Wednesday, March 11, 2009

Come on OSU USG, do your job

For those of you who do not know, Chancellor Fingerhut has decided that it is time to make all public schools in Ohio switch over to a common schedule. Instead of making the smaller schools change, the Board of Regents decided that it was high time to make tOSU change their schedule. If everything goes as planned, OSU will change from semesters to quarters in 2012, using a process that will take 4 years. Well, they say that it will take four years...



For obvious reasons, I have a big issue with this concept. Why the hell should tOSU be the school changing, why not all the others in the state? I mean, aren't we the biggest schools, doesn't that mean we are doing something right? We are a Democracy (I know that we are not, ignore that part) and thus we should go by vote. If the biggest school in the COUNTRY keeps getting huge people it is probably because they are doing something right. Our biggest difference is that we are quarters, so we can safely assume that that is why...

Furthermore, I see no plan to make sure that the system is done without harming students. How does the university expect to switch calendar systems without screwing over the 4 years of students that will be hit by it. Students plan their entire college carrier. Some need to work around work, some have sports, and others have grand plans for when they take each class. This change will kill that for those four years. It also will cost kids credits, as they took 151 when a freshman and planned on taking 152 as a sophomore. Nope, not any more, now they need to take the combined class, repeating their 151. There is no way to implement this without harming the kids.

Taking it a step further, where are the plans for the overall change? How can the university have a vote on okaying a change without an overall plan. Are they phasing in classes, in an attempt to keep from screwing kids but costing them money? Or is it all at once? How do the professors feel about it? There is no general plan, and OSU needs one before they act on this. Unless OSU has a plan, we should never okay a change.

Additionally, the lose of $10 million (min) simply to change a calendar is absurd.

Now, on Thursday, the Senate of OSU will be voting on if they should okay this proposal or not. My issue is that they are voting on something without a full plan there. There has been no real student input, no real plan, and no good reason for the switch. Just because Gee and Fingerhut want to do something doesn't mean that we should. I am hoping that the Senate stands up and votes against this proposal.

The job of the Senate is to make sure that the students have a voice, and that they are protected. If the Senate votes to okay this, then they are not doing their job.

On an ending note, Why has there been no study on this and the student's views?

7 comments:

Anonymous said...

So, a lot of that money figure is going toward advising (it will be drilled into students' heads to finish the chem series now, or start it later). In addition the first minimester will be a great opportunity for them to teach Math 152, and Physics 133, etc. for the last time so students have yet another chance to vote.

Also, the other three quarter schools already voted to switch to semesters, and many other schools transferred over within the last decade. It's only natural for them to focus on us at OSU, asking us to follow in the footsteps of the other schools.

The University Senate vote is that democratic process you asked for. It's 70 faculty, 26 administrators, 26 undergraduates, 10 graduates, 5 professional students, who were all elected to their positions (except for the administrators, who were vetted by students and faculty, so there's still a checks-and-balance system).
In this democratic process, the university will decide the next step to take, be it staying with quarters or converting to semesters.

Whalertly said...

@Anonymous

"So, a lot of that money figure is going toward advising (it will be drilled into students' heads to finish the chem series now, or start it later)."
--What about those who fail, or for whom unseen consequences happen? Additionally, why should it come out of our pockets, it is mandated by the state, make them pay--

"In addition the first minimester will be a great opportunity for them to teach Math 152, and Physics 133, etc. for the last time so students have yet another chance to vote."
--how is that another chance to vote? These minimesters make no logical sense to me, as they are simply compressed classes that OSU seemed to tack on simply to keep the same year based sched. that they have--

"Also, the other three quarter schools already voted to switch to semesters,"
--actually, only one has Okayed it, and they are having a fight with the students now--

"and many other schools transferred over within the last decade."
--I have links to horror stories about this if you want them--

"It's only natural for them to focus on us at OSU, asking us to follow in the footsteps of the other schools."
--Not really, there is no logical reason to keep them all together, and we are not a logical follower. That said, the plan even says we are the leader, so this part doesnt fit--

"The University Senate vote is that democratic process you asked for."
--No offense, but it isnt. What, 5000 people votes last year? I didn't even know about it until there was an issue with the presidency, IT WAS NEVER TOLD TO STUDENTS. none of my friends got a chance to vote or anything like that. It is like saying an election with an unknown and unpublished election date is a democracy--

"It's 70 faculty, 26 administrators, 26 undergraduates, 10 graduates, 5 professional students, who were all elected to their positions (except for the administrators, who were vetted by students and faculty, so there's still a checks-and-balance system)."
--That isn't what I want. I want the students who will be affected to have a full say, do a survey of us--

"In this democratic process, the university will decide the next step to take, be it staying with quarters or converting to semesters."
--It actually looks as though the university has no say what-so-ever in this--

Anonymous said...

This is NOT USG's fault and USG has not taken an official stance in support of this proposal. This proposal has been initiated by the administration and faculty.
As someone in USG who's opposed to the switch and intends to vote against it, don't blame USG.

Barga said...

I am in USG too, but agree with the positions taken by Whalertly. USG has the job to protect us, and they should step up

Anonymous said...

Earlier when I said that minimesters was the last opportunity to vote, I meant that it was an extra opportunity to get that last GEC sequence course in before the official conversion.

Additionally, Kadim, the University of Cincinnati Board of Trustees has approved their conversion. http://www.uc.edu/trustees/documents/Trustees_Minutes/SummActions11.18.08.pdf is a copy of the Trustee minutes.

http://www.wright.edu/admin/senate/senmin/
The Faculty Council of Wright State has passed their conversion (I'm not sure what additional steps their process has).

Also, Otterbein is a private school but has a large transfer population to OSU. They will convert by 2011.

Again, this statewide move doesn't necessarily mean that OSU should switch too. It just explains why the argument is whether we should switch to semesters, not whether all other schools should switch back to quarters.

Also, in agreement with the other Anonymous, USG isn't to blame for the proposal. The proposal was initiated by the administration and approved through Faculty Council. We haven't taken a stand via a resolution yet, because as representatives of students we should be allowed to vote for what's best for our constituency rather than being forced by a senate bill to all vote one way or another.
After tomorrow you can argue whether or not we did a bad job in voting for your interests, but don't insult us just yet.

Barga said...

You should start using your name, so we know which is which...

"Additionally, Kadim, the University of Cincinnati Board of Trustees has approved their conversion. http://www.uc.edu/trustees/documents/Trustees_Minutes/SummActions11.18.08.pdf is a copy of the Trustee minutes."
--Who care what the board says, that is not the students or their faculty... that is only their admin--

"Also, Otterbein is a private school but has a large transfer population to OSU. They will convert by 2011."
--So we should say that we vote on it in 202, get a proposal, and watch what happens. Usually in expirements we like to test it controlled first, diving in like we are all doing is not safe--

Kadim said...

The language cited in that trustee's meeting says that the trustees approved a working group's recommendation. It doesn't seem like that actually was board of trustees...voting for the actual transition.

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