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The controversy at Mount St. Mary’s goes national after professors are fired
Washington Post ^ | FEB. 10, 2016 | Susan Svrluga

Posted on 02/10/2016 7:09:49 AM PST by detective

Professors from universities across the country - from Stanford to North Carolina Central to the University of Nebraska to Harvard - signed a petition Tuesday calling on the Mount St. Mary's University administration to reinstate professors who had been fired.

Within hours of being posted, the petition had more than 2,400 digital signatures, a symbol of the outrage from some in the campus community as well as in broader academic circles who viewed the terminations as retribution against faculty who had opposed the president. They also said the decisions threaten the academic freedom at the private Catholic university in Maryland and violate the school's core principles.

(Excerpt) Read more at msn.com ...


TOPICS: Catholic; Current Events
KEYWORDS: mtstmary
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To: NorthMountain

“Looks like the new President wanted to identify early in their freshman year those students who were highly unlikely to succeed, and urge them to drop out sooner rather than later. Some faculty objected and were sacked.”

It is possible that such (unlikely to succeed) students may have been disproportionately black, making it politically more difficult to fix the process before such students were admitted.


21 posted on 02/10/2016 7:50:01 AM PST by BeauBo
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To: Mrs. Don-o

“the Mount has long had a respected (by me) reputation of being Catholic with a capital C-— one of the few.”

Our parish raises money to help support seminarians at The Mount. In speaking to them over the years, they always spoke very highly of the school and often said it was the best Catholic Seminary in the entire U.S.

This article, while very short on details and what actually happened, is troubling.


22 posted on 02/10/2016 7:50:29 AM PST by detective
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To: ladyjane

I went to St. Mary’s College of Maryland in the late sixties and graduated four years later. That place was always being confused with being a Catholic School, even though it was named after the county is was loctaed, St. Mary’s County Maryland. Aside from that, Mount St. Mary’s is in the Catoctin Mountains, and St. Mary’s is on a peninsula surrounded by beaches on the St. Mary’s River a few miles in from the Chesapeake Bay.


23 posted on 02/10/2016 7:53:42 AM PST by PUGACHEV
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To: ladyjane
“Mt. St. Mary's University is frequently confused with St. Mary College in St. Mary, Maryland. The former is inland, up by the Pennsylvania boarder, and is a Catholic school. The other is a public college.”

The article referred to the College as Mount St. Mary a “private Catholic university in Maryland”. The Mount St. Mary I am familiar with is in Emmittsburg Md.

24 posted on 02/10/2016 7:57:33 AM PST by detective
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To: detective
Sounds like the president wanted to encourage those who would not do well at the school to not waste their time and the schools time by staying.

I understand that.

There used to be a calculus professor who would write some equations on the board the first day of class. He would then say, "if you don't know what these are please see me after class."

It was the way he weeded out those who would be hopelessly lost when they could drop the class and get their tuition money refunded.

My husband was one who had to go up and admit he had not a clue what the equations meant.

The professor talked to him a bit and advised him to drop calculus in favor of another math class that would teach him what he needed for calculus.

If you are not ready, you are not ready.

25 posted on 02/10/2016 8:02:52 AM PST by Harmless Teddy Bear (Proud Infidel, Gun Nut, Religious Fanatic and Freedom Fiend)
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To: NorthMountain
Looks like the new President wanted to identify early in their freshman year those students who were highly unlikely to succeed, and urge them to drop out sooner rather than later. Some faculty objected and were sacked.

Better would be to identify the "highly unlikely to succeed" at application time, and not accept them. But that would likely bring down the wrath of the EEOC.

26 posted on 02/10/2016 8:03:01 AM PST by PapaBear3625 (Big government is attractive to those who think that THEY will be in control of it.)
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To: NorthMountain

My brother, with a Master’s degree in Education, says Universities had irrelevant courses the first two years designed to weed out those who are most likely to fail.

But then, that was forty years ago.


27 posted on 02/10/2016 8:47:14 AM PST by Ruy Dias de Bivar
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To: TexasGator

Language, we don’t care about no stinkin language in this country any more. It doesn’t matter if you’re a University President or running for...............


28 posted on 02/10/2016 9:07:30 AM PST by Mastador1 (I'll take a bad dog over a good politician any day!)
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To: Harmless Teddy Bear
The professor talked to him a bit and advised him to drop calculus in favor of another math class that would teach him what he needed for calculus.

Most of today's kids can't even handle the math of "That's $2.79...Out of $20. Eighty, ninety, three; five is ten, and ten is twenty. Thanks, come again."

29 posted on 02/10/2016 9:33:36 AM PST by JimRed (Is it 1776 yet? TERM LIMITS, now and forever! Build the Wall, NOW!)
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To: JimRed
Yes and that is the point. Their transcripts say they are ready but they are not.

Professors, at least good ones, have ways of weeding them out quickly and preventing the student from wasting their time and money on a class they are not able the handle.

It sounds to me like that is what the college president was asking them to do and some professors didn't like it.

30 posted on 02/10/2016 9:44:49 AM PST by Harmless Teddy Bear (Proud Infidel, Gun Nut, Religious Fanatic and Freedom Fiend)
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To: JimRed
And my example shorted him two bucks! Correction follows...

Most of today's kids can't even handle the math of "That's $2.79...Out of $20. Eighty, ninety, three, four, five; five is ten, and ten is twenty. Thanks, come again."

Pride goeth before a fall.

31 posted on 02/10/2016 10:19:03 AM PST by JimRed (Is it 1776 yet? TERM LIMITS, now and forever! Build the Wall, NOW!)
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To: Harmless Teddy Bear
Professors, at least good ones, have ways of weeding them out quickly and preventing the student from wasting their time and money on a class they are not able the handle.

In my experience, after being called to the Dean's office and refusing to change fully earned FAILING grades, the grades somehow became Cs so as to continue students' "AID FUNDS" (READ TUITION PAYMENTS)! And, that was 40 years ago!

32 posted on 02/10/2016 10:46:03 AM PST by ExSES (the "bottom-line")
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To: ExSES

That does happen. It does the student no good though.


33 posted on 02/10/2016 11:13:53 AM PST by Harmless Teddy Bear (Proud Infidel, Gun Nut, Religious Fanatic and Freedom Fiend)
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To: NorthMountain

“”but it’s not really my problem.””

Or as a friend puts such things - “Not my circus. Not my monkey.”


34 posted on 02/10/2016 1:34:25 PM PST by Thank You Rush
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To: JimRed

I have found that in general, the kids running cash registers at farm-markets know how to count back change.


35 posted on 02/10/2016 1:38:11 PM PST by NorthMountain ("The time has come", the Walrus said, "to talk of many things")
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