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Sharp is a POS

He'll sit next to Bud Adams once he gets to hell......

I'll be sure to celebrate

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Well, mismanaging a university probably isn't worthy of eternal damnation.

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Conveying a high quality education to an ever growing population is a tough job...made a lot tougher by a loosely-coordinated group of small-minded, zero-sum thinking knuckleheads.

Thank god you guys weren't around when John Kennedy tossed down the moon landing gauntlet or else Apollo would've never happened.

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Landing on the moon has now resulted in what? Better cheese?

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Conveying a high quality education to an ever growing population is a tough job...made a lot tougher by a loosely-coordinated group of small-minded, zero-sum thinking knuckleheads.

Thank god you guys weren't around when John Kennedy tossed down the moon landing gauntlet or else Apollo would've never happened.

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Landing on the moon has now resulted in what? Better cheese?

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Two-second Google search...I'm sure you could've found even more if you'd thought about the question before you asked:
https://www.nasa.gov/sites/default/files/80660main_ApolloFS.pdf

Too cute by half. Self pwnage results. Lol

Will say it again, Texas A&M is fulfilling its role as a public institution of higher education. Unlike another public university in Austin, Texas A&M is meeting the demand for college bound students in Texas. The fact that SAT scores is down, is not indicative of the quality of education they will receive at Texas A&M. We are a Tier 1 program and it is encouraging to see that we continue to raise the bar as a land grant public education university.

My issue with many on here that feel as if TAMU is watering down its reputation, is that it never really had "that" type of reputation to begin with. TAMU has always been a great college and university, but as a public university, it could never rise to the level of smaller, more affluent universities, such as Rice University. They offer a difference experience and are more selective about enrollment. We are not Rice.

Last point, then I'm off the crapper. It does bother me that UT (yes that one) does not appear to me to be growing enough to meet the growth in Texas. It seems as if their strategy is to be more selective and stay small. In this way I think they can pay more (I don't know if true) to professors and project the idea of a larger public university that operates like a private university. All this while they draw money from the State Budget.

On this point, I applaud Mr. Sharp.

+GIG'EM!!!!

This type of logic baffles me. The state will continue to grow. How large do you want A&M to become to match the growth of the state? 80,000, 100,000? At some point, it becomes the responsibilities of other schools to grow to match the demands made by the growing population of Texas. It is not the job of A&M to continue to educate the entire state simply because our politicians are failing to provide quality alternatives to A&M. Meanwhile, the quality education and welcoming campus which drew so many of us to A&M is disappearing under the weight of stressed resources and crowded classrooms.

Secondly, why do so many who welcome the increase enrollment not seem to acknowledge that we have not hired the faculty and staff to deal with that increase? President Young has called for the hiring of an additional 3,000 faculty and staff. Let's see if the BOR or the legislature comes through and supports such an expansion.

Let me add, we had a pretty dang good reputation in the mid-90s. We passed Texas in the USNWR ranking and we were on path to enter into the strata of Michigan, UNC, etc. We may never had made it to that level, but we definitely weren't about to be passed up by Baylor.........Yup, Baylor is about to pass us in rankings.

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Will say it again, Texas A&M is fulfilling its role as a public institution of higher education. Unlike another public university in Austin, Texas A&M is meeting the demand for college bound students in Texas. The fact that SAT scores is down, is not indicative of the quality of education they will receive at Texas A&M. We are a Tier 1 program and it is encouraging to see that we continue to raise the bar as a land grant public education university.

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It's not so much as the quality of education that concerns most, it's the quality of student coming in and leaving with that A&M degree. That's what is reflective of SAT scores being down as you state. I had to take my SAT twice because I didn't score high enough on the math portion. I didn't complain about that. There was a requirement and I had to meet it. Do you really think that lowering the main entrance requirement, allowing more students to qualify and attend will result in quality individuals upon graduation? You start lowering your entrance requirements and then you have to adjust your academic criteria to fit those individuals' "academic needs" to produce more graduates. You start putting in regular gas in a car that requires premium only and your product begins to suffer internally. Use sub-standard materials and you get poor results.

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My issue with many on here that feel as if TAMU is watering down its reputation, is that it never really had "that" type of reputation to begin with. TAMU has always been a great college and university, but as a public university, it could never rise to the level of smaller, more affluent universities, such as Rice University. They offer a difference experience and are more selective about enrollment. We are not Rice.

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We have a product (our degrees, school, alumni, and its reputation) and it's being watered down to try to cater to everyone. Believe it or not, not everyone should go to college or be entitled to go to college. The world needs mechanics, ditch diggers, etc. Nothing wrong with those jobs, but every kid graduating high school shouldn't feel that because s/he can meet the lowered entrance requirement of a college that they should go.

To say that we don't have "that" reputation is simply not an accurate statement and a matter of your opinion. We may not be "the Harvard of the South" or some other BS, but we are not your local Community College. You can google and find the research yourself. As one example, at the end of FY 2014, A&M was in the top ten universities with the largest endowments. The schools that were ahead of us?: Harvard, Yale, Stanford, MIT. Behind us? Michigan, University of Pennsylvania, Columbia, and Notre Dame. That money goes to academics. And let me remind you that the majority of those other schools are older than A&M and were not all-male military schools into the 1960s. We've accomplished a lot in short time and I can say it is because of the quality of students admitted.

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Last point, then I'm off the crapper. It does bother me that UT (yes that one) does not appear to me to be growing enough to meet the growth in Texas. It seems as if their strategy is to be more selective and stay small. In this way I think they can pay more (I don't know if true) to professors and project the idea of a larger public university that operates like a private university. All this while they draw money from the State Budget

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We are currently ranked academically 70 by US News...that school in Austin? 52. Perhaps their strategy to stay selective is a good thing.

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On this point, I applaud Mr. Sharp.

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Came in 2011, we were academically ranked 58 nationally then. One of Rick's cronies.

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+GIG'EM!!!!

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Not to the man that brought us this:


edited for grammar.

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Secondly, why do so many who welcome the increase enrollment not seem to acknowledge that we have not hired the faculty and staff to deal with that increase? President Young has called for the hiring of an additional 3,000 faculty and staff. Let's see if the BOR or the legislature comes through and supports such an expansion.

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This is really one of the only legitimate concerns. I don't care if we have 50,000; 100,000; or 200,000 students. All I care about is whether or not the quality of the facilities and teaching infrastructures are being matched to ensure that standards for graduation aren't being lowered. Other than that, WGAS.

I guess the people WGAS are the ones who see our quality rankings dropping, who see the infrastructure aging, and who realize that massive university growth rarely leads to improved quality when bean counters are in charge.

It's a reflection of what is happening to the State as a whole and massive growth comes with lots of negatives.

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Secondly, why do so many who welcome the increase enrollment not seem to acknowledge that we have not hired the faculty and staff to deal with that increase? President Young has called for the hiring of an additional 3,000 faculty and staff. Let's see if the BOR or the legislature comes through and supports such an expansion.

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He called for adding 290. Where were the additional 2,710 mentioned?

And the BOR approved the request to petition the legislature last month, so the onus is now on Austin.

The role of educating the masses falls to the system, not the flagship research institution.

I may have read a press release too quickly and put an extra zero on the rounded number. I looked again but only found statements from him saying that we need a 9% increase in faculty. Since we are around 3000 faculty, that makes sense.

290 additional faculty is not enough.

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As a reference point, Young said the University of Texas had a 19.1 to 1 ratio. To achieve that, he added Texas A&M would need to add nearly 450 additional faculty members.

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http://www.theeagle.com/news/local/financial-report-to-a-m-regents-has-young-looking-toward/article_b28293a9-bca3-5ffa-bcba-5e483b429b9c.html

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He called for adding 290. Where were the additional 2,710 mentioned?

And the BOR approved the request to petition the legislature last month, so the onus is now on Austin.

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So A&M expanded enrollment without the necessary resources to serve the additional students. And now they're begging Austin to help because class sizes have gone up and quality has gone down along with rankings.

Remind me why anyone could think John Sharp is competent?

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He called for adding 290. Where were the additional 2,710 mentioned?

And the BOR approved the request to petition the legislature last month, so the onus is now on Austin.

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So A&M expanded enrollment without the necessary resources to serve the additional students. And now they're begging Austin to help because class sizes have gone up and quality has gone down along with rankings.

Remind me why anyone could think John Sharp is competent?

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I have heard a lot of people say a lot of things about Sharp. Competent has never been one of them.

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Let me add, we had a pretty dang good reputation in the mid-90s. We passed Texas in the USNWR ranking and we were on path to enter into the strata of Michigan, UNC, etc. We may never had made it to that level, but we definitely weren't about to be passed up by Baylor.........Yup, Baylor is about to pass us in rankings.

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This. Every word, this.

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He called for adding 290. Where were the additional 2,710 mentioned?

And the BOR approved the request to petition the legislature last month, so the onus is now on Austin.

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So A&M expanded enrollment without the necessary resources to serve the additional students. And now they're begging Austin to help because class sizes have gone up and quality has gone down along with rankings.

Remind me why anyone could think John Sharp is competent?

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This is funny because not but one page ago we had people saying no one here has a political ax to grind with Sharp. Bull s--- indeed!

And as said previously - there folks go making false narratives to suit their own ends even though their totally divorced from reality!

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He called for adding 290. Where were the additional 2,710 mentioned?

And the BOR approved the request to petition the legislature last month, so the onus is now on Austin.

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So A&M expanded enrollment without the necessary resources to serve the additional students. And now they're begging Austin to help because class sizes have gone up and quality has gone down along with rankings.

Remind me why anyone could think John Sharp is competent?

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I have heard a lot of people say a lot of things about Sharp. Competent has never been one of them.

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You musta never been in a room with him then. Say what you want about the man, you're entitled to an opinion and to disagree with his decisions same as anyone, but two things are beyond question when it comes to John Sharp - he loves Texas A&M and he's a savy (read: competent) politician.

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The role of educating the masses falls to the system, not the flagship research institution.

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Exactly. There are other schools in the system. Make those options better/more attractive.

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He called for adding 290. Where were the additional 2,710 mentioned?

And the BOR approved the request to petition the legislature last month, so the onus is now on Austin.

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So A&M expanded enrollment without the necessary resources to serve the additional students. And now they're begging Austin to help because class sizes have gone up and quality has gone down along with rankings.

Remind me why anyone could think John Sharp is competent?

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I have heard a lot of people say a lot of things about Sharp. Competent has never been one of them.

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You musta never been in a room with him then. Say what you want about the man, you're entitled to an opinion and to disagree with his decisions same as anyone, but two things are beyond question when it comes to John Sharp - he loves Texas A&M and he's a savy (read: competent) politician.

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Competent politician /=/ Competent chancellor of a university system

Your mindset is part of the damn problem. He's running the A&M system like he's running a populist political campaign and they're totally different things!


And no, I still have no personal/political ax to grind with Sharp. I just disagree with the way he is performing his job.

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It does bother me that UT (yes that one) does not appear to me to be growing enough to meet the growth in Texas.

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UT realizes there are 35 public universities in Texas and the last thing the state needs is another mediocre one. Keep Austin and College Station selective and let the other 33 universities serve their purpose.

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If you ever visit the Tower on UT-Austin's campus, one of the main rooms has a quote inscribed on its wall which states language from the Texas Constitution that UT-Austin is to be a university "of the first class."

And that's exactly the mission that university is trying to fulfill today by not growing enrollment. It has a large system of schools to grow enrollment at and meet the mission of public education of providing accessible education to the entire populace.

Quit frankly, I would think it a disservice if the public university systems in the state did not strive to create some elite campuses. It is not only how the state will keep talent at home, but how it will attract talent from elsewhere.

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UT realizes there are 35 public universities in Texas and the last thing the state needs is another mediocre one. Keep Austin and College Station selective and let the other 33 universities serve their purpose.

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If you ever visit the Tower on UT-Austin's campus, one of the main rooms has a quote inscribed on its wall which states language from the Texas Constitution that UT-Austin is to be a university "of the first class."

And that's exactly the mission that university is trying to fulfill today by not growing enrollment. It has a large system of schools to grow enrollment at and meet the mission of public education of providing accessible education to the entire populace.

Quit frankly, I would think it a disservice if the public university systems in the state did not strive to create some elite campuses. It is not only how the state will keep talent at home, but how it will attract talent from elsewhere.

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These guys get it

Are the rest of the campuses in the A&M system maintaining current class sizes and not expanding at all?

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Sharp testified in front of the Texas Senate higher ed committee.

Link

It seems Sharp's strategy was to increase enrollment to get more money from the legislature, although, to his surprise (expressed in the video), the increase in funding that A&M received in the last session didn't even cover inflation because of enrollment growth. So the strategy backfired and A&M received less money per student.

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It sounds like Sharp is either incompetent or dishonest. I remember him bragging last year that he got more money from the legislature. That wasn't the whole truth. He operates like a politician running for reelection.

IIRC there was a story that Texags published full of quotes from Sharp . It wouldn't surprise me if Sharp asked Texags to publish it.

So not a single word on the Riverside (RELLIS) campus developments? Or how the Blinn board of regents unanimously voted to join the venture and have lauded the opportunity? It'll essentially solve all complaints about controlling enrollment at the flagship while still allowing kids of former students to have a college experience in College Station and graduate with a A&M-system degree.

Or are we only bringing up topics to levy political attacks and bash administrators?

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So not a single word on the Riverside (RELLIS) campus developments? Or how the Blinn board of regents unanimously voted to join the venture and have lauded the opportunity? It'll essentially solve all complaints about controlling enrollment at the flagship while still allowing kids of former students to have a college experience in College Station and graduate with a A&M-system degree.

Or are we only bringing up topics to levy political attacks and bash administrators?

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Hasn't that become excruciatingly obvious by now?

No, "Sid", it hasn't. Many posting here, like me, have no political interest in this at all.
--- Cecil Albrecht, Boerne, TX

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UT realizes there are 35 public universities in Texas and the last thing the state needs is another mediocre one. Keep Austin and College Station selective and let the other 33 universities serve their purpose.

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If you ever visit the Tower on UT-Austin's campus, one of the main rooms has a quote inscribed on its wall which states language from the Texas Constitution that UT-Austin is to be a university "of the first class."

And that's exactly the mission that university is trying to fulfill today by not growing enrollment. It has a large system of schools to grow enrollment at and meet the mission of public education of providing accessible education to the entire populace.

Quit frankly, I would think it a disservice if the public university systems in the state did not strive to create some elite campuses. It is not only how the state will keep talent at home, but how it will attract talent from elsewhere.

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These guys get it

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This should be like the absolute dead last priority in making decisions about allocating campus resources

"allowing kids of former students to have a college experience in College Station"

How does this solve any of the complaints people are making here. All I have read states that A&M will take transfers from the RELLIS Campus just like we do Blinn. Just because it may accept students not initially admitted to the main campus doesn't mean our admin is planning on taking less students at the main campus. Why do you think it will alleviate any of people's concerns at the main campus?

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But there's a twist: Those new students would be people who were "not admitted" into A&M.

It's not immediately clear how that would work. A press release announcing the project explained it like this: "Students could start their college careers at the center or transfer from community colleges to complete their college degrees. They could be accepted later at Texas A&M University or choose a degree program from another Texas A&M System university. Faculty members from other System schools would either travel to the new campus or teach courses online."

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https://www.texastribune.org/2016/05/02/m-system-announces-new-campus-research-students-no/

yobyob is Sid Farkas, btw. IP tracing is a neat trick

Come on, John... er, I mean Sid, using a sock to agree with yourself is very unbecoming. And very Heismanziel-like

Negative on both counts Tango. Your perception skills are as dull as the wit of the anti-admin molly-coddlers on this thread.

IP trace? Really?

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Negative on both counts Tango. Your perception skills are as dull as the wit of the anti-admin molly-coddlers on this thread.

IP trace? Really?

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I like how you attempt to throw discredit by using absurdities. This is a pretty simplistic example of ergo decedo, probably false equivalence, and most definitely argumentum verbosium.

But, let's face it, that's pretty much been your only defense in this whole thread.

And, yeah, TexAgs security is really, really weak. It's stupid easy to find where IP addresses originate. If two posters have identical IP addresses (in your case there are two identical IP addresses) - and a rookie screen name shows up defending a dumb position - it's pretty decent circumstantial evidence that someone is using a sock to agree with themselves.

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Negative on both counts Tango. Your perception skills are as dull as the wit of the anti-admin molly-coddlers on this thread.

IP trace? Really?

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I like how you attempt to throw discredit by using absurdities. This is a pretty simplistic example of ergo decedo, probably false equivalence, and most definitely argumentum verbosium.

But, let's face it, that's pretty much been your only defense in this whole thread.

And, yeah, TexAgs security is really, really weak. It's stupid easy to find where IP addresses originate. If two posters have identical IP addresses (in your case there are two identical IP addresses) - and a rookie screen name shows up defending a dumb position - it's pretty decent circumstantial evidence that someone is using a sock to agree with themselves.

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Can't figure out what's worse, your internet skills or that wicked case of paranoia.

Gratuitous (mis)use of Latin: 2/10 wnb.

The purpose of this thread is to complain, Sid. You need to get with the program or you'll be ostracized for not doing enough complaining.