Sunday, January 24, 2010
1
I honestly don't know what I want to write about in my final project for this class. I mean this is such a broad topic that I don't want to pick something and then end up regretting what my decision later on down the road. I like to consider all options before I make my final decision. I know this first assignment was to just discuss what I "might" want to write about, but I am finding it difficult since I have no idea what I would even consider writing about. Maybe something about how schools (like Rutgers) are getting so much bigger and even though it's great that so many people are pursuing higher education, where are all these new people going to go? With the incoming class sizes continuing to increase housing, registering for required courses, and just taking the bus have become more and more difficult with the growth in populations. What could be the solution to this problem without decreasing the number of new students in higher education? Should schools simply increase in size including more housing, more buses, and more classes? Or should more schools be created in order to maintain some sort of "smaller" school environment so students can get individual attention without getting lost in the rush of 60,000 people. This is just an idea. I doubt I will stick with this idea the whole way through. I'll probably change my mine at least six more times, just a heads up.
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Thanks for your honesty! But the topic you suggest here is very interesting -- of whether or not Rutgers has just gotten too big for its own good, on the "multiversity" model suggested by Clark Kerr. There was a time in the past, before SAS (or its predecessor, FAS), when all of the colleges in the New Brunswick area were truly independent schools with their own faculty in all areas, including English and Math. Many people saw this as giving the impression and even the experience of going to a smaller school -- especially at Cook (now SEBS), Douglass, and Livingston. Under president Bloustein, the Faculty of Arts and Sciences was created to save money and reduce redundancy, so there was suddenly just one Math, one English, one etc. department serving all campuses and only professional schools retained some measure of autonomy. It was quite a transformation, though the colleges still found ways to maintain their unique identities and create a small college feeling, especially for their honors students. Each college also had its own housing and a "mission course" that all first year students had to take -- and that course at least differentiated the schools to some extent. However, under the latest McCormick reorganization and the creation of SAS and the "one Rutgers" marketing plan, the colleges have been more or less abolished, with only a few vestiges felt through residence life (though not for long). What was lost in that plan? How have other state institutions (for example, New York's SUNY and CUNY schools) maintained the small school feel? What has been the logic of the change and is it successful? And how might some sense of small college life be revived or recreated?
ReplyDeleteJust suggestions based on the ideas you toss out. I imagine you will change topics, as most students will. I just wanted to talk about how your initial idea might be made into a research project.