Amy Young, check this out.... - USM Forum -- Message Board

Date: Dec 9, 2005

Amy Young, check this out....

Date: Dec 9, 2005

so were these two of the ones that voted no?

was this info in writing?

Date: Dec 9, 2005

It's even worse than that. Shelby could keep the money if he and HD would just leave us alone. Nobody wants to touch this program with a bargepole. The $1 mil is supposedly spread out over 5 years and will be a bigger waste of money than the new lightpoles. $ for a program no one wants to teach in that will have fewer students than a graduate seminar in thermodynamics. [Theme song from the Twilight Zone playing in the background].

Date: Dec 10, 2005

leaf wrote:

so were these two of the ones that voted no? was this info in writing?

Leaf, my guess is that it wasn't "two," but "one" or "three." Also, it wasn't at a "restaurant," but a "Christmas party" or something. When there is info to report, where it was learned is often disguised to protect people. It's the info in the post that we need to consider.

As someone in the COAL, this sounds bad. It is also something I considered all along. It should be looked into by Faculty Senate.

Date: Dec 10, 2005

kickball wrote:

It's even worse than that. Shelby could keep the money if he and HD would just leave us alone. Nobody wants to touch this program with a bargepole. The $1 mil is supposedly spread out over 5 years and will be a bigger waste of money than the new lightpoles. $ for a program no one wants to teach in that will have fewer students than a graduate seminar in thermodynamics. [Theme song from the Twilight Zone playing in the background].

Ahem!!! A vote of 47-14-1 doesn't sound like "nobody" wants to be associated with this. Remember that most of these courses will be taught in the classroom, taped for supplementary viewing over the Web, and that no one is forced to choose the on-line over the inclass format. The alternative seems to be to discontinue the offering of the 500 level courses, and require those wishing entry into the MBA program to take one or two undergraduate courses in each area to provide the necessary foundation. Wouldn't that just be dandy, requiring those with perhaps years of experience and undergraduate degrees to go back and take a number of 2/3 hundred level courses! Be cools, guys, the sky is not falling!

Date: Dec 10, 2005

The truth about this program is that it affects 6 faculty right now. Of those 6 none was burning with desire to teach his or her class on line. They were told by the deans office that they needed to participate. In the biz school meeting there were 61 votes. That means that 55 people who are not affected directly by this program voted to affect the teaching load of the other 6. Ill bet it feels good to have your fellow profs tell you how to teach your classes. The real travesty in all of this is that before the vote yesterday one of the courses was already offered for next spring and had students enrolled. Thats right. Doty didnt wait for a faculty vote to start offering those classes online. Thats in addition to not having proper departmental votes prior to the first graduate commission vote. The departments didnt all vote before the Friday faculty meeting. One department still hasnt voted. This process was screwed up from the beginning. Next time you hear how Doty is a champion for faculty governance just remember that he took advantage of 6 of his faculty by ignoring process and intimidating younger/vulnerable faculty.

Date: Dec 10, 2005

The students in the 500 level courses are those without business undergraduate degrees. The courses serve two purposes. The first is for these students to "catch up" with their future classmates. The second is to weed out the ones that can't cut it (the English majors that can't do numbers and the engineers that can't handle the fuzziness of management). In the bad old days these students took 18 hours of undergraduate course work to catch up. This actually worked pretty well. The good ones caught up and the ones that couldn't do it got weeded out. In the 500 courses, fewer and fewer students got weeded as instructors were reluctant to give two Cs in a three person class even if it was merited. A preMBA in a 70 person stat class that got a C just got a C. Now we'll have English majors trying to learn stat with no real teacher. I'm sure that will work great. This is compounded by the tendency to put less experienced or less talented teachers in these classes as they do less harm with so few students. Add in an astronomical cost per SCH and this idea looks like a real winner.

Date: Dec 10, 2005

500 veteran wrote:

The courses serve two purposes ......The second is to weed out the ones that can't cut it (the English majors that can't do numbers

Veteran, do you know what the undergraduate majors of the CEO's of Fortune 500 companies throughout the years have been? You'd be surprised how many majored in English, History, Psychology, Philosophy, Sociology, Political Science, etc. Many MBA's at the top companies are working for liberal arts majors who are are the leaders of the pack in NYC, Houston, Chicago, and elsewhere. Read Lee Iococca's autobiography, for instance. He cites his psychology courses as the most valuable he had in college.

Date: Dec 10, 2005

You won't get any argument from me on that. Just using English and Engineering majors as examples. My experience was that both groups were somewhat bimodal. The liberal arts majors that didn't have math phobias were very good students. The engineers with some out of the box flexibility of mind were likewise among the best students. Find me a liberal arts student that can do basic algebra or an engineer that likes case studies and there's a high probability that you will find a really good MBA student. Like I said, one of the purposes of 500 was to weed out those from BOTH groups that were going to have problems with one part of the coursework or another. When these students work, they tend to work well. When it isn't working out they need to consider other options. BTW, some of the most prized MBA students in the early days were those that had undergrad degrees in the classics. A lot of good management is more wisdom and common sense than production management algorithms. There's a lot of both in classic Greek and Roman literature.

Date: Dec 10, 2005

History R'Us wrote:

500 veteran wrote: The courses serve two purposes ......The second is to weed out the ones that can't cut it (the English majors that can't do numbers Veteran, do you know what the undergraduate majors of the CEO's of Fortune 500 companies throughout the years have been? You'd be surprised how many majored in English, History, Psychology, Philosophy, Sociology, Political Science, etc. Many MBA's at the top companies are working for liberal arts majors who are are the leaders of the pack in NYC, Houston, Chicago, and elsewhere. Read Lee Iococca's autobiography, for instance. He cites his psychology courses as the most valuable he had in college.

Please note he/she didn't say ALL English majors couldn't do numbers. The ones that can make good CEOs.

Date: Dec 10, 2005

500 veteran wrote:

Like I said, one of the purposes of 500 was to weed out those from BOTH groups that were going to have problems with one part of the coursework or another.

From what I can determine, the grade distribution in my own college has not been tough enough to use as a selection tool. A's and B's mostly I think. How about yours?

Date: Dec 10, 2005

Exaggeration wrote:

Please note he/she didn't say ALL English majors couldn't do numbers. The ones that can make good CEOs.

So why not use the quantitative score on the GRE? There's no need to bring English majors or anyone else into the program who are likely to fail.

Date: Dec 10, 2005

Ditto for COB. Especially tough in 500 MBA courses. In the quant classes the engines get As and liberal arts get Bs. Teach managment and you get the reverse. Simple, too simple. There was more effective weeding out going on when the preMBAs took undergraduate courses. However, given the laxity of grading in undergrad courses (especially with open admissions) and that might not work so well these days. It's kind of all moot these days as the bottom of our current MBA classes have GMAT scores (MBA equivalent of GRE) that defy belief. You could find decent junior high students that could do better. Sort of open admissions upward drift, so to speak. If you get into selling the degree mode, then all you're left with is the poor souls who need a degree but can't move, undergrad business students that no one wanted to hire, and students whose parents can be convinced to finance one more year of the party. We still get a handful of good students from the MBA assistantships. Next year those are gone.

Date: Dec 10, 2005

500 veteran wrote:

There was more effective weeding out going on when the preMBAs took undergraduate courses. However, given the laxity of grading in undergrad courses (especially with open admissions) and that might not work so well these days. It's kind of all moot these days as the bottom of our current MBA classes have GMAT scores (MBA equivalent of GRE) that defy belief. You could find decent junior high students that could do better. Sort of open admissions upward drift, so to speak. If you get into selling the degree mode, then all you're left with is the poor souls who need a degree but can't move, undergrad business students that no one wanted to hire, and students whose parents can be convinced to finance one more year of the party. We still get a handful of good students from the MBA assistantships. Next year those are gone.

You seem to have a very good handle on this. Those in charge in our college had their heads in a sack when I brought up a similar pattern there. They didn't want to hear it.

Date: Dec 11, 2005

To My Fellow Dumb CoBers,

Once they have some courses on line, it is an easy next step to put them all on line.

Because there will be very few 500 level students in either format, the 600s will be the logical next step.

The trojan horse is now wheeled into the walls of JGH. I hope they hire a good make-up artist for all of our digital debuts.

Sold out for no money.

Date: Dec 11, 2005

Seems to me that either the faculty in CoB are unable to tell which way the wind's blowing or that a very vocal group of Doty's enemies are coopting this board to make it look as if the entire faculty is in an uproar over this. I suspect it's the latter, but if USM's CoB is so hopelessly backwatered that it doesn't know what's happening in b-schools all over the country (including some that are, um, a fuzz more presitigious than the one in Hattiesburg), then maybe USM ought to just shut the whole sucker down. Lock, stock & tee time.

Has Seeker been around lately? I need to tell him he's right.

Date: Dec 11, 2005

History R'Us wrote:

Exaggeration wrote:
Please note he/she didn't say ALL English majors couldn't do numbers. The ones that can make good CEOs.
So why not use the quantitative score on the GRE? There's no need to bring English majors or anyone else into the program who are likely to fail.

I think we are loathe to implement this type of screen because of the anticipated problems it would cause RE: Ayres.

Date: Dec 11, 2005

Weatherman wrote:

Seems to me that either the faculty in CoB are unable to tell which way the wind's blowing or that a very vocal group of Doty's enemies are coopting this board to make it look as if the entire faculty is in an uproar over this. I suspect it's the latter, but if USM's CoB is so hopelessly backwatered that it doesn't know what's happening in b-schools all over the country (including some that are, um, a fuzz more presitigious than the one in Hattiesburg), then maybe USM ought to just shut the whole sucker down. Lock, stock & tee time.

Has Seeker been around lately? I need to tell him he's right.

I think the COB faculty are in a state of apathy. If every MBA course were put online, then that would only affect about 12 faculty (out of 65 or so). That said, most took the "I don't give a $hit" mentality to its logical conclusion.

The rest of weatherman's post shows just how little strategic management he actually knows.

Date: Dec 11, 2005

Trojan Horse wrote:

To My Fellow Dumb CoBers, Once they have some courses on line, it is an easy next step to put them all on line. Because there will be very few 500 level students in either format, the 600s will be the logical next step. The trojan horse is now wheeled into the walls of JGH. I hope they hire a good make-up artist for all of our digital debuts. Sold out for no money.

I thought the original proposal from the Dean’s office was to place some MBA 600 level courses on line and the graduate committee told him no.

Date: Dec 11, 2005

Countertop wrote:

Weatherman wrote: Seems to me that either the faculty in CoB are unable to tell which way the wind's blowing or that a very vocal group of Doty's enemies are coopting this board to make it look as if the entire faculty is in an uproar over this. I suspect it's the latter, but if USM's CoB is so hopelessly backwatered that it doesn't know what's happening in b-schools all over the country (including some that are, um, a fuzz more presitigious than the one in Hattiesburg), then maybe USM ought to just shut the whole sucker down. Lock, stock & tee time. Has Seeker been around lately? I need to tell him he's right. I think the COB faculty are in a state of apathy. If every MBA course were put online, then that would only affect about 12 faculty (out of 65 or so). That said, most took the "I don't give a $hit" mentality to its logical conclusion.

Apathy is more likely passive/agressive. I can only think of a handful (less than 5) faculty in the COB that actually LIKE HD. That's really hard to say because pretending to like and hustling benefits is hard to disentangle. The number that have any RESPECT for him is less. Assuming SFT goes in 07 then HD will be either gone by then or more probably back on the faculty. The best move in the COB is be quiet, keep your head down, delay, obfuscate, keep writing, keep meeting and teaching your classes (unless you are HDs friend, then you don't have to), and be patient. Most of the teachers (there really isn't a faculty anymore) are either young or old. The young are quiet as they will move on if they're good and the rest are thanking their lucky stars they landed at USM now as they wouldn't have been hired in more normal times. The old are either stuck here for one reason or another and are mostly content to just "let it be" or are just ticking the clock to the magic 25.

None are "on the barricades" as it was apparent USM was a lost cause about a month after Glamser/Stringer were fired. If you think this is a COB opinion, just check what Invictus said about the same time on the old Fire Shelby board. As someone said a long time ago, the people in COB are just hiding under their desks. That's not exactly correct as we're hiding under our desks because we are unable to dig trenches and cover them with concrete. There will be a counterattack at some point but that's another story.

Date: Dec 11, 2005

Some in COB do not like Doty. Doty has COB interest at heart. The vote on Friday was success, and now faculty need to move on. Doty will continue to fight for shared governance and faculty participation in decisions.

Date: Dec 11, 2005

vendettas wrote:

Some in COB do not like Doty. Doty has COB interest at heart. The vote on Friday was success, and now faculty need to move on. Doty will continue to fight for shared governance and faculty participation in decisions.

Out of sight and out of mind gives a good analysis of the situation. The issue of the MBA 500 level courses was not the issue for a major fight with the administration. The fight will come later. As for the vote on Friday being a success for Doty, I really don’t think so. Vendetta, it was approved by the faculty in spite of the Dean’s support for the proposal. If you believe the Dean is committed to real faculty governances, you are truly misguided and fail to see the reality. His perspective is that faculty governance is a great as long as the faculty agree with him. If the faculty do not agree, he will manipulate the process at the expense of faculty governance.

Date: Dec 11, 2005

What is the minimal acceptable GMAT score for admittance into the MBA program?

Date: Dec 11, 2005

completion of the test.

Date: Dec 11, 2005

Ok....let me try this one...

what is the average GMAT score of current MBA students?

Date: Dec 11, 2005

slightly less than 500 out of 800

Date: Dec 13, 2005

silent majority:

Silent majority? Hardly. This is code for malcontented minority. They are NOT the AAUP leadership. They are NOT the faculty senate leadership. They are NOT the committee leadership. They are NOT the mid-level faculty administrators who step up to leadership responsibilities. They are NOT even the PUCers. They are not the public opposition to the administration. Rather, these are the individuals who, through their incessent nastiness, innuendo, rumor-mongering and self-interest, create a negative halo effect for all of the hard-working, dedicated faculty who are trying to make COB specifically and USM generally a better place despite all of the challenges. Maybe these are the ones running off to Kinko's on the other thread, good riddance.

Date: Dec 13, 2005

Mentors from the underworld wrote:

silent majority: Silent majority? Hardly. This is code for malcontented minority. They are NOT the AAUP leadership. They are NOT the faculty senate leadership. They are NOT the committee leadership. They are NOT the mid-level faculty administrators who step up to leadership responsibilities. They are NOT even the PUCers. They are not the public opposition to the administration. Rather, these are the individuals who, through their incessent nastiness, innuendo, rumor-mongering and self-interest, create a negative halo effect for all of the hard-working, dedicated faculty who are trying to make COB specifically and USM generally a better place despite all of the challenges. Maybe these are the ones running off to Kinko's on the other thread, good riddance.

The Dean saying "good riddance" to COB faculty. That's really special.

Date: Dec 13, 2005

filter wrote:

The Dean saying "good riddance" to COB faculty. That's really special.

He only wants to have faculty who teach classes, publish papers, say yessir, and follow his lead. Alternate viewpoints not needed. Let him hire a college full of his lackeys and watch him take CoB on the "Road to 100": the Road to having 100 administrators and staff members.

The fact is that almost all of his faculty are more mobile than he is.

Date: Dec 13, 2005

One of the Disgruntled wrote:

He only wants to have faculty who teach classes, publish papers, say yessir, and follow his lead. Alternate viewpoints not needed. Let him hire a college full of his lackeys and watch him take CoB on the "Road to 100": the Road to having 100 administrators and staff members.

The fact is that almost all of his faculty are more mobile than he is.

This is an interesting point. By my count, COB has 26 administrators or at-will employees and 59 tenure-track faculty.