Originally posted by Upstream:
Is this written by CamdenLawProf who posts here, or is this just some other professor at Camden?
I would hope not.
If that opinion is meant to be only polemic in nature...I guess its not too bad. But from an objective view of "facts" it is horrible, and I would be embarrassed that an actual University Professor wrote it (a student writing such an argument for a class paper would, likely, get an F). Examples:
"The problems start with the name itself. The Big Ten is no longer the Big Ten but the Big Fourteen, including schools like Nebraska, Maryland, and Penn State. When the latter joined 20 years ago, it was supposed to be the first step toward academic improvement and a national reputation. I don't have to tell you what happened there."
Is he trying to lay the Sandusky scandal at the heart of the Big Ten?
FWIW, everything I have seen shows the PSU's academics and national repution did improve tremendously since joining the Big Ten.
"A more immediate question is the cost of admission. Rutgers' football coach, Kyle Flood, has a base salary of $950,000 and was guaranteed $1.9 million for assistant coaches. (The team lost its first conference game.) That's nearly $3 million from a university that has refused to pay previously negotiated raises to faculty and regularly taken an aggressive, hostile tone in contract negotiations. This is in addition to a $650,000 salary paid to the university's president, Robert Barchi, and extravagant compensation to "chancellors" of the Newark and Camden campuses, positions that did not even exist a few years ago. By contrast, the governor of New Jersey is paid $175,000, and state legislators $49,000."
So he is comparing what Rutgers pays its football coaches to what politicians in NJ make? Is this even remotely relevant? Is he trying to say that Rutgers should base its coaches pay on what NJ State legislators make? Seriously?
"If Rutgers' performance matched this compensation, it might be understandable. Sadly, the university remains, in Gov. Christie's words, "a good university but not a great one." In the US News survey of American universities, Rutgers ranks 70th, 20 points behind Yeshiva University, which doesn't have a football team, and 69 points behind Princeton, which deemphasized the sport 60 years ago and pays its head coach about a quarter of Flood's annual salary."
So, is there someone out there that claimed joining the Big Ten would vault Rutgers ahead of Princeton (or Yeshiva)? Would this be a nearly flawless example of a straw man argument?
"The statistics are compounded by the low morale of Rutgers faculty and employees, a problem that results directly from the lack of resources. When I told a Rutgers official that my son was weighing Rutgers against Private University X, she said without hesitation: "I'd go to X." The tour guide for my other son - a person whose job is to sell the university - said he attended Rutgers because he got in-state tuition and the weather was good when he visited. Both of my children went elsewhere."
I am not even sure what he is trying to say here. Does he think every Rutgers official should only be recommending Rutgers? Does he assume every official at every other school only recommends their school? The tour guide comment is a weird non sequitur. Is he trying to say access to in-state tuition and good weather should not be considerations when choosing a university to attend? FWIW, access to in-state tuition is almost solely responsible for me attending Rutgers.
"Barchi's defenders argue that his sports strategy will provide new revenues, which will benefit the university as a whole. In fact, the opposite is happening. A US News report found that more than 40 percent of the athletic program is being subsidized by the university, an extraordinary number even by the standards of large schools. This is at the same time that salaries were frozen and tuition and fees increased significantly."
Zoinks, this is horrible. Barchi's strategy is to fix the very problem this writer has an issue with, yet cites the problem (which existing before Rutgers ever knew it would get invited to the Big Ten) as a reason Rutgers should not be joining the Big Ten? Is this guy serious? It reads like trolling from a Villanova fan (maybe that is "Private School X").
"In fairness, Rutgers' problems are not entirely unique.
We live in a culture that values entertainment over substance, the principal reason that we are declining in comparison with other countries.
But universities exist to counteract this phenomenon, promoting knowledge and culture and providing an example for the rest of society. Unfortunately Rutgers, in the Barchi/Flood era, has decided to provide precisely the wrong example, for New Jersey and its young people. It's time for a change."
He hasn't provided any evidence of his premise (that we live in a culture that values entertainment over substance), he doesn't explain what he means by "substance" anyway. But since when do Universities exist to counteract the valuing of entertainment over substance? Who decided that this is the reason universities exist? That doesn't even make sense. Universities have been around for centuries. Assuming I accept his premise (which I don't) that would mean that this supposed valuing of entertainment over substance has also been around for centuries. And considering the tremendous rate of advancement of the human culture, then exactly why is it a problem then?
If I was a student or colleague of this guy I would be embarrassed.
