board of trustees report

i was among 30 or so umass amherst students who shlepped to the dartmouth campus for the board of trustees meeting. quick summary:

- the fee hike was approved, but for the first time in recent memory, there was non-unanimity among the appointed trustees. trustees boyle and carlin joined amherst student trustee valerie louis in voting to oppose the fee.

- trustee boyle presented a good argument for opposing fee increases. he pointed out that the board has been raising fees as a general revenue-raising measure, which is normally supposed to be covered by tuition. tuition has been frozen as a matter of state policy, and raising fees as a substitute for tuition means that the trustees are making decisions that ought to be made at the state level. this strikes me as an argument that might be effective at the level of the legislature.

- GEO vice president darren griffis told the trustees that in view of the boards present unaccountability, GEO will be asking legislators to get rid of the practice of appointed trustees, replacing it with elected trustees.

- GSS president uri strauss accused the trustees of failing to engage seriously with students regarding the disastrous administration of the amherst campus, and asked the trustees to become compliant with the state laws regarding campus councils, as a remedy.

- chair of the board james karam made this revealing remark: "you students have more influence with the legislature than we adults do".

the day before at the meeting of the trustees's committee on academic and student affairs, three amherst students - trustee louis, former SGA president eduardo bustamante, and co-chair of the ALANA caucus nate kupel - made a presentation rebutting president jack wilson's rosy report on the state of diversity at umass. president wilson conceded that the student report was correct, and the trustees decided to set up a task force to look into students' diversity concerns.

study on grad school success

inside higher ed reports the following findings from a new study by Michael Nettles and Catherine Millet, both affiliated with Educational Testing Services, on factors affecting graduate student success.

More than 30 percent of all graduate students never feel that they have a faculty mentor.

Two-thirds of graduate students enter Ph.D. programs without any debt, suggesting that those concerned about expanding the pipeline to graduate education should pay attention to the affordability of undergraduate education.

Students rate their social interaction with faculty members as high in the engineering, sciences, mathematics and education — and relatively low in the social sciences and humanities.

In rating the quality of academic interactions, students in the humanities think highly of their professors while those in the social sciences and math and science are more critical.

Significant gaps exist in the experiences of minority and female graduate students — from admissions to getting teaching or research assistant jobs to publishing research while still in graduate school. Generally, these gaps do not favor minority students.

the article also reports:

The study also found a strong preference among female and minority Ph.D. candidates for mentors and advisers who are from their same groups. The demand for such mentors is particularly hard to fill for the many institutions that lack a critical mass of black faculty members, the authors write, creating “a vicious cycle” in which black students can’t find black mentors, and — if they don’t finish — leave fewer potential mentors for the next cohort.