Our University's Weaknesses

University News and Notes
21

I personally think that this football push has been a giganitc clusterfumble.

The process to take 5 years rather than 4 has only created more confusion than clarity IMO. GaSt and ODU got it done in 4, yes they had stadiums but you are crazy if you think what we’ved done couldn’t have been done in one less yearr.

To shore this up I think that we need information sessions, and I believe the CFI would be willing to help.

On campus, off campus, in meck county, in surrounding counties. I think it would be great to have a training class for members of CFI, members from this board, and AD members that would be willing to help. Go to a 2 hour training session one afternoon.

Then we each (or in groups) hold something in an area. I don’t care if 1 person or 100 people show up, but it would be good to go over the process. Talk about gameday procedure, where you can park, direction to the field, time allowance, tailgate ordinance, etc. I wouldn’t mind holding one in Lake Norman for anyone interested, but i think proper training would be good to cut down on misinformation. I’m sure NWA would do one in Gastonia, and so on.

Think about being a first time flyer after the shoe bomber. The airlines got out that you needed to be there 1-2 hours early, you can’t have shampoo bottles in your carry-on, etc. Still people messed up, but could you imagine the cluster if they just sprung it on you? I hope we have a lot of newcomers to our campus, hopefully we make the unkown a little more familiar and can make the experience one they want to come back to.

I think that it would be nice to have some session like this in Halton as part of a larger pep rally the friday before gameday.

22

[quote=“PARMAN, post:19, topic:24960”]Good question. I’ll take a shot.

  1. Tougher admission standards won’t hurt. Let’s quit trying to be the world’s largest community college. It does our existing alumni base no good at all.[/quote]

Is it just me or do most people want HIGHER admission standards AFTER they have been accepted? Not saying I disagree with you and I personally feel admissions standards have and will continue to increase if only due to class size not keeping up with demand.

23

Of everything they have screwed up this is the biggest. They had a large group of passionate alumni who put their money and time into making something happen. Then when it got off the ground they were brushed aside. I mean the “Spontaneous Student Lead March to the Endzone Rally” was really a well planned and executed event by CFI. CFI members reached out to the community and put their time and money into making it a success. That CFI made this happen has been bleached out to nothing and the organization labeled simply “grassroots”.

A smart and astute AD would have reached out to this group and said you guys made something happen we want you to help us. We all know though that the AD hordes info and power and bringing a group in from the outside, even if it would help, would not happen.

How many CFI members are on all their little football committees? Enough said…

24

Admissions standards have gone up every year for quite some time. It’s a slow increase, but it’s there, even with the aggressive growth strategy we’re undergoing to meet our goals and the state’s demands.

Biggest weakness on our campus is communication, communication, communication. And the attitude is, “we tell them, but they don’t listen.” It seems to be in every department on campus.

“It’s not our fault they aren’t listening.”

Another thing, I saw our flag football team on Tv the other day. They were playing UCF. Guess what UCF was wearing?

If you guessed gold jerseys with “UCF” logos on them, you’d be correct!

What about Charlotte?

Oh, they were wearing green T-Shirts that said “ENCORE”. Give these guys some free jerseys with our school’s logo emblazoned across the front, please!

25

Bottom line is that the 73% acceptance rate is hard to debate to the everyday Joe. From the link above, after a quick peak, it appears that only ECU has a higher acceptance rate. I’ve always said that we would have better school pride by increasing the admission standards. Don’t let in anybody whose plan is to eventually transfer. If somebody changes their mind once they are at Charlotte that’s one thing. But for somebody who has every intention of transferring, it does us no good.

It really pisses me off that the UNC system controls so much of this stuff, without it necessarily being to our benefit. I have no idea what push the previous administration made for the direction of the school. But clearly the system thinks we need to expand to serve the growth of the region, yet doesn’t in return support that growth in funding. Stop f’ing us!

Maybe admissions have gotten better in recent years. But I assure you that 20 years ago UNCG, UNCW and ASU were not considered to have tougher admissions than Charlotte. UNCW’s top 75% averaged 1240 on the SAT. I give them credit for making a drastic change in credibility.

26

Question about the admission’s rate of 73%. Is that freshman, or does that include transfers?

Our weaknesses IMO are as follows:

  1. University Mission at odds with desires of passionate alums.

The University’s mission statement reads for the school to serve the region. This needs to be expanded. Thinking bigger picture, the power that be hire along the lines of that mission, if we think small time, we hire small time. This is part of the reason why I think we are growing at a fast clip, but doing so sort of haphazardly.

While many of us want to see a more traditional type campus and campus community, the mission doesn’t completely speak to that. This makes it harder to attract top level students who want a full college experience. Football is going to help in this tremendously, but there are a number of factors outside the University’s control that play a role, such as the development patterns surrounding the university. However, this may change as the light rail and Transit Oriented Development pick up steam in neighborhood.

  1. Marketing / Branding
    Looking back, I do believe we fumbled the taking the name Charlotte for athletics only, but not for the university as a whole. While it may have helped for athletics, it has caused an overall dilemma with confusion of our name. IMO it has exasperated the problem.

However, the point could be mute if we did a better job of marketing and branding. We just s*** the bed in this department to the ultimate level. We do little to engage the public, students, and alumni. Even when the University decided against using facebook for alumni purposes (can’t recall the actual campaign), it was a disastrous decision. Perhaps they underestimated the staying power of facebook, but if they had top of the line marketing and branding consultants, they would have known that FB wasn’t going anywhere.

  1. Experience
    The above items play a role here. In the end you need to give students an experience, while creating reason for the public and alums to come to campus. If things fall into place like they could (football, light rail, redevelopment of UC), the University area will become a destination, how big of a destination may rely on the ability of our administration to step up.
27

[quote=“Normmm, post:25, topic:24960”]Bottom line is that the 73% acceptance rate is hard to debate to the everyday Joe.

But clearly the system thinks we need to expand to serve the growth of the region, yet doesn’t in return support that growth in funding.[/quote]

What if our purpose, in the eyes of the BOG, is to be a degree factory? IMO, its pretty apparent that we put a much greater emphasis on quantity over quality. We always hear (and use) the argument that “By 2020 we’ll have 35,000 students and be the biggest school in the state!” But what good does that do us if its 35,000 students and 25,000 of them had Charlotte as the #2, 3, or 4 school on their list?

Part of the issue with school spirit that we talk about so much is getting students to CONNECT themselves and be prideful in their university WHILE THEY ARE STUDENTS. This comes from (among other things such as marketing, perception, and having quality professors, advising, and athletics) having students on this campus that wanted to be at Charlotte first and foremost. Not because we offer a program that they don’t offer at State or Wilmington, or because its been their dream since they were a kid to go to UNC-Chapel Hill but didn’t quite have the grades or SAT scores to get in so they come to Charlotte because “It’s still UNC.”

No…we need students that have Charlotte as their first choice because they love the campus, the programs, the athletics, and the student experience. Even if that means cutting the amount of people we admit per cycle in HALF…I guarantee you it would make high school seniors think a little harder about using Charlotte as a “safety school” and to those who get accepted, think a little harder about where they want to be for their college years.

Give me 22,000 Students with 75% having Charlotte be their first choice over 35,000 students with 35% having Charlotte be their first choice EVERY TIME.

I would rather have a lower student population with better alumni who actually give 2 shits about the school, who will raise their children as Niners, who will correct their employment interviewer when he/she says “So I see you went to UNC.” Have 35,000 kids who wish they were at ACC schools isn’t how you achieve this.

Sorry for the bitch-slaps to the school, but I wanted to be here and I’ve never regretted coming here for even a second. I can tell you from personal experience over the past 4 years, that I am in the very very small minority.

28

I don’t think you can police a kid’s intent on staying at a school until they graduate. You can ask them on their application, but I doubt that there is anything you can do to them if they lie about it. It’s a good idea to try to recruit students who want to stay for four years, but I don’t see a way to weed out the ones who obviously do not if they lie about it on their application.

Toughening the admissions requirements is not necessarily going to make people more passionate about the University of Charlotte. We can’t even get the people who graduated from Charlotte engaged in the school and its athletic teams, so simply raising the standards isn’t going to change that. Smarter kids does not directly correlate to more passionate students. If there was a way to primarily enroll kids that have made Charlotte their first choice like Job pointed out, then that, to me, is a better stategy. That may not look impressive on paper as far as getting highly ranked academic kids, but at least you would be getting kids who were enthused about coming to Charlotte prior to their arrival, would be less likely to transfer, and more likely to stay engaged and contribute to the school post graduation.

[quote=“jfickett, post:27, topic:24960”]Give me 22,000 Students with 75% having Charlotte be their first choice over 35,000 students with 35% having Charlotte be their first choice EVERY TIME.

I would rather have a lower student population with better alumni who actually give 2 shits about the school, who will raise their children as Niners…[/quote]

Bingo. That’s what I was getting at.

29

moot

/grammar nazi

30

Everyone here has made some great posts. Unfortunately, the current campus administration does not give a rat’s ass (there, I said it) about what any of us think. It is their party and unless you are one of the handful of their favorites, you will never receive an invitation to the party. They are not interested in your thoughts and ideas. In fact, they’re not really interested in your dollars, unless you have access to vast corporate dollars. They don’t have to answer to anyone, their salaries come from the state, so why should they rock the boat and listen to you?

As Coach Fox said, “It is what it is.” I’ve come to accept it.

31

[quote=“HP49er, post:30, topic:24960”]Everyone here has made some great posts. Unfortunately, the current campus administration does not give a rat’s ass (there, I said it) about what any of us think. It is their party and unless you are one of the handful of their favorites, you will never receive an invitation to the party. They are not interested in your thoughts and ideas. In fact, they’re not really interested in your dollars, unless you have access to vast corporate dollars. They don’t have to answer to anyone, their salaries come from the state, so why should they rock the boat and listen to you?

As Coach Fox said, “It is what it is.” I’ve come to accept it.[/quote]

Painful coming from one of our most loyal supporters. The above quote suggests a very unsustainable business model. What would it take to get through? Anything?

32

Most people aren’t going to have Charlotte as a first choice until we have football. Only reason I transferred here is because I knew eventually this school would have football. Then I had my first 104 experience and now I never wanna leave this place. I think the ones who fall in love with this school are the ones who go to athletic events and get involved. But the question is how to make more students go to games until we get football? Personally I never understand how students and alums can be entirely apathetic and then as soon as gameday rolls around for that first football game everything changes. I guess the American mindset is if you cannot afford football you must not be a good school.

33

moot

/grammar nazi[/quote]

Thank you. I knew when I wrote it something didn’t seem right, but I didn’t go back and check it out.

34

We are going to grow into a big school. It is what the UNC System has designed for us, and it is what the Charlotte region needs. Like most things you get the good with the bad. I think at 35,000 students we are going to find that we are so much more attractive to bigger conferences, and have so much more leverage in our state than we do today, that it will be a long term plus for us.

One downside for the kind of rapid growth that we have seen for decades is that each year that we admit more freshmen the increase comes from the bottom of the academic stack. It makes sense, right? First we admit all of the 4.0 kids that apply, then all the 3.9s and so forth until we run out of spots. More spots means you take more of the 3.6 kids. Ideally changes like the addition of football will cause more of the 4.0 kids to apply here. Until all that comes to pass, these still seem like respectable numbers to me:

The SAT average score for those new students increased from 1568.8 in 2006 to 1572.7 in 2007 – a 3.9 point increase. Across the nation and elsewhere in North Carolina, the average SAT score dropped 7 points in 2007.

The high school GPA average of freshmen improved from a 3.60 to 3.63. There were more students enrolled from the 4.00 or higher high school GPA range this year as compared to last year (21.2 percent this year as compared to 18.9 percent in 2006).

http://www.publicrelations.uncc.edu/default.asp?id=15&objid=301

35

Charlotte was my back up school and when I didn’t get into NCSU or Clemson I came here. Now that I am a junior in the mech. engineering department I think it happened for a reason, I love this school and everyone in my major.

My theory is that I didn’t get into NCSU because charlotte was best for me in the end

36

[quote=“get_gold78, post:35, topic:24960”]Charlotte was my back up school and when I didn’t get into NCSU or Clemson I came here. Now that I am a junior in the mech. engineering department I think it happened for a reason, I love this school and everyone in my major.

My theory is that I didn’t get into NCSU because charlotte was best for me in the end[/quote]

You have embraced the school. Many people that come in the way you did never embrace the school because it was not their first choice. They continue to embrace their childhood hero school or the school that just told them they weren’t good enough to get in. The philosophy of this is mind boggling.

37

^I absolutely hate people like that. Those are the people with UNC shirts and wear them on campus because their dumbass couldn’t get into that school. Even if UNC had an engineering program I would NEVER go there due to all the bandwagon and douchebaggery.

Charlotte is an extremely underrated school when it comes to academics in my opinion. I’m going to start punching kids with UNC shirts on if it doesn’t quit…

38

I don’t think you can police a kid’s intent on staying at a school until they graduate. You can ask them on their application, but I doubt that there is anything you can do to them if they lie about it. It’s a good idea to try to recruit students who want to stay for four years, but I don’t see a way to weed out the ones who obviously do not if they lie about it on their application.

If there was a way to primarily enroll kids that have made Charlotte their first choice like Job pointed out, then that, to me, is a better stategy. That may not look impressive on paper as far as getting highly ranked academic kids, but at least you would be getting kids who were enthused about coming to Charlotte prior to their arrival, would be less likely to transfer, and more likely to stay engaged and contribute to the school post graduation.[/quote]

I totally agree. I think Job and I are saying the same thing. Or at least that was my intent. I also agree that a kid can easily lie on their application(the same way they could lie by saying Charlotte is their first choice), but at least it’s a start. Weed out the one’s who are not wise enough to lie, and flat out say they plan to transfer.

39

I don’t think you can police a kid’s intent on staying at a school until they graduate. You can ask them on their application, but I doubt that there is anything you can do to them if they lie about it. It’s a good idea to try to recruit students who want to stay for four years, but I don’t see a way to weed out the ones who obviously do not if they lie about it on their application.

If there was a way to primarily enroll kids that have made Charlotte their first choice like Job pointed out, then that, to me, is a better stategy. That may not look impressive on paper as far as getting highly ranked academic kids, but at least you would be getting kids who were enthused about coming to Charlotte prior to their arrival, would be less likely to transfer, and more likely to stay engaged and contribute to the school post graduation.[/quote]

I totally agree. I think Job and I are saying the same thing. Or at least that was my intent. I also agree that a kid can easily lie on their application(the same way they could lie by saying Charlotte is their first choice), but at least it’s a start. Weed out the one’s who are not wise enough to lie, and flat out say they plan to transfer.[/quote]

Our Administration should recognize this and make a better effort to make the students that do attend here, no matter what choice we were, to embrace the University.

But like most things from our school, we expect people to do everything, no one engaged or markets anything.

40

[quote=“jfickett, post:27, topic:24960”][quote=“Normmm, post:25, topic:24960”]Bottom line is that the 73% acceptance rate is hard to debate to the everyday Joe.

But clearly the system thinks we need to expand to serve the growth of the region, yet doesn’t in return support that growth in funding.[/quote]

What if our purpose, in the eyes of the BOG, is to be a degree factory? IMO, its pretty apparent that we put a much greater emphasis on quantity over quality. We always hear (and use) the argument that “By 2020 we’ll have 35,000 students and be the biggest school in the state!” [/quote]

I hate to say it, but at times it certainly appears that way for both us and ECU.