Posted on 06/29/2011 4:27:55 PM PDT by Texas Fossil
Rick Perry is waging an undeclared war on higher education—in particular, on the state’s two flagship institutions, the University of Texas and his own alma mater, Texas A&M. He has delegated higher education policy to the Texas Public Policy Foundation, an Austin-based conservative think tank, which has produced an ideological blueprint for how the state’s universities should be governed. The objectives are accountability, transparency, and productivity. Several of the TPPF’s recommendations have already been put into practice at Texas A&M. UT has resisted so far, but the administrators I spoke with believe the battle is likely to be a losing one.
(Excerpt) Read more at texasmonthly.com ...
Already been applied to A&M, but UT resists?
The author thinks this is a horrible thing Rick Perry is pushing, but I simply do not see the problem.
What do you think?
(Texas Monthly carries the state's name, but is far from representative of the citizen's attitudes. Much too liberal)
Now, I'm watching.
Texas Monthly is produced by old hippies who graduated from UT in the 60s and who still think they are relevant, even though the rest of the state has utterly rejected their Leftist agenda. The GOP is governing the state with a super majority of 101 legislators, and the Democrats are powerless.
You can now subscribe to TM for $5/yr. Without ads on every page, they’d be out of business.
It’s not as if they are private Universities. This doesn’t apply to TCU, Baylor, SMU and the like, only state Universities.
How is this like Romney? I deplore Romney and all the big government insanity he represents.
Texas is nothing like Mass.
Rick, with all his warts, is no liberal. The state of "higher education" is as bad as you described, especially UT. "That bastion of liberalism", in the heart of Texas.
Higher Ed in a nutshell. Tenured faculty get paid to do nothing other than pen doodles on items no one cares about.
The reason higher ed academicians are so passionate when they discuss policy is because there is so little at stake.
Agreed, totally.
You may be responding to a troll...
I agree with your statements. But there are good professors in both institutions.
UT is the seat of liberalism in the State of Texas.
That is why the old hippies at Texas Monthly see this as such a horrible development.
Yeah, I just wasted some time this morning replying to a Dallas Morning News columnist who was dissing Perry because: well, that’s what the DMN does.
He said Perry had ticked off businessmen and UT and A&M supporters. I had to read this article to know what he was talking about.
The whole column was just vague insults with no names, just ‘some top businessmen’. I challenged him and he came up with one name, apparently a guy Bush gave a post to and Perry did not.
He seemed to feel or at least imply that colleges are sacred and should not be investigated or held accountable.
I disagree. I think they are over-rated and should be held accountable. They are expensive enough to withstand a little scrutiny. He is also questioning some of the research done at these colleges, about dang time.
So much research is either frivolous or trivial or driving by a desire to get a certain result.
TNX
I meant Perry is questioning the research not the columnist a Wm. McKenzie by name.
the only place to read the Texas Monthly is in your doctor’s office.
Apparently the magazine supplies copies to doctors for free.
Because it costs money. Sandefer has written that academic research consumes two thirds of every dollar spent in American universities. Once the public sees how much more money is spent on research than on teaching, it will demand that spending on research be cut. This is why, to the UT brass, splitting budgets amounts to a frontal attack on the classic model of a research university. “Teaching and research are inextricably linked,” UT president Bill Powers told me. “Splitting the research and teaching budgets devalues the synergy between two essential components that are the essence of a world-class institution.”************
Strange how the university administrators and faculty don’t think the public who funds the university should be made aware of the way their tax dollars are being spent. Clearly the “classic model of a research university” is nothing more than a ruse designed to avoid any sense of accountability.
It’s well past time for higher education to get over the entitlement and elitist complex that characterizes the entire system.
We are on the same page.
I graduated from West Texas State, before it was absorbed by A&M. Surrogate Aggie, as I tell some people.
The culture of West Texas was very much like A&M “was”. Have no problem with that change.
Never liked or identified with UT. Much of Austin & UT are both black marks against the rest of the State in my opinion.
I read the article in the doctors office today. I took my son for an office visit and that was exactly why I saw the article. hee hee hee
Yep, it is.
Fossil, I completely agree with your assessment.
Regarding TM, I used to be a subscriber, but it turned in to such a liberal rag with no content except for ads that I told them to stuff it.
It became sooo predictable, the same old liberals good, conservatives bad attitude.
Texas Monthly has been raging against conservatives for almost 40 years. It’s a liberal rag, through and through - no liberal Democrat is left-wing enough for it. Anything it says, believe the precise opposite (i.e. its stringers will leave out important facts that refute the basic premises of their essays).
It wouldn't surprise me if "research" budgets were slush funds spent on the academic staff's personal household projects. This is a massive boondoggle that needs pruning, and soon.
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