UVa Ex-president:UVa is overrated

Parents Forum
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<p>For what it is worth, here are admissions stats for the class of 2015. </p>

<p>Total number of VA apps: 7,955
Total number of OOS apps: 16,045</p>

<p>Total VA offers: 3,562 offers (45%)
Total OOS offers: 4,183 offers (26%)</p>

<p>Source: [Notes</a> from Peabody: The UVA Application Process: Admission statistics for the Class of 2015](<a href=“http://uvaapplication.blogspot.com/2011/03/admission-statistics-for-class-of-2015.html]Notes”>Notes from Peabody: The UVA Application Process: Admission statistics for the Class of 2015)</p>

<p>The yield is much lower for OOS, but the admit rate is also lower than for IS. I was unable to find a breakdown of SAT scores by state of residence, but these numbers are consistent with the lore that it is much tougher for an OOS applicant to be admitted.</p>

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<p>The admission numbers were more selective for class of 2016 because there were so many more applicants. Also, it appears fewer students were chosen this year from the large waiting list.</p>

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<p>It’s really odd that barrons has such a need to trash UVA.</p>

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<p>Now that I have actually read the President’s memo, I can see why so many faculty members are upset at her ouster. It is blunt, but it reflects reality. It also makes clear that the reputation she was writing about concerned faculty eminence not the quality of undergraduate education:</p>

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<p>The point that JHS made about the composition of the Board of Visitors deserves more attention. I just checked out my own institution’s board. More than half of the members fit the same mold (although they are more in manufacturing than finance). But there is also a high school principal, a faculty member from a leading Ivy League school, the head of a major research lab, and a member of the clergy. UVa would do well to broaden its base.</p>

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<p>It’s odd people won’t accept simple facts. I did not write the memo or other similar critical fact based reports. Should people not be informed of things Sullivan bluntly noted? The same issues Casteen noted earlier when he tried to implement the programs Sullivan later noted had not worked well such as improving the STEM areas at UVa?
Here is the intro to a major report Casteen had done by an educational; research group. As Sullivan noted in her memo, the program initiated after this consulting report was not very successful. UVa found it very difficult to attract top people in the STEM areas. After spending millions the program was quietly dropped after being initiated with much fanfare.</p>

<p>In October 2006, the University of Virginia (UVA) issued a Request for Proposal (RFP</p>

<h1>END 102306 – Academic Consulting and Advisory Plan) seeking an “experienced firm</h1>

<p>to provide consulting services for its academic plan.” Under the leadership of the
University’s Vice President and Provost, and in collaboration with faculty, students,
deans, the Board of Visitors, and senior administrators, UVA was in the process of
developing a ten-year plan to guide academic decision-making and realize its vision for
2017 – to be the foremost public institution in the nation. The University’s goal over the
next ten years is to significantly improve its capacity to perform leading research and
become a world leader in select fields.
UVA understands that to achieve prominence as a research institution, it must increase
the quality of basic, applied, and translational research in the physical and bio-medical
sciences and engineering in a manner consistent with its strategic objectives. The
University proposes to accomplish this by embarking on a campaign to raise funds that
would underwrite the recruitment of some 155 research active faculty, attract high quality
graduate students, and provide space and facilities for new hires and to address the
deficiencies that exist today. In support of these initiatives and as a consequence of them,
an environment conducive to competitive, high impact, cutting edge research will be
created, and the enrollment of graduate students of the highest standing will increase,
along with research productivity and quality. Pan-University research and collaborative
research will be encouraged.</p>

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<p>My comments are not about UVA which I know little about except by reputation and the beauty of its architecture.</p>

<p>I want to comment on some of measures described.</p>

<p>I teach on the college level, at a public institution with an excellent reputation, and some of the measure described as implemented by the prez (or ex-prez) have been going on at our school. </p>

<p>Whatever the rhetoric employed to justify them, IMO they are cost-cutting initiatives that would eventually hurt the quality of the institution. Initiatives to put more on tape cost young faculty their jobs because less person-hours are needed. Hiring lecturers, IMO, is often code for adjuncts or much less trained faculty. This is a problem because the younger faculty are most recently trained with the proverbial “fire in their bellies” to do well, earn tenure or gain promotion and do well. Eliminating them is not good for any institution. Newly hired adjuncts or one year full-time hires will not have the same commitment.</p>

<p>Eliminating or blending departments does save money but also damages a school’s academic offerings. A student may suddenly find herself unable to take intermediate Italian, for example. I certainly don’t know the particulars of UVA.</p>

<p>A kinesiology degree may be useful and desirable, but it also reads as a pre-professional money maker that takes away from the traditional liberal arts (good or bad thing depending on one’s POV.)</p>

<p>Taking JHS’s remarks into account that the board is overwhelmingly from business, I find it surprising that the board was not enthusiastic about these measures. From what little I’m reading here, all rhetoric aside, the prez’s proposal were very business sensitive.</p>

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<p>In the parallel thread on the UVa forum, AVA55 linked to the podcast of a radio interview between a Charlottesville talk show host and the CEO of the UVa Alumni Association. It is by far and away the most rational, credible discussion of these events I have “seen” (since, you know, I didn’t actually see this one).</p>

<p>The guy comes across as very honest and very thoughtful. He is not an insider, exactly, especially on this question. (He says he had no advance inkling, and has nothing but really nice things to say about Sullivan.) But he is, at most, one remove from being an insider. He knows most of the Board of Visitors personally, etc., has close ties throughout the administration, and obviously spends most of his working life talking about UVa and the challenges it faces.</p>

<p>Some of the things he said that I found interesting:</p>

<ul>
<li><p>There was skepticism about Sullivan when she was appointed, but she had done an incredible job of integrating herself with the university. He doesn’t think any sense of her as an outsider lingered.</p></li>
<li><p>Many alumni are angry and upset about this. In particular, the generation of alumni from the 70s is “white hot” with rage, seeing this as a return to the bad old days. The Board of Visitors did a terrible job of handling this.</p></li>
<li><p>He completely discounts that there was any political aspect to this decision, or that there was “a Darden conspiracy, or a Goldman Sachs conspiracy.”</p></li>
</ul>

<p>His speculation (and he emphasized that it was speculation): </p>

<ul>
<li><p>When the Sullivan hiring process was going on three years ago, what the Board was looking for, explicitly, was a great administrator. That’s what they thought their greatest need was, in part because the person who had really functioned as COO of the university for a generation was about to retire. And that’s exactly what they got in Sullivan: someone who is exceptionally skilled at understanding and running a university, who got up to speed on UVa in no time at all, and who was making things work really well.</p>

<ul>
<li>In the meantime, however, the ground seems to have shifted, and there’s a great existential crisis in higher education over the affordability and sustainability of their model of education. Suddenly, it looks like the most important thing in the world is a strategic vision to address that. And somehow the Board and Sullivan were talking past each other on those issues, and some people on the Board seem to have decided that she didn’t have a strong enough strategic vision.</li>
</ul></li>
</ul>

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<p>It seems to me that the ex-prez was attempting to move UVA into the elite research class. From a research perspective, UVA is about at the same level as Arizona State University and Colorado State University. UVA is not even in the conversation with the likes of WI, Mich, Ohio State, and U MN from a research perspective.</p>

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<p>So is UVA resting on its historical laurels (which were quite impressive 30 years ago when I was doing my own college search)?</p>

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<p>That’s what they say. Chronicle of Higher Education:</p>

<p>[UVa</a> May Need a Narcissist at the Top - Leadership & Governance - The Chronicle of Higher Education](<a href=“UVa May Need a Narcissist at the Top”>UVa May Need a Narcissist at the Top)</p>

<p>Another excerpt from Casteen report</p>

<p>A Strong Base of Programs and Faculty. UVA has strong, but not uniformly so, faculty
and programs with some real luminaries and pockets of excellence. These and other
programs and researchers form a base on which one can build a more research
competitive university.
A Mixed Standing in the Rankings. While UVA is ranked number 24 by U.S. News &
World Report (USNRW)3, mostly due to its outstanding undergraduate program, UVA
ranks only number 47 for FY 2005 in the key research indicator, namely the NSF ranking
of federal research expenditures4, and does not rank in the top 100 on the Academic
Ranking of World Universities (ARWU) 2006.5 If one looks at the important leading
American universities, it is exceptional that UVA ranks so highly for its undergraduate
program and so modestly as a research university.</p>

<p>The reason for this dichotomy between education and research attainment seems to be the
fact that most science and engineering departments at UVA have remained static or have
actually decreased in faculty size since 1990. We are told that this may have been due to
wrong judgments, to State funding crises and/or bias of some earlier administrators in
favor of humanities rather than science and engineering.
Whatever the circumstances that gave rise to this situation, in the period of the 1990’s to
the present government funding of academic research grew from about $11 billion to $22
billion in constant 2000 dollars. Most leading universities (but not UVA) took advantage of the
extraordinary funding opportunities at NSF, NIH, DOE, NASA and other agencies over
this period, enabling significant growth in university income, increasing faculty sizes in
the science, engineering, and medical fields and allowing laboratories to be built with
borrowed funds and amortized from federal overhead payments. Today and in the
foreseeable future, government funding is likely to increase at a much slower rate.</p>

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<p>^ The above linked article is only available for subscribers.</p>

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<p>So sad that a great institution is linked only with science research, a far model from the early days of the university system.</p>

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<p>Note that those are preliminary figures, and not albeit that off, still incorrect. </p>

<p>The Class of 2015 presents the following characteristics</p>

<p>Totals ----- Men—Women–Total
Total applied 11,026 12,561 23,587
Total admitted 3,623 4,228 7,851
Total enrolled 1,565 1,868 3,433</p>

<p>Number of wait-listed students admitted: 117</p>

<p>Again, here is your source for official numbers:
[Common</a> Data Set: Institutional Assessment and Studies, University of Virginia](<a href=“http://www.web.virginia.edu/iaas/datacatalog/cds/admission.shtm]Common”>http://www.web.virginia.edu/iaas/datacatalog/cds/admission.shtm)</p>

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<p>Not so sure I concur, mythmom. </p>

<p>UC Berkeley came to prominence due to its science research (several Nobels in Chemistry & Physics and it is the only college name on the Periodic Table of Elements). Michigan became a top tier school due to science as well. For many years, prior to USNews, Cal & Michigan - both research heavy – were the top two publics, at least in the eyes of academe.</p>

<p>OTOH, the lack of a heavy science research emphasis is exactly what makes UVa an outstanding undergrad institution, IMO.</p>

<p>The downside, of course, is that research is where the money is (to paraphrase Willy Sutton). Research (overhead) pays for a lot more than just faculty salaries. And unfortunately, there ain’t that much available money in lit/hume research.</p>

<p>But (pre-professional) Kinesiology? Hmmmm</p>

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<p>“For many years, prior to USNews, Cal & Michigan - both research heavy – were the top two publics, at least in the eyes of academe.”</p>

<p>They both still are.</p>

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<p>The Governor has directed Va.'s public universities to put a greater emphasis on STEM majors, which is understandable considering the job market.</p>

<p>It also is important to remember that UVa is only half the size in enrollment of most other flagship public research universities - is only about total 19K undergrad and grad students, and 1K of those are law school students. Therefore, UVa would naturally not have as many big name researchers as a much larger university.</p>

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<p>“OTOH, the lack of a heavy science research emphasis is exactly what makes UVa an outstanding undergrad institution, IMO.”</p>

<p>It seems the BOV was presurring Sullivan to drop departments like Classics that were underperforming. </p>

<p>[U.Va&lt;/a&gt;. leaders protest Sullivan firing | Richmond Times-Dispatch](<a href=“http://www2.timesdispatch.com/news/news/2012/jun/14/tdmain01-ouster-protested-at-uva-ar-1986789/]U.Va”>http://www2.timesdispatch.com/news/news/2012/jun/14/tdmain01-ouster-protested-at-uva-ar-1986789/)</p>

<p>Not sure how a school can maintain an outstanding undergraduate reputation by eliminating important departments because enough students aren’t majoring in them.</p>

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<p>Oh yes, hippium right?</p>

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<p>Does not seem to stop producing it. But then, neither does the fact nobody outside a small circle of peers ever read those amazing contributions to mankind and … the tenure track.</p>

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<p>UVA has been tied with UCLA for the #2 public for quite some time. Michigan, ranked #4 for some time, is a fine school, but so is UVA!!! UVA’s McIntire is one of the best undergraduate business school’s in the nations. UVA’s Echols program annually lures super high stat kids away from top twenty schools. UVA’s poli-sci program with renowned Larry Sabato at its helm is very, very reputable and feeds graduates into top law programs all the time. UVA’s English program is also distinguished. UVA’s undergraduate acceptance rate, coupled with the SATs/GPAs/class rank of its freshman class, demonstrates that it’s more selective than UMich. Again, I have the utmost respect for UMich; however, I, along with USNWR and many, many Americans feel UVA is every bit as good if not slightly better at the undergraduate level.</p>

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<p>In the eyes of “academe,” which is what I was referring to:</p>

<p>USNWR 2012 PA scores for UNDERGRADUATE schools:</p>

<p>UCB 4.7</p>

<p>UMich 4.5</p>

<p>UVA 4.3</p>

<p>UCLA 4.2</p>

<p>UNC 4.2</p>

<p>Academics are not as easily fooled as the general public.</p>