Slaughter at Gladfelter Hall

I regained my faith in the youth of America today.  That happens every two months or so, but this day’s was particularly refreshing.  Today was the case competition for all graduating seniors and as we watched 3 crappy presentations and one stellar one the listlessness in the audience became palpable.  The judges left, and we were guaranteed a quick return as the presentations had already run over and then the trouble began.

The BA coordinator, herself having no reasonable business skills, opened the floor to questions.  The first was could graduation fees be rolled into admission fees?  The answer, yes it was part of the next “fee upgrade”.  The student fired back that the fee upgrade was several hundred dollars a semester to which he was met with silence.

Question 2- Integrated Experience
Student: The financial ratios section of the course was hard.  Is there any idea to remove that for non-finance majors?
Proctor: Yes.  We’re thinking of dropping that.
Another student: Then what’s the point of making it an integrated experience between courses if you leave out large portions of them?
Proctor: We’re going to add a simulations course as a pre-requisite to take care of that.  Financial math doesn’t represent the main focus of the business world.  (at this point, she made an enemy of every econometrics, forecasting, finance and actuarial science student in the audience)
That other student: You’re adding a pre-requisite to cover finance?  Since it’s a capstone, aren’t all the courses pre-requisites, including the finance ones we have to take anyway?
*silence*

Question 3- Common Experience
Student:  A lot of us feel that there was an unequal experience between people taking this course.  Some classes got to hand in essentially fluff.
Proctor: There’s a common syllabus for instructors to follow.
Me: But, CIS 1055 (basic computing) is regulated to within an inch of its life, you’re telling us that basic computing should be subject to more academic rigor than the capstone for all business majors?
Proctor: Next question

Question 4 – Ethics
Me:  It’s great that business ethics was added as a requirement, but what does it teach when we’re chided for filesharing as a generation while at the same time you show copyrighted films in the large session that I’m sure Temple doesn’t have re-broadcast licenses for.
Proctor: Educational institutions have a different standard, we’re using it for educational purposes.
Me: By that logic, we can photocopy text books as they’re for educational purposes, but students have gotten expelled for that.

At this point there was much loud talking and the questions got more derisive from here until it ended with the Dean herself being attacked.

Dean: we believe that your degree is a share in Temple University and we want that share to gain value and…
Student shouting from audience: How do I sell my share!
Another student shouting from audience: What firms require stockholders to pay the dividends? (I’m assuming referring to tuition)

My heart lept.  How many places have you seen a dean get heckled?