The current direction of BYU Provo

[MikeWaters]

Originally Posted by Sleeping in EQ

Samuelson is triage from the absolute wreckage that was Bateman. I'd say more, but I'm on the market this year...

Send me a message and we can back channel.

I had no doubt Bateman would be a disaster the first time I heard him speak. He struck me as not-so-bright, and quite pretentious.

Later events only confirmed this. I understand he was a good fundraiser however.

I guess the key question is whether the BOT considered him a success. Hence the desire for another water-carrier?

[Sleeping in EQ]

Originally Posted by MikeWaters

I had no doubt Bateman would be a disaster the first time I heard him speak. He struck me as not-so-bright, and quite pretentious.

Later events only confirmed this. I understand he was a good fundraiser however.

I guess the key question is whether the BOT considered him a success. Hence the desire for another water-carrier?

Lot's of Sky Room catered dinners with wealthy alumni. He was great at eating dinner.

[MikeWaters]

Sky room stunk. My wife used to work there.

Of course, I didn't realize back then that almost all food in Provo/Orem is bad.

[Jeff Lebowski]

Originally Posted by Archaea

I'm ruminating while discussing matters with professors, seeing no vision from Samuelson, remembering my discussions with Rex Lee, and reviewing the rankings of BYU departments. BYU Provo deserves better.

I feel better right now about BYU Idaho with Kim Clark than I do about BYU Provo. The attitude conveyed to me by the few profs known to me is that living the Honor Code is more important than academic scholarship. Geeze, for the most part, the HC should be an afterthought that nobody speaks about, with focus being on academic development and research.

I am not sure who your professor friends are, and everyone is entitled to his/her opinion, but I think you have been misinformed.

Yes, Kim Clark is a great addition to BYU-Idaho (I am still puzzled as to why they would pull him from his former job - but that is a different story), but things are far worse (academically) for BYU-Idaho. Their honor code is even more strict than the one at BYU-Provo. They pay their faculty a small fraction of what they get in Provo and there is almost no opportunity for scholarship. It is simply a glorified junior college. If you think that having Clark at the helm is going to substantially change things, or that they are now in a better position than BYU-Provo, you are naive.

I am not sure where your dept. rankings are coming from. The law school, accounting program, and business schools are still quite strong. The college of engineering was recently given their highest rating ever. Far ahead of the University of Utah and (IIRC) ahead of USU (which has traditionally had a strong engineering program). BYU still has a long way to go, but I have a hard time believing that things are getting worse.

One of the best and most standard methods of measuring scholarhip is the annual number of publications in peer-reviewed journals. I can state with confidence that the publication rate at BYU is higher than it has ever been in history. Mainly due to the fact that older (dead-wood) faculty are retiring and being replaced with younger faculty who have been given higher expectations for scholarship.

Finally, the notion that the honor code has supplanted focus on research and scholarship is laughable. What do you envision? Faculty being asked to give up research time to patrol the halls looking for coeds whose skirts are too high? Faculty being ask to spend substantial class time lecturing on honor code compliance? Other than the athletic program (which has absolutely nothing to do with academics), there has been no "academic retrenchment" at BYU and certainly no honor code jihad that has had any effect on scholarship.

The oversight of scholarship is primarily accomplished at the dept. and college level. That is where the pressure comes from, and it is largely tied in to the advancement in rank process. The university president has lots of power, but his impact on the day to day operations is limited. Yes, Oaks was a good president. Rex Lee was not so great, IMO. His main initiative was a multi-year "self study" that required a substantial amount of effort by the faculty and staff. He promised that he would cut dead wood and redistribute resources as a result, but almost nothing happened. Massive waste of time. Bateman was clearly the most controversial of the recent presidents. He was an intellectual lightweight in many ways and made several errors, IMO. But he raised a ton of money and his impact on the day to day scholarship of the faculty (as a whole) was neglible. The faculty were enthused about Samuelson when he came, but he hasn't done anything so far to warrant that enthusiasm. No major change of any significance.

[MikeWaters]

BYU needs to decide what its mission is. Perhaps it is to be a funnel for LDS to kids to excel elsewhere. That's what it is now.

Of course my opinion is that the church should divest itself of BYU. I don't know why it should be subsidizing secular education for the wealthiest Mormons on the planet.

[Jeff Lebowski]

Originally Posted by MikeWaters

BYU needs to decide what its mission is. Perhaps it is to be a funnel for LDS to kids to excel elsewhere. That's what it is now.

Of course my opinion is that the church should divest itself of BYU. I don't know why it should be subsidizing secular education for the wealthiest Mormons on the planet.

They have decided. It is to be an outstanding undergraduate institution with a few areas of strength in graduate education.

[MikeWaters]

what is an excellent undergrad institution? I guess that means you have great teachers, who are not leaders in their field and don't do research, but somehow despite that have gained a great understanding and are able to teach it.

And oh well, if there is no exposure to good research experience when you are an undergrad.

I just don't buy the model. You are either after excellence or you are not.

[Brian]

Originally Posted by MikeWaters

We should start our own quasi LDS university/college. Like the one in Virginia (?). Not because BYU is terrible, but because it would be fun. I wonder how the hierarchy has handled the Virginia thing. I mean, are they working behind the scenes? Would they put pressure on the trustees to do things in certain ways?

On second thought, what a mess. You couldn't pay me enough to do it.

There are plenty of great universities in the country with institute programs. You get the best of both worlds. A diverse faculty that is allowed to think on their own, smaller religion classes and you don't have to live in Provo!

Regards,
Brian

[UtahDan]

Originally Posted by MikeWaters

BYU needs to decide what its mission is. Perhaps it is to be a funnel for LDS to kids to excel elsewhere. That's what it is now.

Of course my opinion is that the church should divest itself of BYU. I don't know why it should be subsidizing secular education for the wealthiest Mormons on the planet.

I agree with you Mike. I think one of the church's primary functions should be education, but not secular education. Too many inherent conflicts. Not the least of which is the poor of the church subsidizing the education of the elite of the church.

Imagine a world where the church pours the money currently going to BYU into institutes and all of those bright LDS kids go to a university near where they grew up, building the church there. There ought to be an institute at every major university. They will never put me in charge, but if they did one of my first acts would be to pull the trigger on that idea.

[SeattleUte]

Here's my program:

http://www.cougarboard.com/noframes/...html?id=812210

BYU would enter a golden age were it to cease its role as the linchpin of the Church's program for indoctrinating youth and divest itself of all institutional relationship with the Church. The occasional squabble between BYU's secular president and the First Presidency, after BYU refused to fire a heretic professor, would, for me, evince healthy tension.