that does seem ridiculous. However, they rarely have it in context of what other schools are doing...YSU's is more than ours. Most students at UA while I was there, were there to get a degree, and worked several jobs at the same time. Now it might have changed since I graduated 2 years ago...(don't hold your breath). This is why I think it's of the utmost importance to engage current students, student run groups, and work with them to find a way to get them involved. THAT's the innovative thinking we need. THAT's the leadership we need. We do not need a leader who's looking backwards, we need one who's looking forward.

We're not people bashing, we're criticizing poor leadership. There is a difference. Scarborough befell himself to hindsight bias. He can say all he wants about what he would have done, knowing what the football program has done since the stadium was built, but that's not being a leader. A leader looks at the CURRENT situtation and works with it, innovates with it, builds with it, makes it work. THAT is a leader. Scarborough is leading from behind by saying "I wouldn't have built THAT stadium". It's very poor leadership, because the stadium and football programs are current realities, that aren't going away.

I completely agree LZip. I think attendance at all major, home, sporting events should be mandatory. What I meant by my comment of the NEO community's perception is if we're the type of school people would look to come to to be a part of something like a Cadet Corps. I hardly think because akron now is 1 of 3 schools in the nation to have a Cadet Corps, it's going to magically win over some people to come to Akron. I do think NEO has a positive look at UA for engineering, nursing and polymer science, but are those students going to be attracted to a "Cadet Corps". I also think NEO views Akron as a regional campus for students in Summit, Medina, Wayne, to commute too. I know there's a desperate attempt to make Akron not a commuter school...but the reality at present IMO, is that more students are looking to commute to local colleges than less, and that students aren't going to consider living at a school if it doesn't have the program they're looking for. Improving All of Ohio's view of Akron starts in academics IMHO, not with adding leadership opportunities. I like the creativity, don't get me wrong. I'm very hopeful it's going to be a very positive addition to an already robust UA student life. The press release said it was going to include the Glee squad (off which there are many on campus) and I think that's a fantastic idea, I've been calling for that for a long time. Give Current student-run organizations the opportunity to get involved. I'm just skeptical, until proven otherwise, that this is really going to be effective.

I like the potential of this...but this seems like it has huge bust potential. This is a unique idea that has the opportunity to increase student involvement with something related to UA, which is something all of us have been scratching our heads about for sometime. Since it is not limited to members of the armed services, and open to other potential leaders or students with leadership capabilities, it's very inclusive. If paired with the new Roo spirit group that is supposed to be at the games to help pump up the crowd, there's a lot of potential (if well organized, and some forward thinking/revolutionary thinkers are included) to become something very special. On the flip side: It also seems that Scarborough is completely ignoring what UA is to the NEO community. This entire Cadet Corps thing doesn't fit with NEO's perception of the University. Now that perception could change...I'm highly skeptical of that. If it's not highly organized, and planned with a high level of forward/revolutionary thinking, this will bust. I could be wrong, it'll be interesting to see. The students section might -- strong emphasis on might -- look like it's more engaged in games if you have the AK Rowdies, the Band and the Cadet Corps in three sections next to each other. I have my doubts.

Attendance will be largely based on the weather IMO. If it's like our normal home openings, the weather will be perfect. 22k. If we beat OU, 25k.

Huh, that's funny. He cowardly snuck out the back door of Buchtel Hall when concerned students/alumni/staff were protesting on his doorstep. He's approachable when it's convenient for him and his narrative.

From personal experience working as a student member of an organization that brings thousands of people to the UA campus for an event that raises money for cancer research, UA is unbearably difficult to deal with when it comes to athletic facilities.

Jon Teske, from my home town.

Did his father graduate from college? If not we should offer him a freakin scholarship...that guy is huge!

Which is why I was advocating a smart strategy instead of a money wasting one. It's obviously a business that they're in for some sort of recognition nationwide outside of academics. Why not advocate for a cheaper, far more productive, strategy? You cannot tell me the cost of having football is somehow on par with what we gain from having football. Number of fans or not, the benefit really doesn't seem to be there. I love football, I will continue supporting athletics. But the contention still stands there that a possible alternative to building a brand new $65-million dollar stadium, was getting rid of the program.

HAD to build a new stadium? Did we have to? We could have pulled a UAB and just gotten rid of the program entirely, focusing our resources instead on a National Championship calibur soccer team and a emerging MAC basketball program. But hindsight is 20/20. Correct me if I'm wrong, but the movement to build a stadium on campus wasn't overnight.