Had the opportunity to attend Glenn Poshard's presentation to the Chamber of Commerce on the status of SIUC. It's not good. I will post details later but the general gist is that the university has taken hits from all sides in terms of customers, competition, and funding. One thing I found particularly interesting was Poshard's last slide which looked at what the city could do to increase attendance. His two points were safety and beautification. He believes that high schools and universities in other areas that the school could recruit from still view SIUC as a party school and parents may view the city as unsafe. Neighborhood Scout certainly thinks so.
Apparently Poshard's beautification rap on the city comes from his perception of Hwy 13 east of the city as littered and trashy, not presenting a good image for parents and their children entering the city from that direction, which most do. That's the first I time I have heard anyone comment on excessive litter on the east side of town. From his speech, I gather Poshard wants civic minded citizens to spend time on Hwy 13 east cleaning up the roadside.
Apparently Poshard's beautification rap on the city comes from his perception of Hwy 13 east of the city as littered and trashy, not presenting a good image for parents and their children entering the city from that direction, which most do. That's the first I time I have heard anyone comment on excessive litter on the east side of town. From his speech, I gather Poshard wants civic minded citizens to spend time on Hwy 13 east cleaning up the roadside.
The university recruits athletes who have been kicked off other college teams for criminal activity, and then Poshard complains that it is perceived as an unsafe party school. I think avoiding criminal athletes would do more to help the perception than picking up litter.
ReplyDeleteAnything but blame himself for the decline in enrollments and the image he presents to the outside world in terms of the plagiarism issue. Has he never heard of Harry Truman's saying, "The buck stops here"? Maybe he and the SIUC higher administration should clear up the litter? There are more than enough of them for this job!
ReplyDeleteI rather agree with both of you. Admission has slowly slid ever since the 1990s. In his speech, Poshard also mentioned the dropping of 2 year degrees by the university in the 1990s as contributing to the slip. I rather put it on the decision to lower admission requirements then.
ReplyDeleteI agree with all of these points. It seems strange to me that Poshard would blame the city for a road and expect Carbondale to solve a problem that SIU Administrators have created. When we first came here to visit I had never seen the school before. I didn't care much about our view as we drove in on 13 because I was waiting to see what the school was like.
ReplyDeleteSIU is spending all of this effort on superficial visuals instead of building an identity for the school. I attended a panel of 25 students nominated by faculty to present our ideas to the school about what could help things improve. Our notes were to be presented to the Chancellor. Not a single student discussed the visual appeal of the campus. Our concerns were for strong academics and a desire to see the school become a strong research focused place for serious study. Yet, the school keeps cutting funding to departments and faculty. How can they not understand that they are a school and what matters is the education not the amount of banners and flowers on the grounds...
Money is directed towards short term rather than long term building. The new stadiums are nice but only a few students will come because of them. If that money has gone into upgrading educational facilities and scholarships, more students would come and money with them,which would help pay for the cost or the new stadiums. Short term rather than long term thinking.
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