Time to chime in.

 

As an undergraduate, I had that “look to your left and right” course in chemistry (those folks will be gone by mid-terms) and an added incentive that losing your student deferment meant going to Vietnam.  Personally, my impression is that the academic standards in general have been lowered a great deal over the years.  Many schools no longer require the ACT or SAT and many graduate schools no longer require the GRE (a requirement for me to graduate as an undergraduate).  There is such an emphasis on DEI and Wokeness these days that we have lost sight of the purpose of “higher education”.  Like most of you, I had classmates that seemed to have an easy time of it while I had to work at it (and work to have money to go to school), but with this struggle came a sense of pride.  I really wonder where all of this is going to …..

 

              “Higher education should be based on quality, not quantity; receive merit-based funding; and be free of unnecessary bureaucracy. Not the least of the benefits of educational reform is to foster the pride of achievement at national and international levels”.-Ahmed Zewail

 

Zack

S.Z. Mansdorf, PhD, CIH, CSP, QEP

Consultant in EHS and Sustainability

7184 Via Palomar

Boca Raton, FL  33433

561-212-7288

 

 

 

From: ACS Division of Chemical Health and Safety <DCHAS-L**At_Symbol_Here**Princeton.EDU> On Behalf Of Dr Bob
Sent: Thursday, October 13, 2022 1:28 PM
To: DCHAS-L**At_Symbol_Here**Princeton.EDU
Subject: Re: [DCHAS-L] Maitland Jones story

 

 

 

Hi Rob!

 

Reminds me of a biological “continuous process” where each stage imposes impossible objectives on its predecessor. We need some thinking NOW that transends stages!

 

Dr. Bob Haugen

Director of Product and Technology Development

Flow Sciences, Inc.

 

910 332 4878

 

www.flowsciences.com
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From: ACS Division of Chemical Health and Safety <DCHAS-L**At_Symbol_Here**Princeton.EDU> On Behalf Of Info
Sent: Thursday, October 13, 2022 1:12 PM
To: DCHAS-L**At_Symbol_Here**Princeton.EDU
Subject: Re: [DCHAS-L] Maitland Jones story

 

New report today from the folks who bring you the ACT exam. Damn depressing. https://www.act.org/content/dam/act/unsecured/documents/2022/2022-National-ACT-Profile-Report.pdf   More data etc. here https://www.act.org/content/act/en/research/services-and-resources/data-and-visualization/grad-class-database-2022.html  A few pertinent highlights to this thread:

 

22% of student met all four of the College Readiness Benchmark Scores. Average ACT scores now lowest since 1991.

 

Table 1.6 - Achievement in STEM: only 16% meet the STEM benchmark.  Table 3.6 - College readiness: only 20.8% met math and English in the best prepared students, 22.2% for reading and and 21.7% for science. That’s of the *best prepared* students.

 

Table 1.7 - Proficiency in Understanding Complex Texts: 57% below proficient, only 19% above proficient. [Please read Chapter 7 on Electrophilic substitution before coming to class….]

 

When I was still teaching, we found the single best predictor of success in Gen Chem was the ACT math score. That’s because the intro courses (for right or wrong) are traditionally filled with mostly P-Chem concepts such as gas laws, equilibria etc. that feature easily-tested math problems. So today’s report is sad news.

 

Anecdotally, the rate of flagrant cheating is higher than ever ( IMHO, Chegg is a pox upon society).  On top of that, we can watch who logs in to do homework, how much time they spend on it, and if they download the extras that we provide…and THAT data is utterly depressing.  And that effort shown has gotten worse over the years. The good students, the motivated ones, and the ones that try hard still exist, of course.

 

In my mind, the single biggest problem is that colleges are admitting too many students who are simply not ready for the rigor or demands of college.  If students need remedial courses, that work needs to done before they enroll. Presumably, many campuses drop a lot of time and effort into remedial courses when they could much better spend that effort providing smaller classes, recitation sections, peer learning and other proven means to improve the success of the students that have been properly prepared for college.  I could soapbox all day about the special athlete-only tutoring center, athlete-only computer lab, etc afforded our NCAA “student athletes” (and multimillion dollar salary for our coaching staffs) while our students who had to work to pay their way through school couldn’t even get recitation sections in genchem (and before someone says sports bring in money that’s true for only a handful of schools and a loser for all the rest).

 

I could go on all week about the benefits of trades and trade school as well as for deconstructing the whole traditional liberal arts model (not that it shouldn’t exist - there’s much to be said for it, and folks should be free to pursue it) to allow for slim technical degrees at significantly lower cost and duration (as well as higher student satisfaction and better outcome).

 

Rob Toreki

 

Safety Emporium - Laboratory and Safety Supplies 
https://www.SafetyEmporium.com
esales**At_Symbol_Here**safetyemporium.com  or toll-free: (866) 326-5412
Fax: (856) 553-6154, PO Box 1003, Blackwood, NJ 08012

 

 

On Oct 13, 2022, at 5:18 AM, Ralph Stuart <ralph**At_Symbol_Here**rstuartcih.org> wrote:

 

Since when do students have the right to say a prof or course is toooo hard.  I think it may be the caliber of student today.  

I live and work with today’s undergraduates every day and the educational disruption they have faced over the last three years is mind-boggling to observe. As a result, mental health issues are rising throughout the student body, but particularly students whose high school preparation was also impacted by Covid. I can’t imagine trying to absorb all of the material I was exposed to as an undergraduate engineering student today.

I stopped taking Chemistry Department classes after Gen Chem, so I can’t comment on teaching methods most appropriate to organic or higher level courses, but I suspect that what worked to help students learn in 2019 is very different that what works in 2022. I think that the was part of the point of the article that Neal pointed to.

- Ralph

Ralph Stuart, CIH, CCHO
ralph**At_Symbol_Here**rstuartcih.org

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