quote:

---

Sharp's August 2013 review of Giroir when he was vice chancellor for strategic initiatives rated Giroir on a 1-5 scale, five being "excellent" and one being "poor." Sharp gave Giroir mostly 4's and 5's in areas of leadership, management and communication skills, but issued low marks in the 2's and 3's in the personal attributes subcategories of "loyalty/commitment" and "team player."

---

Records reveal details behind departure of Texas A&M University Health Science Center CEO Brett Giroir

quote:

---

quote:

---

Sharp's August 2013 review of Giroir when he was vice chancellor for strategic initiatives rated Giroir on a 1-5 scale, five being "excellent" and one being "poor." Sharp gave Giroir mostly 4's and 5's in areas of leadership, management and communication skills, but issued low marks in the 2's and 3's in the personal attributes subcategories of "loyalty/commitment" and "team player."

---

Records reveal details behind departure of Texas A&M University Health Science Center CEO Brett Giroir

---

In the world of government employment, executive leadership is free to follow their own agenda even if it's at odds to the direction set by their superiors...Meanwhile in the real world you either align or gtfo. Perhaps the real world might be creeping into academia? Better late than never I always say.

Yet when Coach Sherman was fired abruptly and without notice nor mere human consideration there was rampant hue and cry among Aggies.

Sometimes "how" is as important as "why".

And Sid, once again I ask you to reveal your interest and qualifications to not only hold positions on these issues, but to criticize the positions of others, as you have accused others of having no (or false) bases for their opinions.

Captain, what's the relevance of this to the overall thread? I'm not seeing a connection to enrollment growth.

I agree with Sid here.

One thing that I find a bit interesting is that if Sharp used the same TAMUS annual employee assessment system we have to use as faculty and staff, the employee can dispute the assessment and respond to specific criticisms. Ultimately the employee signs off on what we write. So if it's the same system, it would be interesting to see what Giroir said in response to the areas of low rating, and what measures were agreed on for improvement in those areas.

Regarding the letters of resignation, while some academics say it's uncommon practice, I've also had senior colleagues (from when I was a mere faculty pup) recommend that you provide such a letter the day you take an administrative job. It's a message to the people above you in the food chain to take you seriously: If you can't handle the truth as I see it, you are free to fire me. I've heard that there is at least one powerful department here where it's the common practice for a new head to give a resignation letter to the Dean on day 1.

Another thing I wonder about: Giroir may have looked good in terms of the funding increases that occurred on his watch, but as the article says, this is peanuts compared to the kinds of institutions we want to be compared to. Interacting with Young may have opened Sharp's eyes on that (yes, I could argue that he should already know, but that's a common problem around here), and suddenly realizing that putting up with Giroir as a prima donna wasn't giving as much benefit for the cost as he had thought at the time of that evaluation.

Well Business Insider says we are the number one safety school in the country. Aka schools that accept at least 66% of their applicants but are still academically solid. What sharp doesn't get it is you keep growing and pretty soon you lose the academic side of that too.

I'm too lazy to post a link.

A&M is already sliding. It's fallen about 20 spots in USN&WR.

I think it's time for a lot of Aggies to re-read this article from 1997.

http://www.texasmonthly.com/story/did-you-hear-one-about-new-aggies

quote:

---

They put education ahead of football, admitted more women than men

---

I'd be cool if we started doing this one again.

Paul Burka comes off as a big dick in that Texas Monthly article, but you can't argue with some of his points.

quote:

---

As recently as the 1950's it was more likely that the school would cease to exist than become a serious academic institution. Over the years, A&M has had to overcome politics, poverty, isolation, fire, and ridicule. Most of all, though, it has had to overcome Aggies.

The lifetime love and loyalty that Aggies have for their school have been A&M's greatest asset and its greatest liability. Its long history as an all-male, compulsory military institution made the experience of attending A&M intense and unique. All universities must deal with alumni who don't want their school to change, but at A&M the pressure from former students (which is the correct designation for Aggie alums, since there is no such creature as an ex-Aggie) to resist change has been extreme and unyielding. No university has had to endure more fights over what its fundamental mission should be. Until recent years, the occasional attempts to elevate scholarship inevitably lost out to advocates of technical education, military training, and character and leadership development.

The history of Texas A&M, then, has been an unending battle between New Aggies, who saw the change as something that could elevate the school, and Old Aggies, who were passionate in their conviction that change would destroy it.

---

Some things haven't changed.

quote:

---

quote:

---

quote:

---

Sharp's August 2013 review of Giroir when he was vice chancellor for strategic initiatives rated Giroir on a 1-5 scale, five being "excellent" and one being "poor." Sharp gave Giroir mostly 4's and 5's in areas of leadership, management and communication skills, but issued low marks in the 2's and 3's in the personal attributes subcategories of "loyalty/commitment" and "team player."

---

Records reveal details behind departure of Texas A&M University Health Science Center CEO Brett Giroir

---

In the world of government employment, executive leadership is free to follow their own agenda even if it's at odds to the direction set by their superiors...Meanwhile in the real world you either align or gtfo. Perhaps the real world might be creeping into academia? Better late than never I always say.

---

Executive leadership in government isn't at all free to follow their own agenda. What are you talking about? I was trying to interpret your posts there for a while, but sometimes I find them obtuse.

This is interesting to keep in mind for those Aggies that don't understand why John Sharp wants to "break down the barriers to entry" at A&M, as he put it here.

quote:

---

As recently as the mid-seventies, the catalog requirements for admission to the College Station campus were only that a student had to be a college-track high school graduate of good moral character and free of infectious and contagious diseases.

---

It was basically open admissions. This is the era of A&M that John Sharp and the Board of Regents come from.

quote:

---

With its graceless cell block buildings, A&M resembled a prison more than a university

---

The buildings today don't look much better.

quote:

---

quote:

---

With its graceless cell block buildings, A&M resembled a prison more than a university

---

The buildings today don't look much better.

---

Most universities that are public have a few square buildings. At least fifty percent of our buildings are attractive.

Then why are we upgrading our sports facilities?

quote:

---

At least fifty percent of our buildings are attractive.

---

That's being generous. A&M has pretty bland buildings, even by public university standards. It's very beige.

exhibit one: the new liberal arts building



Which I guess is an improvement over this....

And this literally looks like a jail.

People keep talking about "former students pushing back"... How exactly do you propose doing this? Sharp and the regents don't care what 99.9% of us have to say. Even if you got a petition with 10k signatures, what would it do?

I'm serious. If there's a major change to be made, where is the realistic avenue to affect that change? Because a 28 page thread on here sure won't change anything.

quote:

---

Paul Burka comes off as a big dick in that Texas Monthly article, but you can't argue with some of his points.

quote:

---

As recently as the 1950's it was more likely that the school would cease to exist than become a serious academic institution. Over the years, A&M has had to overcome politics, poverty, isolation, fire, and ridicule. Most of all, though, it has had to overcome Aggies.

The lifetime love and loyalty that Aggies have for their school have been A&M's greatest asset and its greatest liability. Its long history as an all-male, compulsory military institution made the experience of attending A&M intense and unique. All universities must deal with alumni who don't want their school to change, but at A&M the pressure from former students (which is the correct designation for Aggie alums, since there is no such creature as an ex-Aggie) to resist change has been extreme and unyielding. No university has had to endure more fights over what its fundamental mission should be. Until recent years, the occasional attempts to elevate scholarship inevitably lost out to advocates of technical education, military training, and character and leadership development.

The history of Texas A&M, then, has been an unending battle between New Aggies, who saw the change as something that could elevate the school, and Old Aggies, who were passionate in their conviction that change would destroy it.

---

Some things haven't changed.

---

Thinly veiled hostility wrapped in trite uninsightful analysis about how Aggies just love aggieland. He writes the same sheet over and over again every couple of years....my next door neighbor's high school kid could've done better than this.

a sip lib writing about A&M for Texas monthly. Hmmph

quote:

---

And this literally looks like a jail.

---

FHK

Whatever ... I'm a 30 year old readmitted student and I have no problem saying that A&M is easily more difficult than it was 10 years ago.

Just means that we're the mother ****ing GOAT!

The Aggie Ring, which I'm one hour away from ordering, carries more weight than any school in TX and it isn't even close.

Hwy 6 runs both ways bud. And I gather by your criticism that you may not have been to other public universities to see their buildings.

Money magazine labels A&M a "safety school" for accepting more than 66% of applicants.

http://www.businessinsider.com/most-underrated-colleges-2015-7

Money Magazine came out with their list of the best colleges. Here's the link :

https://best-colleges.time.com/money/full-ranking#/list

Bottom line -

Stanford #1
Texas A&M #20
UT Austin #82

quote:

---

Hey I love tx as much as you. But this: There's a reason property in Tx is cheaper than that in Ca. Same reason academics and others will chose Ca over Tx all else being equal.

It's hard to beat evidence my brother. Thx for giving me some.

---

We're so far away, quality-wise from the UC-System it feels pretty disingenuous to try to focus this argument on the weather and the view.

I can tell you one thing, for sure, though: Increasing the enrollment of the "flagship" campus and not growing the other campuses isn't going to get us closer to the UC system, no matter the weather.

quote:

---

Money Magazine came out with their list of the best colleges. Here's the link :

https://best-colleges.time.com/money/full-ranking#/list

Bottom line -

Stanford #1
Texas A&M #20
UT Austin #82

---

(Sidenote- that's "best value".colleges. Not best colleges. I don't care how slippery MONEY's headline writers want to be---no one thinks the Maine Maritime Academy is the 8th "best college" in the United States and no one thinks NYU is 354th.

But that is certainly not a bad thing. Yale and Harvard and others are up there, too.

Why would you want to risk that by emulating the model used by the 345th ranked school on that list, Arizona State?

Do you think we will maintain or, most desirable to me, improve our ranking, and/or the ranking of the other school's in the A&M system (most of them are in bad places on that list) by continuing to grow the College Station campus at a fast rate? By having more online classes? By having more JUCO-dual credit programs?

quote:

---

Money Magazine came out with their list of the best colleges. Here's the link :

https://best-colleges.time.com/money/full-ranking#/list

Bottom line -

Stanford #1
Texas A&M #20
UT Austin #82

---

If you think that tu doesn't give a lot of bang for the buck, then I've got some ocean front property. .

quote:

---

That's "best value".colleges. Not best colleges

---

Ding ding ding

quote:

---

Money Magazine came out with their list of the best colleges. Here's the link :

https://best-colleges.time.com/money/full-ranking#/list

Bottom line -

Stanford #1
Texas A&M #20
UT Austin #82

---

Really? That list is bull****. Babson College ahead of Harvard? The Maine Maritime Academy ahead of Penn?

Again, it is value. Apparently it is very common to overpay for degrees at many prestigious colleges and then do nothing worthwhile with that investment, hence....

quote:

---

Again, it is value. Apparently it is very common to overpay for degrees at many prestigious colleges and then do nothing worthwhile with that investment, hence....

---

Define "worthwhile".



Also, less than 2% of the overall score is derived from mid-career salary. I know everyone likes to tell me where I got my degree doesn't matter after a few years in professional working world...

...but those people always seem to forget to address if there is a trend between where you got your degree and whether you'll perform during your first few years at work in a way that gets you promoted to the cushy jobs.

I see that we're ranked 1 spot above Yale on that list, with a starting salary within $500 of a Yale graduate. Yet, I've seen statistics where the average Yale graduate is making $20-30 thousand more mid-career than the average A&M graduate.

And yes, I know you can poke holes in all the rankings...I don't know if someone has compiled rankings but I daresay we're not 20th...or close to 20th...in the most of them.

Yep, there are a bunch of different ways you can look at it. Much of it you cannot just look at the data objectively because there is a lot of variance in the populations that get admission to each college/university. With the ivy league and many prestigious private universities, it is not so much your grades and resume that matter getting in, but who you are, and who you know. Those factors do not cease to have an influence on your life outside education. For example, a connected Yale student may have average grades at Yale, but the same social connections that helped with admission to Yale also will help in career advancement in many areas of life completely independent of the Yale education.

It is as much of a factor of who chooses to go to certain universities as a demographic as what the universities actually do for those who choose to go there, because there are many other factors than education involved in long term career prospects.

quote:

---

Yep, there are a bunch of different ways you can look at it. Much of it you cannot just look at the data objectively because there is a lot of variance in the populations that get admission to each college/university. With the ivy league and many prestigious private universities, it is not so much your grades and resume that matter getting in, but who you are, and who you know. Those factors do not cease to have an influence on your life outside education. For example, a connected Yale student may have average grades at Yale, but the same social connections that helped with admission to Yale also will help in career advancement in many areas of life completely independent of the Yale education.

It is as much of a factor of who chooses to go to certain universities as a demographic as what the universities actually do for those who choose to go there, because there are many other factors than education involved in long term career prospects.

---

Sure, some people get into prestigious schools because they know somebody, but 97% of them are just good students (great grades, highly motivated, leadership, etc.). Otherwise the model isn't sustainable. While other factors (ethnicity, gender, etc) are factored in to give some diversity, people accepted to the best schools in the country are generally the very best students in their own demographic group.

Back to A&M, the Blinn Team/JUCO/Texas-A&M Chevron engineering academy (*shudder*) routes need to stop. We are diluting the talent pool and from personal experience most of these guys struggle mightily at A&M and aren't the future innovators or leaders that A&M needs. And yes, classes are getting easier because people can't seem to handle them. I'd say a solid half of my engineering classes turned into a joke because of b****ing from the lower tier students in the class.