Quote from: y_jack_lok on July 11, 2026, 10:06:33 AM

Quote from: DagarmanSpartan on July 11, 2026, 01:01:55 AMI have such an address and signed up with it.

It's making more sense now. Seems like I am wrong that Flo might be lowering prices to attract new subscribers.

I would bet almost everyone here can get an .edu address. Most colleges have options for alumni to either keep/reactivate their email from their student days or sign up for an alumni specific one. I would 100% recommend contacting your alumni office and finding out before signing up at full price.

Quote from: Ron Boerger on July 10, 2026, 10:24:15 AMIf so, he'll be the first to do so.  All the other conferences have provided boilerplate answers about how much better things are gonna be.  The SCAC commissioner is the only one I know to have gone on record saying the conference itself is receiving funds that it is using to improve conference championships. 

As a longtime Flo hater and citer of the D3 philosophy statement, I will say, at least this is a use of the money that mostly* fits in with "Prioritize the experience of the participants, and the internal constituency (e.g., students, alumni, institutional personnel) rather than on the entertainment needs of spectators or the general public"

*Paywalling doesn't prioritize the experience of some of those constituents -- alumni who don't live close enough to go to games in person, or even students who may not be able to even if they're on campus. But if you're using the money to improve the conference championship experience for the fans who can -- and crucially, for the athletes themselves, that I can get behind, in theory

This is not an apples to apples comparison in large part due to schedule strength, but looking at Utica's 4th year, they were 3-7, and competitive most weeks. They beat Hartwick and a 5-4 RPI, lost by 11 to 8-win Alfred and 17 to St. John Fisher's only Pool A team ever.

Hilbert went winless, and only two losses were even close: a 28-7 loss to 2-8 St. Vincent and a 15-8 loss to a 1-9 Buffalo State.

They grew their roster from 46 players in 2024 to 63 last year. Which is encouraging, but still seems low for a 4th year program

Cost of attendance is kinda a "would you rather?" type thing. You do have some people who will pay full price, or close to it.

Our men's wrestling coach told me once that you're always going to have a type of family that *wants* their child to go to the expensive school, and pay for it, because it's as much social currency as anything. So cutting too much off the sticker price lowers what they give you.

But the flip side is, while it's easy for us to understand that the sticker price is just that, there are a lot of families who simply don't get that, and see a $75,000 price tag and say "No thanks"

It's why Hartwick just knocked like $35,000 off of tuition. They're looking at the types of students they're bringing in, and those who are saying no, and have decided that the lower price tag will get people in the door and not to worry about those who may pay the higher price.

It's a game of moving sliders for sure.

Ithaca does not have Greek Life on campus, however, they have many Residential Learning Communities which connect students with shared interests.

The two things that set Ithaca apart tended to be rowing and wrestling, simply because there weren't that many schools that offered them. When wrestling was a top 10 program, those two sports were an easy 100+ points.

They had plenty of other strong programs as well, but those were two that a lot of other colleges did not offer. I wish Ithaca had started ice hockey during the halcyon days of 7,000 students and massive budget surpluses.

Quote from: MCScots2013 on June 10, 2026, 06:27:00 PMBut, higher education acts as though they are immune to things "normal" businesses have to face.  These institutions are employers--were they really going to tell potential hires they are facing financial issues?

If you want to say that you're dealing with the same things "normal" businesses deal with, then hire the way a "normal" business does. Change it to a non-tenure track position.

But dangling the carrot of tenure -- something specific to academia that carries a promise of job security -- to attract candidates*, and then throwing your hands up 12 months later and say "Well, we're no different than any other employer" is nonsense.

*Because the minute you change it to non-tenure track, your applicant pool will shrink drastically.

Quote from: Kuiper on June 10, 2026, 05:49:20 PMHe may have even declined other tenure track offers or visiting offers at better schools to take this position and now he's at a disadvantage going back on the market

Yeah, I think this is really what he's getting at.

I worked for a now-defunct publishing company that --after I left-- closed almost without warning after getting bought out by a larger media company. Basically, they got called in and were told, "We're closing at the end of the week".

When one of the employees talked to me about it, he said he felt that the boss -- who of course was going to be a part of the new company -- told him that he didn't warn people because he wanted to finish the last thing the soon-to-be-defunct company was putting out, and he didn't think people would do it if they knew the company was closing.

I'm very glad I got out of there before that, and most of my colleagues found other (better) jobs quickly. But there was definitely a feeling of rug-pulling, and that anger was justified

I mean, on the one hand, getting fired is unaligned with everyone's career goals, sacrifices, and rewards. We all sacrifice when we take one job and leave another. We all have goals. And most of us don't have the reward of tenure dangling in front of us at all. And, hey, this is higher ed in 2026. Job uncertainty just comes with the territory.

But on the other, the whole point of hiring someone on tenure track -- as opposed to the other lanes for faculty -- is in fact the implication that you do want them in your department for a significant amount of time, and that the person can in fact expect that they'll be there for the foreseeable future.

Quote from: Kuiper on May 28, 2026, 12:00:32 AM

Quote from: WUPHF on May 27, 2026, 08:25:11 PMWittenberg provost: University not closing soon, making improvements.

https://www.daytondailynews.com/local/wittenberg-provost-university-not-closing-soon-making-improvements/article_edaf0911-47ad-5b23-abf1-d4126ebde348.html

This has a Baghdad Bob "Nothing to see here" feel.

It's all very vague and doesn't have much details on how these changes hace impacted enrollment and giving

Quote from: Ron Boerger on May 23, 2026, 05:41:21 PM

Quote from: DagarmanSpartan on May 23, 2026, 03:19:57 PMOR you could do what CWRU does and have a School of Engineering, a School of Management, a School of Nursing, and a College of Arts and Sciences, that way, nearly all students can study something they like!

Because there are so many Division III schools enrolling 12,000 students (undergrad/grad), with a 267 acre campus, a 400 acre farm, and $2.5 billion in an endowment to make things like this possible.

Why haven't any of our colleges/universities just considered not being so small and poor?

Quote from: MCScots2013 on May 23, 2026, 10:29:38 AMI think you need to give yourself a little more credit.  Technology may have changed your day-to-day, but you still know how the sausage is made.  That's invaluable.  We may not build roads in the same fashion as the Romans but knowing how they did it paved the path for today's DOT.

As I said before, I'm not suggesting we kill off the liberal arts.  I'm suggesting we become more competitive.

By the way--kudos to Brendan.  Love that story. 

Oh I give myself credit, don't worry, haha. I work as a journalist for my alma mater, and I love my job. I've got the requisite writing skills for sure, but what's shining through a lot is the type of soft skill stuff that get developed when you do more than just hyperfocus on one thing.

Understanding the needs of our audiences, having the ability to discern what stories will meet our goals, critically analyzing information, understanding how to write stories in a way that intersect with a lot of different paths in order to tell a "bigger" story than it might appear, even understanding why certain types of stories may (or may not) resonate in a current climate. Heck, even learning the interpersonal skills needed to communicate with a bunch of different stakeholders in an effective way. They're all things I developed significantly in courses outside of my journalism classes.

If the only thing I took in college was journalism related courses, I wouldn't be able to bring as much of that to the table, and I'd lack some of the technical expertise that this generation possesses. That's what these "Just let kids study solely what they want to do for a living and quit making them waste time learning [something someone says is unrelated]" proclamations are missing.

As for Brendan, yeah he busted his *** and worked his way up the ladder.

Another example might be gym teachers. When I went to high school in Ithaca, every single one of my gym teachers (many of whom were also coaches) either went to Cortland or IC. But if you're going to end up at the same high school teaching the same things for identical pay, why do it while incurring tens of thousands of additional debt? That's part of why Ithaca no longer has the Physical Education degree.

I don't want to weigh in on the full back and forth here, but I'll make two specific observations centered around my field of journalism, as it relates to the larger points being discussed.

1. Cost - I do not have a clue how private, liberal arts colleges can possibly compete with state schools when the first career stops out of college are invariably going to be the small local/regional papers/networks that all pay you a pittance while you earn your chops, hone your skills, etc.

For example, IC alumnus Brendan Burke, who now works for the NHL's New York Islanders, began his career spending nearly a decade in minor league hockey.

I think that while a lot of alums -- and I'm not speaking about Brendan specifically here -- may see the connection between their college experience and those early jobs, by the time you get to the really financially successful levels, you're crediting your own professional growth more than your alma mater. So in the mind of a prospective student, why take on significantly more debt if you're all going to end up in the same place to start anyway?

2. Skills that "Will be relevant in X number of years" - When I took Introduction to Journalism at Ithaca College in the Fall of 2001, we had desktop computers, we typed into a word doc, and saved files on disks/thumb drives before printing out sheets of paper. In my Introduction to Broadcast Production course, taken the Fall of 2002, we literally cut reel-to-reel tape with razors to edit clips.  Working at the radio station, we recorded the ABC News updates on a reel-to-reel machine, then recorded those onto mini-discs to be played in the station.

My "hands on experience" from college ~25 years ago is wholly and completely irrelevant to what the field requires today.

Today, Intro to Journalism students at Ithaca College are going out with tens of thousands of dollars worth of cameras, mics, and lights, and collaborating with drone operators to produce multimedia pieces that get edited digitally to appear on social media sites that didn't even exist in 2002.

Yeah there may be degree paths that are more stable or conducive to professional career success. But the amount of change that can occur in a single generation can make a lot of things EDIT: Obsolete. And it may in fact be, the "soft skills" you learn in some of these derided paths of study that help you weather that change.

Quote from: CNU85 on May 20, 2026, 10:50:26 AMInteresting informtion. I hope BW successfuly comes through this. Also intersting that Economics was eliminated. Hopefully they still offer some courses. I believe it is important for every student to at least be introduced to it. So does ACTA when they evaluate institutions. I know at CNU, every student has to take at least one Econ class, it might be 2.

"A university spokesperson said that while the majors themselves are being eliminated, much of the same coursework and instruction will still be available as part of other programs."

Yeah, the thing to remember is we're all overpaying for everything. Calling and threatening to cancel services frequently gets you savings