GP1 Posted November 9 Report Share Posted November 9 57 minutes ago, egregiousbob said: As for current round of budget cuts, I have heard there's growing sentiment among trustees and the administration that it's time to de-emphasize football. Simply no ROI in the existing business case. How could they make it less emphasized? Seems almost impossible. What other MAC schools are getting a return on their football investments? At the most, zero. Sounds like we need new blood on the board with a better vision of how an athletic department benefits the athletes students alumni fans and general community around Akron. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ZipCat Posted November 9 Author Report Share Posted November 9 39 minutes ago, GP1 said: Sounds like we need new blood on the board with a better vision of how an athletic department benefits the athletes students alumni fans and general community around Akron. Does it actually benefit the alumni and general community around Akron? I wouldn't trust any financial analysis that said it did further than I could wipe my own ass with it. The only ones it truly benefits is administrators to pad their resumes, and people with coaching/sports-fitness degrees because it keeps a lot of them employed. If it comes down to cutting teachers/professors or cutting coaches/sport-fitness folks ... the choice should be pretty clar. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
GP1 Posted November 9 Report Share Posted November 9 2 minutes ago, ZipCat said: Does it actually benefit the alumni and general community around Akron? It is not. There in lies the problem. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sergeant Zip Posted November 25 Report Share Posted November 25 From Signal Akron, proposed cuts of 10 faculty members in polymer science are part of a list of more than 30 faculty members that could be let go. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ClevelandZip Posted November 25 Report Share Posted November 25 32 minutes ago, Sergeant Zip said: From Signal Akron, proposed cuts of 10 faculty members in polymer science are part of a list of more than 30 faculty members that could be let go. Cutting 10 of 19 of the professors in our most well renown program seems like a huge mistake. Hope someone talks some sense into these people. 3 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
zip-O-matic Posted November 26 Report Share Posted November 26 Didn't Duke show up a few years ago and poach our best professors who took their doctoral students and research funding with them? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
UAZipster0305 Posted November 27 Report Share Posted November 27 On 11/26/2024 at 12:43 AM, zip-O-matic said: Didn't Duke show up a few years ago and poach our best professors who took their doctoral students and research funding with them? I thought that was about a decade ago. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
UAZipster0305 Posted November 27 Report Share Posted November 27 On 11/25/2024 at 1:57 PM, ClevelandZip said: Cutting 10 of 19 of the professors in our most well renown program seems like a huge mistake. Hope someone talks some sense into these people. Our leadership for the past fifteen years has to be some of the most incompetent at any Ohio university all-time. Sadly, this example demonstrates it's just continuing. 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hilltopper Posted November 28 Report Share Posted November 28 I'm hearing the professor to student ratio is way out of whack in the polymer program. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
adzip Posted November 28 Report Share Posted November 28 Guess is the students are not there because of the drop off in international students nationally. The graduate programs in Polymer Science are heavily made up of foreign students. Without them, many classes would be literally empty. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
zippy-claws Posted November 29 Report Share Posted November 29 On 11/28/2024 at 9:41 AM, Hilltopper said: I'm hearing the professor to student ratio is way out of whack in the polymer program. 22 hours ago, adzip said: Guess is the students are not there because of the drop off in international students nationally. The graduate programs in Polymer Science are heavily made up of foreign students. Without them, many classes would be literally empty. I concur with both of these posts. Being retired from the plastics and polymer business as a chemist in my "previous life" I have witnessed a steady decline in the original intent of this department and program. What was originally designed to train not only PhD candidates but undergrads and associate degree seekers to help populate a need for engineers, chemists and technicians slowly changed to a highly PhD driven program with most candidates from overseas. My company, as well as several other prominent Polymer companies donated cash and equipment, plus co-op opportunities and internships, hoping to see a return in employable, polymer science trained candidates for our industry. Even the American Chemical Society and it's Rubber Division, as well as the local Rubber Groups professional societies endorsed the programs and also provided financial support. But that supply dwindled as did support, as a lot of the rubber, plastics and polymer companies left the area. When we attended our daughter's graduation 5 years back the Polymer Science doctoral stoles were awarded, and reading the abstracts of their doctoral theses I was bemused at the subject matter and research, and thought how far away from the original intent they had strayed. And Hilltopper is right, it was a school top-heavy in Profs. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
zip-O-matic Posted November 29 Report Share Posted November 29 2 hours ago, zippy-claws said: I concur with both of these posts. Being retired from the plastics and polymer business as a chemist in my "previous life" I have witnessed a steady decline in the original intent of this department and program. What was originally designed to train not only PhD candidates but undergrads and associate degree seekers to help populate a need for engineers, chemists and technicians slowly changed to a highly PhD driven program with most candidates from overseas. My company, as well as several other prominent Polymer companies donated cash and equipment, plus co-op opportunities and internships, hoping to see a return in employable, polymer science trained candidates for our industry. Even the American Chemical Society and it's Rubber Division, as well as the local Rubber Groups professional societies endorsed the programs and also provided financial support. But that supply dwindled as did support, as a lot of the rubber, plastics and polymer companies left the area. When we attended our daughter's graduation 5 years back the Polymer Science doctoral stoles were awarded, and reading the abstracts of their doctoral theses I was bemused at the subject matter and research, and thought how far away from the original intent they had strayed. And Hilltopper is right, it was a school top-heavy in Profs. Don't know a lot of the internals and history of the program, but it seems like a program meant to support the region's businesses that ended up with dreams of turning itself into Berkeley and winning Nobels. My hunch would be that this was, to some degree, Proenza driven. All that seemed to happen is that we lavished attention on a group of faculty who managed to catch Duke's eye and then bail on UA. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ZipCat Posted December 5 Author Report Share Posted December 5 On 11/25/2024 at 1:57 PM, ClevelandZip said: Cutting 10 of 19 of the professors in our most well renown program seems like a huge mistake. Hope someone talks some sense into these people. CEO brainrot. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts
Join the conversation
You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.
Note: Your post will require moderator approval before it will be visible.