<p>That sound pretty awesome. I look forward to applying to them soon!</p>
<p>I am somewhat disappointed. Specifically, I think visual department and journalism should definitely be conserved. If anything money should be put into them. If money was/is invested properly, these programs and the intellectual scene potentially generated from them could have been strengthened and had attracted a more academically diverse student body. As for this: “We will seriously try to invest in teaching science here differently”, I’m a skeptic. There are so many forces other than monetary issues that governs such a matter such as the students and how they resist new pedagogy, especially when it requires more intellectual rigor and demands more of their effort. Likewise, faculty also have to put forth more effort to ensure enough students succeed. Emory hasn’t dealt with these issues yet, and throwing money at them will not make this status quo situation go away. A lot of it involves changes in attitude. I would be amazed if money could do this (perhaps a different admission scheme could). As for NBB, the class sizes are a bit large to do much innovative teaching other than lecturing.</p>
<p>in 2005 Emory adopted a strategic plan to drive it to the academic top. Wagner is a good leader with a good plan, and the Board has provided the necessary resources. The following is from the 2011 progress report, and I think the “significant round of faculty hiring” has been impressive. All in all, it is exciting.</p>
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<p> Emory will continue efforts to recruit tenure and tenure track faculty in key areas, enhance best practices for promotion and tenure, and continue to develop its faculty. Emory College of Arts and Sciences (ECAS) will pursue a significant round of faculty hiring, guided by both University and ECAS strategic plan themes; </p>
<p> Emory will continue to implement student strategies related to recruitment and financial aid, engaged scholarship, and curriculum and pedagogy, including full implementation of the undergraduate strategic enrollment management plan, … peer-to-peer mentoring in ECAS, …</p>
<p> Emory will continue to implement strategies to reinforce and build its culture, and promote University-wide sustainability initiatives and professional and leadership development activities for faculty, staff, and students. The Office of Community and Diversity will launch a new “Beyond Tolerance” campaign, new Green Office and Green Labs certification programs will be implemented, …</p>
<p>In closing, Where Courageous Inquiry Leads has served Emory well as a road map to becoming a destination university internationally recognized as an inquiry-driven, ethically engaged, and diverse community, whose members work collaboratively for positive transformation in the world through courageous leadership in teaching, research, scholarship, health care, and social action.</p>
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It already is. Any school that has such high selectivity of students, great teaching and research, and a broad curriculum that is very strong in nearly every area is at the top. I honestly don’t know why so many Emory people seem so equivocal about their status and the quality of their programs. It is a first rate school.</p>
<p>Having said that, it is of course very smart to always be analyzing and changing (of course the changes have to be the right ones). Stagnation is a sure path to erosion. So this plan seems to make sense, at least the spirit of it. I will leave it to those far more knowledgeable about Emory and its details to judge if this plan is the right one to keep it in the upper echelons. But for goodness sake, don’t talk like it is a second tier school. Especially for undergrads, that is absurd. Frankly I would take Emory over most of the Ivies for an undergrad education.</p>
<p>Goals are nice, but I want to see results. For example, course offerings in my two “home” departments (chem and biol) were much more robust per semester when I came in as a freshmen. Now, even though the endowment has rebounded a bit, I can’t imagine them returning unless there is more than just talk of these lofty goals (this thing going on w/the atwood addition for example is a mess and represents a lack of planning).</p>
<p>Fallenchemist: Depending on department, I would maybe take it over half of them. The sciences concern me however. Glad to see that they seem to be serious in addressing that. Compared to “upper echelon” peers, my experience tells me Emory could use huge improvements here that will benefit the outcome of Emory students as a whole if they pursue sciences (for one, it’ll encourage more students to perhaps pursue research as a career, and secondly, the pre-medical students would likely perform better on the MCAT as a whole, and increase the med. school admit rate to a better percentile more representative of the incoming talent. These outcomes will come from the mere fact that most science courses will become much less of a checkbox and more of an experience if done correctly). As for the changes, I believe students should have a say. I sometimes worry that many care less as long as they are in the majority and their dept. is protected.</p>
<p>In the mean time, I think the Wheel doesn’t get it:
<a href=“http://www.emorywheel.com/our-opinion-number-20-again/[/url]”>http://www.emorywheel.com/our-opinion-number-20-again/</a></p>
<p>Everytime they talk about the rank, they only talk about how we need to “increase it” to stay competitive by attracting a more robust applicant pool and marketing better. Yes, because blindly increasing selectivity always works, totally explaining why Vanderbilt, for example, despite is plummeting admission rate and really good SATs, is still number 17. Emory is better off finding ways in order to differentiate itself academically (like it is trying to now according to the Dean’s letter) than to play this game and ignoring academic prowess (IE, thinking that it’s academics are already perfect and the only difference between us and the highest schools is selectivity. Obviously, we know better) and then hoping for the best in the rankings. In addition, the Wheel almost makes it seem as if 20 is not competitive. It’s definitely competitive, so we need to work on less superficial things that actually make the school better as opposed to simply making the school “look” better (this has already gotten us in trouble).</p>
<p>bernie - well said. Obviously continuing to improve academically and improve the outcome for students should always be the main goal. Sometimes I do think universities forget what their mission is really supposed to be and they get distracted by all the crap out there. Just another reason I really really hate what USNWR has done, not that they are the only culprit by any means.</p>
<p>It is very interesting how Emory seems to be trying to build a more prominent and visible art scene and then goes on to destroy the visual arts and journalism department. Again this should and could have been saved as it has potential given that CNN is here and Fox 5 is right up the street and they are a very solid local news station. This could have developed into a hidden gem program of excellence and they want to eliminate it. Good luck reforming the over-sized NBB department and increasing interest in NBB coursework w/o a clinical focus (seriously, the department is filled with students who merely chose it because they a) thought it sounded cooler and less stereotypical than biology or b) “I want to be a neurologist”…as if NBB’s softcore curriculum and coursework will prepare for a very distant and narrow specialization. Classes are all memorization, except 301 and 401 and are purely lecture and tests so develop minimal problem solving skills). This reads like a waste of effort to me knowing how academically shallow lots of NBB majors at Emory are. I’ve seen more passion and interest from biology majors and that’s setting the bar somewhat low.</p>
<p>If they want any chance at being successful, they need to expand and make more visible, programs like this:</p>
<p><a href=“http://compneurosci.college.emory.edu/training/undergraduate.html[/url]”>http://compneurosci.college.emory.edu/training/undergraduate.html</a></p>
<p>They need to get a broader array of coursework so as to make this a full blown undergrad. concentration. In addition, serious neurobiology coursework should be added to the curriculum (beyond 301). It’s very strange when things like cell biology, genetics, and biochemistry do not count as electives. In addition, linking chemistry to biosciences at Emory could benefit students in the longrun (holding biology students responsible for mathematical and chemical concepts is a daunting task, but if the sciences at Emory are to be meaningful, this additional layer of rigor has to be added). There should not only be that molecular modeling course, there should be some sort of undergraduate pharmacology course for advanced students or stronger students should be encouraged to take advanced level biochemistry or organic courses (could be at grad. level or undergrad). I did it, and it broadens ones insights into the actual details biological processes and experimentation enormously.</p>
<p>Before I came to Emory, I thought That Emory has a solid school of journalism, because it always say CNN is right beside us. Just like USC said it is so close to HOllywood, and actually USC has a fantastic film school. USC may not good enough to compare with Emory in someone’s opinions, but people at USC know how to cooperate with local industry. I could not imagine Rollins was established by 90s during which CDC has been founded more than half century.</p>
<p>Emory has everything it needs to distinguish itself. It can offer the most important/big city in the south. CNN, TBS, Home Depot, etc are all based here. And, of course, they get rid of journalism and sever the CNN connection. So much for taking advantage of what they have.</p>
<p>Only time will tell I guess.</p>
<p>This is all weird in the respect that Emory is still acting as if it is completely broke like it did during the beginning of the financial crisis. This should not be the case unless they were mis-spending the adjusted (lowered) funds during the financial crisis;many would say they were. For example, academics are more important than amazing frosh dorms but frosh dorms and traffic circles seem to be a priority here now. Emory was keeping up appearances as opposed to using the money to increase its caliber. Despite this being a sketch decision, I’m glad that they recognize that it’s time to reallocate money to enhancing academic programs and that it isn’t all perfect in that realm.</p>
<p>The biggest impact the 2005 strategic plan has had on Emory College is the hiring of 75 additional professors. A total of 562 profs is pretty good.</p>
<p>I agree that new dorms are not as important, but “old” Turman really had to go, and that required three new dorms (“new” Turman, Evans and Few) just to replace it.</p>
<p>The new science building did seem like it took forever to build …</p>