Western Washington U. Again Suspends Theater Professor

February 16, 2011, 3:41 pm

Perry F. Mills, a tenured, veteran associate professor of theater at Western Washington University, has been suspended, with pay, after two students filed complaints about his behavior. Mr. Mills, whom Western Washington has suspended before for abusive behavior, recently lost a lawsuit against the university in which he alleged that it had broken state law by not holding an open disciplinary hearing for his first suspension.

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wilkenslibrary

Interesting article.
kgodwin

An associate’s degree should take a full-time student 2 years to complete, while a bachelor’s degree should take a full-time student 4 years to complete. 3 years for an AA/AS/AAS is 150% of “normal” and 6 years for a BA/BS is 150% of “normal”. It’s the standard IPEDS definition.

As for goals for students in WA – we do a pretty good job, given the constraints of the systems we work within. If you are in working in the CTC system in WA, you should check out the “intent” coding – there’s documentation for it here (http://www.sbctc.edu/college/it/Student_007.doc). Your institution may not be using all of the codes, but the data element itself is pretty thorough. The author’s husband, for example, would be coded “J” intent – although if he was looking for Fin. Aid we’d make him a F intent. As the article states, a lot of times, we “enroll” a student in a degree-seeking program so they can get Fin. Aid (at my institution anyway). Tracking these students’ “real” goals will hurt them (and us), so we (community colleges in general) usually just don’t.
juliewhite

The big caveat to those completion times, however, is the large numbers of students requiring remediation, especially at community colleges, but even at four-year institutions. That can add 1-2 semesters, at least, to a program of study.
http://www.facebook.com/kingjocey Jocelyn King

Remediation is one issue for completion times, but so are adult learners, many of whom are part-time students. I am chair for a program in which the majority of the students are part-time while working full-time jobs, and most of them take longer than three years to complete their degree. Because of the way IPEDS measures completers, I am forced every year to justify my program’s “only 16% completion rate” – even though most of them eventually do complete their degrees. The way much of all community colleges’ populations are not considered completers – even though they are, as the article states, achieving their goals – is a major ongoing source of frustration for me!
renellin

I think the real question was in the author’s last words–why is funding dependent on graduation rates? Who thinks these outcomes are rational? There are too many factors to consider, and as usual in these bright ideas to measure ‘outcomes’ they encourage the wrong focus.
kgodwin

I hear you. At my institution, if you test into the bottom level of our developmental education, you have at least 5 quarters of math before you get to college level – 6 if you take the “slow” series. English only has four precollege classes, but that’s still an extra year.
jsibelius

Yeah…my undergrad degree generally requires 5 years to complete, as it is essentially a double major. It took me 5 years to complete it. But it was 9 years from the time I began college until I graduated. Why? Because I am a college dropout (multiple times) and a failure. With two more degrees under my belt now, I’m wondering just how many “failures” are working in high-level government posts and donating considerable sums to their schools? College is a different ballgame from even 30 years ago. We need to update our measuring tape.
yellow1

Students will only go Fall and Spring Semesters, and they often take only 12 hours (minimum full time). This will not allow for a 60 hour AAS/AA/AS in 2 years, even full time, and it will not allow for a BA/BS in 4 years. I think most institutions, whether they’d admit it or not, have established this as the norm. We don’t expect college students to go year round, we don’t even pay out PELL and other aid at many schools to encourage it, and we are so happy when a student commits to being full time that we don’t mind when it’s 12 hours.

Add in remediation and the reality that the economy has forced many students to attend part time, and normal is about 3-4 years for a 2 year degree and 5-6 for a 4. I seem to remember students taking Summers off and taking minimum to be full time credits when I was in school too, but the microscope wasn’t on higher ed then like it is now.
kgodwin

I think you might have misunderstood my comment – I was explaining where IPEDS got their definition, not what actually happens. Our IPEDS cohort – full-time first-time student starting in Fall – accounts for fewer than half of our “new” students each year.
Around here, folks will typically only attend two of the three main quarters (fall, winter, spring), and they are frequently part-time in one quarter if they do attend all three. There have been times that I have wondered if the most effective strategy for getting students thru in a timely manner would be bumping the full-time definition up to 15 credits for Fin. Aid. Telling students 12 credits is full time, and encouraging them to take only 12 credits adds an extra two quarters to a degree – assuming you can put together 12 credit quarters without taking too many odd classes just to fill out your schedule (a common practice, and something we advise our students to do). And in community colleges, adding two quarters means an extra six months for life to happen and interrupt their education (six more months for an unplanned pregnancy to interfere, or for Grandma to get sick).

Of course, in these parts, I’d probably be shot for suggesting that 12 credits isn’t really full time…