The Fora: A Higher Education Community

OK, Marsh, but some people do have actual disabilities. Of course it doesn't mean that everyone with that type of disability is going to have serious issues with Task X, whether that involves social interaction or multiplying two numbers together.

Quote from: the_geneticist on May 22, 2025, 11:59:22 AMWe are in crunch time.  Students have been working in teams the last 2 weeks & will be presenting in 2 more weeks.  A student that missed class 4 times (including the last 2 weeks) emailed this (emphasis added):

QuoteI apologize for the late reply.
I had some personal health issues throughout this quarter and the last two weeks had been the toughest time. My mental hasn't been stable that I completely let go of academic for a little bit and I had some serious thoughts about dropping this quarter too but I've come to decision to at least try and see where I can reach.

Would you be in your office tomorrow? Could I come see you and talk to you regarding ways of catching up some materials?

I'd greatly appreciate it if you could find me a group for the presentation as well.

Thank you very much for your time and consideration.
Sincerely,

Stu, you should have dropped.  There is no way to make up for missing half of this class.
As for the "see what [you] can reach", if you got 100% on everything else, you will just barely earn a C.  Based on prior performance, that is not going to happen.

In the past few years, I've been using a "you should consider focusing on the courses you can still pass" kind of response along with information about hardship drops.

It's a little cold, but this way I don't have to worry about whether or not the student is telling the truth, I don't have to watch the student twist in the wind trying to figure out all the past work, and I don't have to file the inevitable AI/plagiarism paperwork at the end.

Not everything can be salvaged.

Moving a university to another country, satellites aside, is not generally viable. Higher ed gets nourished by government. Whether a university is private or public doesn't really matter. Thus, Harvard would benefit from moving to a country that could deliver the riches it gets in the US. I don't see such a country except in the Middle East.

Plan B might be to have Harvard move to Canada after all, and to take Massachusetts, or indeed New England, with it. Could be exchanged for Alberta. :-)

Quote from: apl68 on Today at 07:49:22 AM

Quote from: Ruralguy on Today at 07:08:06 AMBut on the other end, the pressure due to the demographic cliff is forcing many schools to coddle in order to retain.

The other thing is that there is so much coddling going on before the students reach college age.  It's all many of them know.  I've seen some just remarkable examples of that in a non-college setting where I live.  For example, every couple of years we have a mother come to the library with a timid, mute, downcast-gazing teenager in tow, inquiring whether we can give the silent teen a job.  It's obvious that the mother is hoping that the library can serve as a safe harbor for her teen to earn some money and learn some adulting skills, while remaining sheltered from any challenges or unpleasantness.  Sorry, but we just can't offer that.  We need workers who can do public service, which means looking people in the eye, using your voice, and sometimes dealing with frustrated or grumpy people.

I assume these silent teens are probably "neurodivergent" in some way, and I get it because I was also.  But they make my timid teenage self look swaggeringly loud and bold.  I don't know whether they've been disciplined so severely at home it's broken their spirit, or kept so extremely sheltered that they never developed any spirit to start with. Anyway, those are extreme examples of what appears to be a much broader phenomenon.

"Neurodivergence" is the latest armchair diagnosis du jour. Used to be ADHD. Or "anxiety."

The correlation, if not causation, is often bulldozer parenting.

Quote from: apl68 on Today at 07:49:22 AMI assume these silent teens are probably "neurodivergent" in some way, and I get it because I was also.  But they make my timid teenage self look swaggeringly loud and bold.  I don't know whether they've been disciplined so severely at home it's broken their spirit, or kept so extremely sheltered that they never developed any spirit to start with. Anyway, those are extreme examples of what appears to be a much broader phenomenon.

I think modern terms like "neurodivergent" and <whatever>-"non-conforming" are just refusals to admit that people, ALL people, need to learn how to adapt to social norms to actually operate in society. No-one is born meeting all social norms.

Good morning!

QBwH for several words, including my last word, catalpa. And I was annoyed to discover that opah is no longer accepted. Well, one less fish to remember.

LB: hobgoblin-newtake. The second word was a desperation try with no expectation of success. Apparently it means "a field of moorland newly placed under cultivation."

Minervabird, glad you're feeling better. Ab_grp, glad you're feeling stronger and that your husband has been such a wonderful support! With us, it seems that we take turns taking care of one another: broken hip (me), cancer (him), another broken hip (me), detached retina (him).

Anyway—happy puzzling!

Quote from: Ruralguy on Today at 07:08:06 AMBut on the other end, the pressure due to the demographic cliff is forcing many schools to coddle in order to retain.

The other thing is that there is so much coddling going on before the students reach college age.  It's all many of them know.  I've seen some just remarkable examples of that in a non-college setting where I live.  For example, every couple of years we have a mother come to the library with a timid, mute, downcast-gazing teenager in tow, inquiring whether we can give the silent teen a job.  It's obvious that the mother is hoping that the library can serve as a safe harbor for her teen to earn some money and learn some adulting skills, while remaining sheltered from any challenges or unpleasantness.  Sorry, but we just can't offer that.  We need workers who can do public service, which means looking people in the eye, using your voice, and sometimes dealing with frustrated or grumpy people.

I assume these silent teens are probably "neurodivergent" in some way, and I get it because I was also.  But they make my timid teenage self look swaggeringly loud and bold.  I don't know whether they've been disciplined so severely at home it's broken their spirit, or kept so extremely sheltered that they never developed any spirit to start with. Anyway, those are extreme examples of what appears to be a much broader phenomenon. 

Quote from: Ruralguy on Today at 07:08:06 AMOh, and I went to an ivy in the 80's that had some SLAC'y characteristics, but was obviously within a major R1 university. We do have a decreasing number of faculty who either went to our SLAC or any SLAC.

I suspect it's been many years now since somebody who was an undergrad at a SLAC has had much chance at all of breaking into academia.  Seems that to succeed you've pretty much got to have come up through the R1 world all the way.  If you go to grad school from a SLAC background, you're in danger of already being too much of an outsider.  It was already the case in the 1990s, but my SLAC mentors didn't seem to realize that.  Well, I found out the hard way.

An actual something I wish I could say...

Dear IRB people, for f*** sake, don't give the same form one name in one location and a totally different name in another location on your already hard to navigate website, then get all annoyed when I ask if the forms are the same thing.

Quote from: Minervabird on May 20, 2025, 12:59:48 AMhttps://www.cam.ac.uk/stories/opening-of-ray-dolby-centre

Dolby gave £120 million to Cambridge, and I think this new centre will be a game changer for UK science.  The foreign secretary at the Royal Society was on the radio, and predicts the UK is going to attract some top American scientists. The USA's loss will be others gain.