Convinced that touching up on thoughts interesting and relevant to students would be too far a stretch from the Arizona Board of Regents’ traditional approach to fixing Arizona’s higher education system, the Board instead chose to skip over the interesting parts of the scheduled agenda (graduation trends, enrollment statistics and plans for enrollment increases, financial aid reports).
The university communities probably would have preferred at least some kind of commentary from the Regents on these issues, but here are some numbers that tell their own story. If you want a rundown of some of those numbers (as well as see what curiously was not talked about on Day 2 of the Regents meeting on the University of Arizona campus, despite being on the agenda), check this out.
- More evidence that science rules, arts and social sciences drool: UA President Robert Shelton spoke at great length at the beginning of the ABOR meeting about how “collective creativity will show us who we really are”. In a rallying-the-troops-like speech, the president waxed poetic about studying how second languages are acquired, the Phoenix Mars Lander, making advanced strides in medicine.
In fact, the only non-science/research point-of-pride that was expressed by Shelton was that the UA “has a great arts tradition.”
And just in case anyone was still under the illusion that the UA was going to try to excel in instructing its students, rather than pulling in obscene amounts of money from science research, Shelton then turned the floor over to Leslie Tolbert, vice president for research. This, of course, is no surprise, considering the UA Transformation Process has been accused quite heavily of throwing instruction out the window in favor of more financially-advantageous endeavors, like science and research.
It’s just more confirmation that, for better or for worse, the UA is becoming less about instruction and the social sciences, and more about science, research and the funds they create. I guess the UA is slowly seeing “who we really are.”
Do you think it’s just coincidence that the UA’s plan to connect the main campus to downtown with a modern streetcar has the car running from downtown to the UA Health Sciences Center at University Medical Center?
During the presentation on the streetcar plan, it was noted that the UA has, of course, been in constant contact with city leadership to make sure the idea works. I wonder if the Tucson City Council will mention any of this at their meeting on Dec. 7. Let’s check the agenda—nope.
The WatchCat News-Journal 