On Sunday, Bwog linked to the President’s Report. Prepared by PrezBo, the report looks back at the five years of his tenure and forward to initiatives he has set out for the future of his presidency. Bwog correctly notes several not so subtle references to expansion—like Bollinger’s message referring to “the long-term space needed” for the growth and improvement of the university.
What was completely absent from Bwog’s assessment of the President’s Report was, well—an assessment of it. Commentariat is on the case:
The Student Experience:
The blurb lauds the 14% increase in applications and plunging acceptance rates, down to the single digits for the College, and 10.6% overall when CC and SEAS are factored together. And, wow! CU has students and faculty from 150 countries! That’s, like, practically, the whole world! Needless to say, I’m unimpressed. Maybe Bollinger should make it his personal responsibility to recruit a student from Burkina Faso in order to make it a cool 151. And the increase in applications is simply following the national trend. Applications across the country are up. My very limited math skills tell me that more applications + same number of accepted students = lower acceptance rates. But it sure sounds good, doesn’t it?
Faculty and Research
Based on this section of the Report, it is clear that Columbia’s faculty priorities are the following:
1) Research
2) Diverse collection of professors
3) “Look at all the new deans and famous people we’ve assembled!”
4) Nobel Laureates
Forgive me, but I always thought that what was important in a professor was, you know, some kind of teaching ability. Silly me. Of course I want a professor who can’t teach if he’s a Nobel Prize winner! (I’m looking right at you, Joe Stiglitz).
Furthermore, nowhere did I see a commitment to fostering a plurality of viewpoints within academic disciplines. I don’t have a problem with professors with whom I disagree. I have a serious problem with whole departments held hostage by firebrands and lunatics.
And finally, nowhere to be found is any acknowledgment of, or strategy to alleviate, Columbia’s colossal bureaucracy problem. It is very easy for the average student to forget how much this kills the spirit of students who want to get things done on campus. If you’ve never headed a group or had a problem that required you to navigate the tangled web of CU advising, consider yourself extremely lucky. Just a brief example: I went to Egypt for the spring semester on a Columbia program, and returned for a couple weeks to use Butler for a required term paper that would complete my semester. Though I had actually never left Columbia—I was enrolled full time for the spring—I somehow did not have full swipe access when I returned. I had to go to 5 different CU offices spread out around campus and the neighborhood just to be able to swipe in.
One final story: I recently met up with an old prof who left Columbia for another college. When I mentioned CU bureaucracy and institutional culture, her eyes lit up, and in her understated manner, she went off. At the top of her list was the bureaucratic nightmare, but she hit several more issues along the way, including lack of institutional communication and support and lack of interfaculty connections that would foster a sense of a faculty community.
What Columbia should be most proud of is that it continues to attract high caliber students to its unique blend of a standard Great Books curriculum with a multicultural education and awareness component. Columbia, amazingly, still has some professors who can flat out teach. Columbia has a beautiful campus in one of the most interesting cities in the world. And Columbia has an exorbitant amount of money to throw at its many, many problems. Here’s to hoping that Prezbo eschews self-congratulatory reports and puts his head to working on some of the real problems that continue to plague this university.
