(09-18-2023 10:24 AM)TribeFan1983 Wrote:  W&M's decline is inevitable, given the prevailing Woke culture. We have always billed ourselves as "Alma Mater of a Nation." We used to celebrate Colonial Wmbg right down the street. Now, the 1619 Project, the reparations movement, etc. views the Founding Fathers who walked our hallowed halls as slave holding bastards and the entire colonial era as disgraceful. Renaming College buildings, building monuments to the slaves who build our campus, etc. may not be enough.

Can we not?? There was absolutely no need to make this political. And besides, "woke" is a meaningless word and demerits your whole argument.

(09-18-2023 10:58 AM)tribefootballfan Wrote:  

(09-18-2023 10:24 AM)TribeFan1983 Wrote:  W&M's decline is inevitable, given the prevailing Woke culture. We have always billed ourselves as "Alma Mater of a Nation." We used to celebrate Colonial Wmbg right down the street. Now, the 1619 Project, the reparations movement, etc. views the Founding Fathers who walked our hallowed halls as slave holding bastards and the entire colonial era as disgraceful. Renaming College buildings, building monuments to the slaves who build our campus, etc. may not be enough.

Can we not?? There was absolutely no need to make this political. And besides, "woke" is a meaningless word and demerits your whole argument.

Here is the Merriam Webster definition of "woke:"

https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/woke

(09-18-2023 11:01 AM)TribeFan1983 Wrote:  

(09-18-2023 10:58 AM)tribefootballfan Wrote:  

(09-18-2023 10:24 AM)TribeFan1983 Wrote:  W&M's decline is inevitable, given the prevailing Woke culture. We have always billed ourselves as "Alma Mater of a Nation." We used to celebrate Colonial Wmbg right down the street. Now, the 1619 Project, the reparations movement, etc. views the Founding Fathers who walked our hallowed halls as slave holding bastards and the entire colonial era as disgraceful. Renaming College buildings, building monuments to the slaves who build our campus, etc. may not be enough.

Can we not?? There was absolutely no need to make this political. And besides, "woke" is a meaningless word and demerits your whole argument.

Here is the Merriam Webster definition of "woke:"

https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/woke

But is that how rw media pundits use the word woke? No, absolutely not. Besides the definition you provided only makes you look worse for complaining about it.

One thing that really devalues your degree is the extent to which it’s been leveraged. The tuition/student loan regime was out of control when I was a student 15 years ago and as far as I can tell it’s getting worse.

(09-18-2023 09:04 AM)Zorch Wrote:  Wait, what? Four factors that W&M excels in (graduation rates, alumni giving, class size, and student debt ratio) were devalued or eliminated in the rankings, causing our ranking to plummet? Is this part of the vast anti-Tribe conspiracy?

Yes.

Yes, it is.

(09-18-2023 10:56 AM)JMU2004 Wrote:  

(09-18-2023 10:24 AM)TribeFan1983 Wrote:  W&M's decline is inevitable, given the prevailing Woke culture. We have always billed ourselves as "Alma Mater of a Nation." We used to celebrate Colonial Wmbg right down the street. Now, the 1619 Project, the reparations movement, etc. views the Founding Fathers who walked our hallowed halls as slave holding bastards and the entire colonial era as disgraceful. Renaming College buildings, building monuments to the slaves who build our campus, etc. may not be enough.

Ha..."woke" is the reason for everything these days, right? I continue to be amazed by the echo chambers on both sides these days. No actual discussion, just ideologic straw man fallacies.

My favorite is being woke on woke....it's like watching dogs chase their tails.

(09-18-2023 11:15 AM)ScottyB757 Wrote:  

(09-18-2023 09:04 AM)Zorch Wrote:  Wait, what? Four factors that W&M excels in (graduation rates, alumni giving, class size, and student debt ratio) were devalued or eliminated in the rankings, causing our ranking to plummet? Is this part of the vast anti-Tribe conspiracy?

Yes.

Yes, it is.

That is why all these UCal schools had their ranking skyrocket. This USNews ranking is a joke.

It kinda feels like the recent changes hurt smaller liberal arts colleges, and help larger state schools.

But also, different colleges serve different purposes. If a student feels like they would best excel at a school with 40,000 students, WM is a bad choice for them. If a student wants to become an engineer, WM is (probably) a bad choice for them. For many other students, including most of us on this board, WM is a fantastic choice. Ranking schools is kind of a fools errand.

I'm not gonna claim to know every company's hiring practices nationwide, but I don't think too many hiring managers look at US News rankings when interviewing applicants.

The issue for W&M is not the rankings, though they are concerning. Our problem is that we are a liberal arts school. Not only is liberal arts out of fashion but starting salaries for liberal arts majors are low and that hurts us in comparison to STEM-oriented schools. The fact that many of our grads get professional degrees (law, medicine, etc.) is either not captured or we don’t get credit for it.

There is no reason that WM cannot excel in its undergraduate liberal arts program, but also focus more heavily on building its graduate programs as a semi-separate entity (similar to the Ivy league). It was an absolute travesty that we lost EVMS to ODU. That separation to Norfolk would have been perfect for this scenario. High level research and grant money is part of the calculation in many rankings systems, but also hits the news cycle regularly to help bring attention to the school. With the new 4 lane bridge and I64, traffic wouldnt even be a big deal for faculty sharing if its even needed (Cornell doesnt).

I honestly havent seen much from Rowe regarding improving the school or building the brand, academically or athletically. What is she actually doing? What is the BOV doing? We arent really treading water anymore...

Headline from tomorrow's Times-Dispatch (and this afternoon's streaming news):

Virginia Tech passes William & Mary in top colleges ranking


What a crock...

(09-18-2023 12:25 PM)billymac Wrote:  Headline from tomorrow's Times-Dispatch (and this afternoon's streaming news):

Virginia Tech passes William & Mary in top colleges ranking


What a crock...

They know their audience, and they know how much VT people will post/link that article.

I feel like the RTD has more sports reporters than actual news reporters these days. Thanks Lee enterprises.

Yeah, looking, mostly, to sell a few papers and get a few more hits on the website.

(09-18-2023 11:59 AM)nogretheogre Wrote:  There is no reason that WM cannot excel in its undergraduate liberal arts program, but also focus more heavily on building its graduate programs as a semi-separate entity (similar to the Ivy league). It was an absolute travesty that we lost EVMS to ODU. That separation to Norfolk would have been perfect for this scenario. High level research and grant money is part of the calculation in many rankings systems, but also hits the news cycle regularly to help bring attention to the school. With the new 4 lane bridge and I64, traffic wouldnt even be a big deal for faculty sharing if its even needed (Cornell doesnt).

I honestly havent seen much from Rowe regarding improving the school or building the brand, academically or athletically. What is she actually doing? What is the BOV doing? We arent really treading water anymore...

Admin is trying to separate Computer Science, Data Science and Applied Science into a separate school to increase the quality of the programs and potential funding but some of the faculty is fighting back. I think to a degree some of the profs here are their own worst enemy.

Sometimes news like this can spur positive change. It's certainly captured the attention of the alumni, now capitalize on it.

That was my issue with the response article that was posted. It's the classic formula, deflect, point to where we excel and promise some intangible way forward like a "values-based" approach.

Do something concrete. The "William and Mary Promise" was something tangible. Not sure if the long term consequences were worth it given the cost today...but it was popular with the incoming classes and current students at the time.

Where are the leaders? WM seems to be on defense all the time....here's why the CAA is fine, here's why the rankings are wrong, it's the state's fault we're expensive, we only have a billion dollars but we need more money....

Huge was not the right person for the job, but I'll never fault her for actually wanting to do something and take us to new heights. We act like we're a new institution that needs to be really careful with how we act for fear of closing. We're 330 years old, we have a billion dollar endowment (traditionally pegged as the magic number for perpetuity for a university with the coming population "cliff" in 2025) and here we are, not trying anything new, insisting that the same is the way forward. Well, we're two years away from a 15% decline in the college age population, we've reached the magic 1B endowment, and our ranking dropped (which yes, the metrics are dumb), our admissions rate has increased, and we're still a sad 3 member. How do we reverse these trends?

(09-18-2023 12:47 PM)W+M4TW Wrote:  ....and we're still a sad 3 member. ...

Sad 3? What's that? I'm familiar with the "Forgotten Four" (W&M, Army, Citadel, St. Francis-Brooklyn) who are original NCAA members who have never made the NCAA basketball tournament. Did St. Francis drop sports (I think I saw that somewhere)?

(09-18-2023 01:10 PM)Zorch Wrote:  

(09-18-2023 12:47 PM)W+M4TW Wrote:  ....and we're still a sad 3 member. ...

Sad 3? What's that? I'm familiar with the "Forgotten Four" (W&M, Army, Citadel, St. Francis-Brooklyn) who are original NCAA members who have never made the NCAA basketball tournament. Did St. Francis drop sports (I think I saw that somewhere)?

They did indeed, it's now an even more exclusive club.

I do believe our admissions have been getting more competitive the last couple years. 32% for this incoming freshman class vs 42% 4 years ago

W&M is not a liberal arts college like Williams, Haverford, Swarthmore, Wellesley, Smith, etc. W&M also is not a big university like UVA, Va Tech, UNC, Berkeley, Penn St, etc. It is worth noting that schools like Georgetown, Chicago, Johns Hopkins, Washington U have maintained their ranking despite recent changes. The administration needs to take a long look at what we are missing and what we can do to improve our ranking.

(09-18-2023 03:56 PM)tribeintexas Wrote:  W&M is not a liberal arts college like Williams, Haverford, Swarthmore, Wellesley, Smith, etc. W&M also is not a big university like UVA, Va Tech, UNC, Berkeley, Penn St, etc. It is worth noting that schools like Georgetown, Chicago, Johns Hopkins, Washington U have maintained their ranking despite recent changes. The administration needs to take a long look at what we are missing and what we can do to improve our ranking.

Georgetown, Chicago, Johns Hopkins, Washington U all have high-powered graduate programs with impactful research emphasis, including medical schools.