Comment Worthy of Distinction

Can You Say: UTB/TSC? said...

Truth be told, UTB/TSC is only marginally "an institution of higher education." Much of that condition arises from the abysmal lack of preparation of the students coming to the school from the surrounding public schools. Beat your chest and tear your hair all you want, you misguided apologists for the hideous state of public education, it's not going to change that fact.

Any weight UTB/TSC carries in the world of education comes from its accreditation. Without that, it irrefutably becomes what many already see it as: Juliet Garcia's combination money factory and playground for border retards.

The Southern Association of Colleges and Schools (SACS) is the organization that provides the accreditation to UTB/TSC. They accomplish this by periodically coming to each institution and looking very closely at what the institution claims its mission is, what the institution is actually doing as relates to accomplishing that proclaimed mission, what sorts of results the various schools and colleges are getting, and the levels of academic progress students are making.

They are very serious, and they don't play at it. And they're coming to you-know-where in the very near future.

Most institutions have what is generally known as an office of institutional effectiveness, or something very similar. This is the office charged with making sure that when the accrediting body comes to check stuff out, it all looks good. Most institutions have had such an office in place for years, if not decades. The office at UTB/TSC was only created in the last couple of years. And this was somewhat of a panic response to the realization that SACS was coming and they weren't really looking like a good candidate for continued accreditation. Or at the very least, not without sanctions, a probationary period or some other very obvious process that the entire rest of the educational world could not help but see as proof of failure and incompetence.

One way to make the horrendous numbers that accompany hundreds of students requiring more than the state or national average number of hours of remediation in order to even qualify to attempt college level work; degrees taking six, eight or more years to complete by students barely able to maintain a 2.0 Grade Point Average (GPA); students typically losing access to federal student aid due to failure to maintain academic standards mandated by that program; students completing enough hours to account for at least a bachelor’s degree, but their completed courses to not conform to any approved course of study for which a degree can be awarded – one way to get the low graduation numbers to look better, is to get all those struggling students out of the system.

It appears that it was decided that a Satisfactory Academic Progress (SAP) evaluation would be made as a means for culling some of the more embarrassing members of the student body. Finally, we’re getting close to addressing the Dual Enrollment students.

A Freedom of Information Act request will yield nothing. The institution, regardless of the fact that it disburses state and federal monies, is not a governmental body and is not required to comply. Even if it were, you can be sure that there is no appreciable paper trail in existence regarding this activity. All students, including high school students who are being duped into duel enrollment by the office of Enrollment Planning in order to artificially bolster sagging enrollment numbers, are subject to SAP standards.

(One of the university’s, and the Office of Enrollment Planning’s, paramount objectives has been to meet or exceed expected national averages for enrollment increases. This is essential in demonstrating that a Hispanic Serving Institution (HSI) in one of the poorest regions of the nation is being managed so remarkably by a Hispanic woman, Juliet Garcia, that it is able to show such advancement, which is undoubtedly being followed with the well known benefits that accrue to the surrounding area through the increased educational level of the population.)

The additional hidden problem here is that many of these dual enrollment students are C- and D-average public school students, not those students for whom the rather demanding dual enrollment program was designed. As a result, many of the little Pedro’s y Bonita’s don’t make the grade; they might come for a few classes but their English isn’t good enough and they’d rather be “hangin with their homies” so they just quit coming. Next thing you know, little Bonita is looking to get into TSC so she can get a respiratory therapist’s certificate, but she’s already on SAP probation because she doesn’t have a 70% completion rate and a 2.0 GPA because of her long forgotten episode with dual enrollment. Another 18 year old in skin-tight mid-calf length hip-hugging designer jeans, $65 dollar blouse revealing no more cleavage than would be appropriate for an 11 pm appearance at the favorite club, set off with pink patent leather Hello Kitty seven inch stiletto heels and coin purse-sized hand bag has her dreams of future financial success stomped hard in the middle of the back by the big muddy black boot of reality.

There is a LOT of ugly crap going down there, on the border by the sea, and it’s not all coming from across the border. To all appearances, Dr. Garcia has taken what could have been a beacon of hope, painted it up as a one-size-fits-all solution for the region’s ignorance and poverty, bought red rubber noses for all parties, and transformed it into her own private legacy building empire.

Post script:

The catch 22 to all this, and you knew with this level plotting and intrigue there would be at least one, is that if they ditch the students that make their numbers look bad for SACS, then their claimed amazing enrollment accomplishment disappears.

“Oh what a tangled web we weave,
When first we practice to deceive!”
~ Sir Walter Scott, Marmion, canto vi, stanza 17.