# Mount St. Mary’s Univ. President: Students Not Cuddly Bunnies. You Just Have to Drown the Bunnies. **URL:** \ **Category:** The BBQ Pit\ **Created:** [February 10, 2016, 4:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mount-st-mary-s-univ-president-students-not-cuddly-bunnies-you-just-have-to-drown-the-bunnies/745681 "2016-02-10T04:14:48Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![carrps](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/carrps/32/2957_2.png) [@carrps](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/carrps)\ **Post date:** [February 10, 2016, 8:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mount-st-mary-s-univ-president-students-not-cuddly-bunnies-you-just-have-to-drown-the-bunnies/745681/21 "2016-02-10T20:00:13Z")
> [@kaylasdad99](#): > > Per the article, waiting would mean he couldn’t disenroll the students before the deadline to count them as enrolled in the first place. The entire point of the exercise was to make his retention v. dropout rate look better. And that’s _exactly_ what the corporate world is all about these days. Make the numbers look good regardless of what the reality is like. Thank Cthulhu I’m retired now. ---
**Author:** ![Simplicio](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/c37758/32.png) [@Simplicio](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Simplicio)\ **Post date:** [February 10, 2016, 8:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mount-st-mary-s-univ-president-students-not-cuddly-bunnies-you-just-have-to-drown-the-bunnies/745681/22 "2016-02-10T20:14:36Z")
> [@carrps](#): > > And that’s _exactly_ what the corporate world is all about these days. Make the numbers look good regardless of what the reality is like. > > Thank Cthulhu I’m retired now. Eh, there’s something to be said for giving students who are struggling a chance to bail without loosing their tuition. It improves the schools numbers, but it’d probably be better for the students as well. Kids showing up to college when they aren’t ready, and then wasting a large amount of money, time and emotional energy in slowly flunking out over several semesters is a fairly big problem. But the actual details of the plan, how you identify students who are likely to fail, and how hard you push them to take a mulligan, is obviously going to be pretty difficult to figure, and such a program should be implements slowly and conservatively. The Univ. President here seems to have wanted to run with a half-thought out plan right away, with minimal discussion. And reading the links in the article, he didn’t just want to consul students to leave, but outright kick them out, which is probably both immoral, outside of his power to actually impliment and, to the extent that the decision is based on the results of the psyche exams, I suspect illegal. Plus, whatever the merits of the plan, trying to just fire professors who question it is obviously wrong. ---
**Author:** ![BigT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bigt/32/12044_2.png) [@BigT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BigT)\ **Post date:** [February 10, 2016, 8:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mount-st-mary-s-univ-president-students-not-cuddly-bunnies-you-just-have-to-drown-the-bunnies/745681/23 "2016-02-10T20:52:35Z")
I love it when the bad guy unintentionally describes what needs to happen to them. Fuck getting reinstated. The petition should be “encouraging” the president to quit. Hell, since the professor was tenured, I’m pretty sure there’s a valid civil case that can be filed. Drown the wolf. ---
**Author:** ![Happy\_Scrappy\_Hero\_Pup](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/ea5d25/32.png) [@Happy\_Scrappy\_Hero\_Pup](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Happy_Scrappy_Hero_Pup)\ **Post date:** [February 10, 2016, 9:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mount-st-mary-s-univ-president-students-not-cuddly-bunnies-you-just-have-to-drown-the-bunnies/745681/24 "2016-02-10T21:27:10Z")
What’s hilarious to me is that this is the EXACT plot of “Pump up the Volume.” ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [February 10, 2016, 11:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mount-st-mary-s-univ-president-students-not-cuddly-bunnies-you-just-have-to-drown-the-bunnies/745681/25 "2016-02-10T23:58:12Z")
> [@friedo](#): > > I’m an atheist, not a Catholic, but I just want to say that I am firmly against drowning bunnies. 😕 But, how else can you get a jugged hare?! ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [February 11, 2016, 12:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mount-st-mary-s-univ-president-students-not-cuddly-bunnies-you-just-have-to-drown-the-bunnies/745681/26 "2016-02-11T00:01:08Z")
> [@Happy\_Scrappy\_Hero\_Pup](#): > > What’s hilarious to me is that this is the EXACT plot of “Pump up the Volume.” Only at college level. Don’t know if that makes it better or worse. ---
**Author:** ![Count\_Blucher](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/c5a1d2/32.png) [@Count\_Blucher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Count_Blucher)\ **Post date:** [February 11, 2016, 1:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mount-st-mary-s-univ-president-students-not-cuddly-bunnies-you-just-have-to-drown-the-bunnies/745681/27 "2016-02-11T01:29:23Z")
> [@kaylasdad99](#): > > Per the article, waiting would mean he couldn’t disenroll the students before the deadline to count them as enrolled in the first place. The entire point of the exercise was to make his retention v. dropout rate look better. How The Living Hell did we get stuck with ANOTHER Shkreli-like life form? ---
**Author:** ![dasmoocher](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/dbc845/32.png) [@dasmoocher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dasmoocher)\ **Post date:** [February 11, 2016, 2:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mount-st-mary-s-univ-president-students-not-cuddly-bunnies-you-just-have-to-drown-the-bunnies/745681/28 "2016-02-11T02:25:47Z")
I’m a little confused. Just to play the Devil’s Advocate in terms of academia-- Why would Mt St Mary’s be admitting these “potential failures” in the first place? I get that HS academic record does not equal college record, but why does the college need to do “retroactive” weening of its students to meet the corp president’s retention numbers? What pisses me off is the stealth psych profile–you’ve admitted these students and now you want to target them to withdraw and you target them with a student survey\>–so it doesn’t mess your numbers up. FD! As someone up thread mentioned, turning a University into a number-meeting entity run by a corporate is probably not good for academic discourse. On the other hand, how many of these small colleges can survive on the traditional business model. ---
**Author:** ![elucidator](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/8edcca/32.png) [@elucidator](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elucidator)\ **Post date:** [February 11, 2016, 2:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mount-st-mary-s-univ-president-students-not-cuddly-bunnies-you-just-have-to-drown-the-bunnies/745681/29 "2016-02-11T02:42:50Z")
> [@BrainGlutton](#): > > 😕 But, how else can you get a jugged hare?! The jugged hare is halibut! ---
**Author:** ![Fretful\_Porpentine](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/fretful_porpentine/32/2873_2.png) [@Fretful\_Porpentine](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fretful_Porpentine)\ **Post date:** [February 11, 2016, 2:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mount-st-mary-s-univ-president-students-not-cuddly-bunnies-you-just-have-to-drown-the-bunnies/745681/30 "2016-02-11T02:55:37Z")
> [@dasmoocher](#): > > I’m a little confused. > > Just to play the Devil’s Advocate in terms of academia-- Why would Mt St Mary’s be admitting these “potential failures” in the first place? > > I get that HS academic record does not equal college record, but why does the college need to do “retroactive” weening of its students to meet the corp president’s retention numbers? What pisses me off is the stealth psych profile–you’ve admitted these students and now you want to target them to withdraw and you target them with a student survey\>–so it doesn’t mess your numbers up. FD! I am NOT NOT NOT defending Newman in any way, but it actually _is_ pretty common for college freshmen who were admitted with acceptable grades and test scores to crash and burn almost immediately. I’d say there have been a few in almost every fall-semester freshman class I’ve ever taught, and they can sometimes be spotted within the first few weeks of class. Either they show up for the first class and then disappear for the rest of the semester, or they attend class until the first assignment is due, panic when they realize they haven’t done it, and are never seen again. (I would have absolutely no problem with a president asking professors to report students who exhibited either of these behaviors so they could be counseled to withdraw.) The other fairly common pattern is for students to attend class up until mid-semester or so, turn in an assignment or two (sometimes earning high grades), and then slowly fade out as they get overwhelmed with work from their other classes and realize that they _can_ skip class with no immediate consequences. In short, it’s not unusual for students to have the academic ability, but lack the maturity / self-discipline / stamina / desire / whatever to handle college. And I can understand the temptation to try to use some sort of formula to identify these students early. (This doesn’t, of course, make deceiving the students about the survey’s purpose any less unconscionable, especially since there doesn’t seem to have been any attempt to put them in touch with counseling or academic support services instead of tossing them out on their heads.) ---
**Author:** ![2gigch1](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/2gigch1/32/3313_2.png) [@2gigch1](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/2gigch1)\ **Post date:** [February 11, 2016, 3:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mount-st-mary-s-univ-president-students-not-cuddly-bunnies-you-just-have-to-drown-the-bunnies/745681/31 "2016-02-11T03:04:17Z")
[Here is my friend Scott’s story about this today. including an interview with one of the fired professors](http://www.wusa9.com/story/news/local/maryland/2016/02/10/university-president-under-fire-controversial-comments/80197624/). Thanks for the heads up on this. ---
**Author:** ![KarlGauss](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/karlgauss/32/3713_2.png) [@KarlGauss](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/KarlGauss)\ **Post date:** [February 11, 2016, 3:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mount-st-mary-s-univ-president-students-not-cuddly-bunnies-you-just-have-to-drown-the-bunnies/745681/32 "2016-02-11T03:16:43Z")
For those interested, [here’s a bit more background](http://www.nytimes.com/2016/02/11/us/mount-st-marys-university-firings.html?module=WatchingPortal®ion=c-column-middle-span-region&pgType=Homepage&action=click&mediaId=thumb_square&state=standard&contentPlacement=4&version=internal&contentCollection=www.nytimes.com&contentId=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.nytimes.com%2F2016%2F02%2F11%2Fus%2Fmount-st-marys-university-firings.html&eventName=Watching-article-click) from the NY Times. ---
**Author:** ![dasmoocher](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/dbc845/32.png) [@dasmoocher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dasmoocher)\ **Post date:** [February 11, 2016, 3:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mount-st-mary-s-univ-president-students-not-cuddly-bunnies-you-just-have-to-drown-the-bunnies/745681/33 "2016-02-11T03:36:31Z")
> [@Fretful\_Porpentine](#): > > I am NOT NOT NOT defending Newman in any way, but it actually _is_ pretty common for college freshmen who were admitted with acceptable grades and test scores to crash and burn almost immediately. I’d say there have been a few in almost every fall-semester freshman class I’ve ever taught, and they can sometimes be spotted within the first few weeks of class. Either they show up for the first class and then disappear for the rest of the semester, or they attend class until the first assignment is due, panic when they realize they haven’t done it, and are never seen again. (I would have absolutely no problem with a president asking professors to report students who exhibited either of these behaviors so they could be counseled to withdraw.) The other fairly common pattern is for students to attend class up until mid-semester or so, turn in an assignment or two (sometimes earning high grades), and then slowly fade out as they get overwhelmed with work from their other classes and realize that they _can_ skip class with no immediate consequences. In short, it’s not unusual for students to have the academic ability, but lack the maturity / self-discipline / stamina / desire / whatever to handle college. And I can understand the temptation to try to use some sort of formula to identify these students early. (This doesn’t, of course, make deceiving the students about the survey’s purpose any less unconscionable, especially since there doesn’t seem to have been any attempt to put them in touch with counseling or academic support services instead of tossing them out on their heads.) Well, thank you, **Fretful Porpentine** for that clarification–sincerely. Like I said, I was playing Devil’s Advocate and that was a great response. I think students, once admitted, should be given avail of all types of help. Those that don’t take advantage if they need it, well, maybe, they were not going to finish anyways. The bullshit “anonymous” psych survey to target “potential non-performers” is what I think is just dead wrong in this case. ---
**Author:** ![Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e8c25b/32.png) [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Really_Not_All_That_Bright)\ **Post date:** [February 11, 2016, 2:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mount-st-mary-s-univ-president-students-not-cuddly-bunnies-you-just-have-to-drown-the-bunnies/745681/34 "2016-02-11T14:31:39Z")
> [@Fretful\_Porpentine](#): > > In short, it’s not unusual for students to have the academic ability, but lack the maturity / self-discipline / stamina / desire / whatever to handle college. That, and high school students generally haven’t lived on their own before. Transitioning to living with roommates in a dorm or apartment can be a fairly big change and not everyone handles it well, even if they otherwise have no problems academically. And of course there are lots of kids who would have been drunk or high all the time in high school but couldn’t be, and suddenly no longer have a structure around them that forces them to go to school. I got a 3.0 in my first semester of college, then spent the next two years in a drunken haze earning sub-2.0 GPAs. It was nothing to do with the academic requirements; I didn’t find college classes any more challenging than high school. It was just that most of my courses included attendance, participation, and “handing in busywork” components in the grade and I didn’t do any of that stuff. ---
**Author:** ![bup](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/6bbea6/32.png) [@bup](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bup)\ **Post date:** [February 11, 2016, 6:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mount-st-mary-s-univ-president-students-not-cuddly-bunnies-you-just-have-to-drown-the-bunnies/745681/35 "2016-02-11T18:35:44Z")
> [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](#): > > That, and high school students generally haven’t lived on their own before. Transitioning to living with roommates in a dorm or apartment can be a fairly big change and not everyone handles it well, even if they otherwise have no problems academically. > > And of course there are lots of kids who would have been drunk or high all the time in high school but couldn’t be, and suddenly no longer have a structure around them that forces them to go to school. > > I got a 3.0 in my first semester of college, then spent the next two years in a drunken haze earning sub-2.0 GPAs. It was nothing to do with the academic requirements; I didn’t find college classes any more challenging than high school. It was just that most of my courses included attendance, participation, and “handing in busywork” components in the grade and I didn’t do any of that stuff. Cool story, bro. ---
**Author:** ![Nava](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/da6949/32.png) [@Nava](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nava)\ **Post date:** [February 12, 2016, 8:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mount-st-mary-s-univ-president-students-not-cuddly-bunnies-you-just-have-to-drown-the-bunnies/745681/36 "2016-02-12T08:46:18Z")
My Catholic High School involved dissecting some animals (including rabbits from a nearby farm), but I’m reasonably sure nobody put a Glock to any animal’s heads (mammalian or otherwise). Drowning animals was highly unencouraged. My also-Catholic college did include people who dropped out pretty quick, but we looked at that as “self-culling”, nobody would have considered the idea of trying to encourage it. Some of us would have been identified by some of our teachers as “likely failures” based on our grades or simply on the teacher disliking us, yet went on all the way to graduation (top 5% of my class, and I can tell you that despite the college not tracking that kind of thing). Maybe Mr Newman needs to go back to Catholic kindergarten. ---
**Author:** ![Derleth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b9e5f3/32.png) [@Derleth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Derleth)\ **Post date:** [February 12, 2016, 10:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mount-st-mary-s-univ-president-students-not-cuddly-bunnies-you-just-have-to-drown-the-bunnies/745681/37 "2016-02-12T10:29:30Z")
> [@Nava](#): > > My Catholic High School involved dissecting some animals (including rabbits from a nearby farm), but I’m reasonably sure nobody put a Glock to any animal’s heads (mammalian or otherwise). Yeah, they had other ways of getting you to buy the course texts. > [@](#): > > Maybe Mr Newman needs to go back to Catholic kindergarten. That would do Mr. Newman a world of good. He might actually begin to worry about things. Mr. Newman is pulling one of the oldest gags in the book: “Do this difficult, distasteful thing because you’re an adult and adults do difficult and distasteful things. Never mind that it doesn’t benefit you or anyone who isn’t me. Just do it or I’ll stop considering you an adult.” It’s a neat little Kansas City Shuffle of a rhetorical trick: Get everyone all het up over “being an adult” and what “adulthood” means and they don’t think to ask why you’re asking them to do this “adult” task. The gag is at its funniest when the only threat is some yahoo no longer considering you an adult; the effect is rather spoiled in this case because he has other weapons at his disposal. He can fire people, for example. But, as we’ve seen, actually using those weapons is likely going to be what brings him down. Now _that’s_ comedy. ---
**Author:** ![SteveG1](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/bb73d2/32.png) [@SteveG1](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SteveG1)\ **Post date:** [February 12, 2016, 9:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mount-st-mary-s-univ-president-students-not-cuddly-bunnies-you-just-have-to-drown-the-bunnies/745681/38 "2016-02-12T21:46:01Z")
> [@Snowboarder\_Bo](#): > > Or if the bunny has nasty, big, pointy teeth… > > [Makes fangs with his fingers and holds them in front of his mouth] Run away!!! Run away!!! ---
**Author:** ![SteveG1](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/bb73d2/32.png) [@SteveG1](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SteveG1)\ **Post date:** [February 12, 2016, 9:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mount-st-mary-s-univ-president-students-not-cuddly-bunnies-you-just-have-to-drown-the-bunnies/745681/39 "2016-02-12T21:49:40Z")
> [@Count\_Blucher](#): > > How The Living Hell did we get stuck with ANOTHER Shkreli-like life form? Mister Pratt: “They breed in the crawl spaces.” ---
**Author:** ![PastTense](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pasttense/32/14550_2.png) [@PastTense](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PastTense)\ **Post date:** [February 12, 2016, 11:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mount-st-mary-s-univ-president-students-not-cuddly-bunnies-you-just-have-to-drown-the-bunnies/745681/40 "2016-02-12T23:07:51Z")
> [@](#): > > Amid a national controversy over academic freedom, the faculty of Mount St. Mary’s University voted overwhelmingly Friday afternoon to ask President Simon Newman to resign. [https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/grade-point/wp/2016/02/12/mount-st-marys-president-offers-to-reinstate-faculty-who-were-fired/](https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/grade-point/wp/2016/02/12/mount-st-marys-president-offers-to-reinstate-faculty-who-were-fired/) Obviously he needs to fire a great many more professors!!! [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mount-st-mary-s-univ-president-students-not-cuddly-bunnies-you-just-have-to-drown-the-bunnies/745681.md?page=1)