Thank you, Dr. Rayborn - USM Forum -- Message Board

Date: Mar 2, 2005

Thank you, Dr. Rayborn

Date: Mar 2, 2005

If you think the $$ saved from dismantling Continuing Education will be put toward saving the Masters in Physics program, then I have some swamp land in Florida to sell you.

Date: Mar 2, 2005

Date: Mar 2, 2005

Mr. Johnson, are you the W.J. Johnson from up around Iuka that they used to call Oink Johnson? He got his nickname because even his momma said he loked like a pig. If so, you have done well boy. I never would have thought you would learn how to use a computer. I can't remember when Oink quit school, but it must have been about the sixth grade. I remember he was shaving by the time he quit.

Date: Mar 2, 2005

A neighbor of mine works at William Carey on the Coast and showed me this message board. I have been watching you all complain about your lot in life for about a week, and I have seen you attack this W.J. Johnson character. I cannot understand how anyone could oppose a move to cut a program with so little interest. Mississippi does not have the funds to let every professor teach exactly what he wants to teach. The IHL should dictate what will and will not be taught, and professors should do as they are told and teach what is assigned to them. Spend your time doing whatever research you like, but stop wasting taxpayer money on your pet projects that teach four or five students. Incan literature from 1200 AD - 1400 AD may be a fascinating subject, but our kids need to master basic skills before they graduate. What good does it do to have kids that have read such obscure writings, yet they themselves cannot string together a coherent sentence? Why cater to five physics graduate students when there are a hundred undergraduates that need better physics instruction? Stop the complaining and angling to get a better lot in life and focus on your real job: educating our young people.

John R. Anderson
Resident and Taxpayer, Mississippi Gulf Coast

Date: Mar 2, 2005

Students should not be coming to college to learn to string together a coherent sentence. They should learn that in elementary school, or at least by high school. It's not a university's job (or at least it wasn't supposed to be) to provide that level of basic education. The university exists to provide advanced training and education. It's not a vocational school, it's not a grammar school. We're losing sight of that idea.

Date: Mar 2, 2005

quote:
Originally posted by: W.J. Johnson
"I know I speak for several of us in the private sector in thanking Dr. Rayborn for commenting on some of the issues related to the masters program in physics. Many on this board are jumping for joy at the idea that a real science program looks to be in trouble, Dr. Rayborn, but your message might hopefully breathe new life into the efforts of those who are fighting desperately to keep this important program alive. Dr. Malone's move the other day to strike continuing education will probably free enough funds to keep the program alive until Spring of 2006. Some of us will be working until then to raise endowment funds to support the program after that. Once again, thank you Dr. Rayborn for supporting this program even in your retirement. Your efforts on USM's behalf are very important to Dr. Thames. I'm sure you know that now through contacts with him. Finally, I would also like to thank you for your work in having Dr. Thames installed as President of Southern. I believe I again speak for all of the supporters of Dr. Thames in extending this long overdue thank you."

That's interesting.

Grayson Rayborn said that he made a couple of phone calls trying to prevent Shelby Thames' "elevation to the presidency."

RC

Date: Mar 2, 2005

Mr. Anderson,

Just why do you think the kids can't write a coherent sentence? What do you think about public education in Mississippi? What do you think about out public school teachers?

The skills you describe are skills that should have been mastered in junior high or high school. If you want to save money at the university, put it into our public schools and into teacher salaries in order to draw the highest quality person into elementary and high school teaching. Remedial work should not be the job of universities, but in Mississippi it has become just that.

The university you are describing--the one you want--is a high school.

By the way, the teachers on the board (both pre-college and university) are not complaining about their lot in life. They love what they do. They want the system to function so that they can do their jobs.

Date: Mar 2, 2005

quote:
Originally posted by: Former teacher
"The university you are describing--the one you want--is a high school.
"

We already have a system of 15 postsecondary institutions that are well-equipped for remediating those who have made it through K-12 schools without learning to write a complete sentence. Those institutions are called community colleges & the more I think about it, the more I believe that that's what the "Klumb faction" on the IHL board sees as USM's future mission: a 4-year community college.

This is an insult not only to USM but to the community colleges. And if taxpayers really want to complain, they should raise holy hell about universities offering remedial classes at all. If a student cannot do college-level work, that student should go to a community college, where there are developmental studies programs that already have many decades of experience. Community colleges also offer 1- and 2-year occupational programs for students who are not "university material" no matter how much they are remediated.

The very fact that IHL wants to move selected universities into the direction of providing pre-college level remediation & glorified A.A.S. technical programs is insulting to me as a taxpayer. And I don't give a rat's ass what Judge Biggers said in the Ayers case -- if a student can't do college work, that student has no business being in a university soaking up taxpayer money to "learn" stuff s/he ignored for 13 years.

Date: Mar 2, 2005

I'm more and more convinced that "W.J. Johnson" is really an anti-Thames person who is having some fun. Nobody could write this kind of stuff with a straight face. I'm embarrassed that I took him seriously at first, although, now that I have figured out the joke, I am enjoying reading his posts.

Date: Mar 2, 2005

quote:
Originally posted by: USM Sympathizer
"I'm more and more convinced that "W.J. Johnson" is really an anti-Thames person who is having some fun. Nobody could write this kind of stuff with a straight face. I'm embarrassed that I took him seriously at first, although, now that I have figured out the joke, I am enjoying reading his posts."

And "John R. Anderson" is his evil twin brother!

Date: Mar 2, 2005

quote:
Originally posted by: John R. Anderson
"A neighbor of mine works at William Carey on the Coast and showed me this message board. I have been watching you all complain about your lot in life for about a week, and I have seen you attack this W.J. Johnson character. I cannot understand how anyone could oppose a move to cut a program with so little interest. Mississippi does not have the funds to let every professor teach exactly what he wants to teach. The IHL should dictate what will and will not be taught, and professors should do as they are told and teach what is assigned to them. Spend your time doing whatever research you like, but stop wasting taxpayer money on your pet projects that teach four or five students. Incan literature from 1200 AD - 1400 AD may be a fascinating subject, but our kids need to master basic skills before they graduate. What good does it do to have kids that have read such obscure writings, yet they themselves cannot string together a coherent sentence? Why cater to five physics graduate students when there are a hundred undergraduates that need better physics instruction? Stop the complaining and angling to get a better lot in life and focus on your real job: educating our young people.

John R. Anderson
Resident and Taxpayer, Mississippi Gulf Coast"

I went to a MS public school for all grades, and I have never gotten below a B on any paper I have written....If I had ever had to sit through "basic skills" instruction in a college level class, I would have been P****D! All of the programs you are blasting are exactly the type of thing you SHOULD find at a university....the problem with today's students entering college is that they goofed off in high school and they come to college expecting to learn those things. I'm sorry, but I sat through the same classes as all of my peers in high school, I got everything I needed, if they didn't oh well!

Anyway, you are obviously a troll, whether you post your name or not...no educated person would expect to learn basic skills in college.

Date: Mar 2, 2005

quote:
Originally posted by: USM Sympathizer
"I'm more and more convinced that "W.J. Johnson" is really an anti-Thames person who is having some fun. Nobody could write this kind of stuff with a straight face. I'm embarrassed that I took him seriously at first, although, now that I have figured out the joke, I am enjoying reading his posts."

I agree. The names Johnson and Anderson are as common as Smith and Jones. Doesn't surprise me that a jester or a troll would use any of those names.

Date: Mar 2, 2005

Invictus is right. I work at a community college in the Florida system and our state legislature mandated that remedial work is only the purview of the community college -- that has the mission of remedial education as one of its principles. I was still in Mississippi when the Ayres decision came about and I believed at that moment the community colleges were the places where this remediation should take place. Universities are for the scholarly pursuit of learning. If a student doesn't have the basics, he or she will not be able to compete or, most importantly, learn and thus be successful. The state universities in Florida have ACT/SAT minimum requirements and minimum high school GPA requirements. These are not on a sliding scale, they are cut scores. A student must have BOTH to be accepted and if he or she is not accepted, he or she may go to a community college where there is a state-wide articulation agreement. This articulation agreement states that if a community college graduate has his or her A.A. degree AND has the prerequisites for the program he plans to pursue at the university (these are state articulated common prerequisites, too), he is guaranteed acceptance at a state university as a junior and will not have to take any more general ed courses. This guaranteed acceptance does not mean that he or she will be guaranteed acceptance into say, FSU but would be guaranteed acceptance at one of the 10 universities.

A university, a community college, a high school, a liberal arts college, and a technical school ALL have different missions and all can fill a specific niche IF the leadership of the institution defines this niche and articulates it throughout the institution. Everyone has to buy into this and if there is no definition, or no clear articulation, or buy-in from everyone, there is disorganization. No business would be run this way and no postsecondary institution should be run this way.

Date: Mar 2, 2005

Hey, LOL.........you all are fogetting the "key" here to USM's new venture into remedial "bonehead" developmental classes, the very quantity of which required some outsourcing to take care of all them I understand.

20,000 students by 2007 !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Come on, now, that wasn't hard to figure out.

Date: Mar 3, 2005

quote:
Originally posted by: John R. Anderson
"A neighbor of mine ...."

WJ how many times do I have to tell ya. It does no good to use a different name to post here. Your IP (and probably your computer name if you use Windows) remains the same each time you post.