valpopal is a well know constant critic of pretty much "all things Valpo" and his comments need to be taken with that in mind. ReZyNeZy, I don't think there was ever a degree offered in "Lutheran theology"
valpopal is a well know constant honest, constructive and instructive critic of pretty much "all things Valpo" and his comments need to be taken with that in mind.
valpopal is a well know constant critic of pretty much "all things Valpo" and his comments need to be taken with that in mind. ReZyNeZy, I don't think there was ever a degree offered in "Lutheran theology"
The school is a Lutheran institution so my words were intended with that in mind when in regards to the theology degree. We are allowed to be critics, but I think it is also important to highlight the righting of the ship in addition to the ways we hit the iceberg. Being a critic has its merits and Valpopal is definitely someone who forms his beliefs from strong backing and research. I respect you sir. At the end of the day, a world without criticism is a world of complacency.
This post was modified 7 months ago 2 times by Rez
Criticism is one thing, and appropriate when needed. Valpopal makes solid points but also lacks balance. He would make you think that President Padilla has failed IN EVERY WAY, and that is criticism for criticisms sake.
Criticism is one thing, and appropriate when needed. Valpopal makes solid points but also lacks balance. He would make you think that President Padilla has failed IN EVERY WAY, and that is criticism for criticisms sake.
Read my message again and see how your statement fails. My comments mostly covered the years 2016-2024. A majority of the criticism (the first two paragraphs) was about events that preceded President Padilla's arrival, even going back to the Drew years, and only one paragraph of criticism relates to his term. Additionally, the paragraph of praise and credit I offered for three positive and productive initiatives all happened during Padilla's watch. In other threads I have been very complimentary about some of Padilla's actions, especially as relates to the athletics program. That seems quite balanced to me.
I feel like if anyone can right the ship its Padilla. Serious improvements have been made in his tenure to make VU a modern institution. VU had been stuck in their ways for awhile as Valpopal mentioned. As with a major rebrand, a lot is going to end up changing. While I feel like these changes are largely for the better, people are bound to disagree and provide criticism for these changes. It is good to see all sides of a story.
At the same time, If we all are going to be Debbie Downers and argue over the direction of the school rather than just have civil conversations. It might be time to go over to talking about sports for a while.
For starters, It is really hard to market engineering degrees when PNW is just a 30 min drive from campus and a LOT cheaper from a private education. Dragging along these programs was probably due to fear of dumping money into a program only for Purdue to poach the prospects. Nursing however, is a market that is lacking in this area of the state. IU has central and southern Indiana covered, but NWI does not have any strong nursing degrees and quite a few hospitals. If you fill the niche, people will come to the campus. You just cannot compete with Purdue in this market. Once nursing became popular, they started marketing the program and building it a lot more, most of which is a Padilla gain. Also there are efforts being made to subsidize the high cost of attendance.
For starters, It is really hard to market engineering degrees when PNW is just a 30 min drive from campus and a LOT cheaper from a private education. Dragging along these programs was probably due to fear of dumping money into a program only for Purdue to poach the prospects.
I think you are highly underestimating an engineering degree from Valpo. First, compared to Purdue, the classes are much smaller, thus better able to know and work with profs, and next, the ability to do undergrad research is there at Valpo with things like the only solar furnace available for undergrad use in the nation. I have been told (albeit some time ago) that it is difficult if not impossible to graduate in four years from Purdue because of the abundance of students trying to get into limit slots for certain classes.
If you look at the roster for our football team, there are 22 engineering majors from all over the country. This most likely is because of their desire to play D1 football and can't make it at Purdue. If you look at US News top 15 undergrad engineering schools, only three are non-military and Valpo is one of them.
@vu72 I understand that, but high cost of attendance can drive anybody away with the way the world is now. VU may be cheap for a private school, but it is still the price of a private school. Also these toys and small class sizes are not being marketed it seems. I hope to see as such in the future.
Also, this is another dig into how the lack of marketing has hurt Valpo. I live in town and I would not have known any of this if not for you mentioning it. Why aren't the tools in the engineering department being marketed to prospective students. Why isnt the undergrad ranking being marketed to prospective students. The only way I see marketing is the Brown backstop of Comiskey Park, and occasional ads on the board at the intersection of 30 and 2.
I commend Padilla for trying to rectify this issue. Marketing seems to be one of his points of emphasis. Hence why our numbers were trending upward in the enrollment. We can see this trend upward as a net gain in my opinion as the debacle with the FAFSA is beyond the university's control. We were in the positive for the first time in a while.
US News ranking is 14/15.
This post was modified 7 months ago 4 times by Rez
Yes, the smaller classes at Valpo should be a draw... though class sizes that Engineering students experience are not in some bubble, but experience course caps as high or as low as whatever the course they are taking... possibly in Engineering but lots also elsewhere. Depending on their particular Engineering major, they are required to take courses in MTH, BIO, KIN, CORE, THEO, various natural science electives, etc.
I do understand the need to prune to save the tree and not wasting money on branches we're trying to chop anyways -- but there really is a risk of pruning so much you kill it. Even if we want to be 'ra ra Engineering' since it's the spot of brightness in the Valpo universe, I just think we gotta be realistic that any given engineering major is also going to take a LOT of classes outside of the Engineering program itself, so it's not like their college experience will be unaffected by the rest of the place going to pot.
On the curricular side, I was very interested to see that RPK recommended lots of unis to cut their math and physics and stats departments (I think Bradley cut some math and statistics). It's not unusual that numbers of math majors are now quite low across the country, so I think we'll see more and more universities cut their Math and related non-professional STEM programs since not enough people are giving them that all-important 'declared major' metric, and maybe Valpo will eventually get there too -- but you just wonder how some of these administrations so focused on only funneling resources to the professional schools expect them to keep functioning without the related service teaching departments.... Or maybe we have entered into some weird landscape where engineers don't actually need math or physics, along with reading or theology, anymore?
As a CS major, enginneering is close to the requirements outside of core classes and department electives, honestly you need the math. Cutting math because "oh, AI and calculators do it anyway" seems to be the mindset. Trust me when I tell you AI can never replace the real deal. You need problem solving skills that come with math, and math is used a lot in these fields. Cutting math majors might be viable, but you cannot cut classes that are required for high intensity math related degrees.
As for the Engineering, I am not yet convinced that I want AI drawing up the plans for our skyscapers or bridges
Trust me you don't. Many of these companies claim they have AI now that can code and do other CS things, but in reality. Their algorithm is just google. My prof for computing 1 and 2 put it best. "They may be able to source the info, but they will most likely never be able to do so through ethical means." AI finds code for stuff on the internet. Plagiarism applies to coding as well. Even more so because if the code the AI found is bugged and contains backdoors into important stuff, you are basically never going to find another job again. Not to mention failures with google AI and other sources known to go crazy and not give accurate results. S and M are still important.
