I have been a student here at the University since 2010, and I have grown to love this school.
The young men and women who attend here are among the smartest and most dedicated that I have ever met, and the faculty and staff have always been terrific too.
I have, however, noticed a change in what seems to be the overall attitude of the University from when I started here just two short years ago, and it is not a change I like. It is now an attitude that is more turned toward money, and away from the students and their quality of education.
Monday evening as I was leaving class I got a phone call from an automated recording in the Bursar’s office. This mechanical “Bursarian” told me that I have an outstanding balance (because of the classes I am registered for in the spring semester) and that if the balance is not taken care of by Dec. 15 I will be dropped from my spring semester classes.
Dec. 15. Are finals even over by then? Can I not even finish worrying about the end of this semester before I start worrying about the start of next semester?
Is the University so pressed for money, or getting stiffed on their tuition bill by so many students, that they think this kind of extreme action is necessary?
Did they learn nothing from the beginning of this semester when 500 students were not only dropped from their classes but also their on-campus housing plans?
They should have learned that sending out notices right before, and during, finals is counterproductive because students have so much going on trying to do well in that last push of the semester that they tend to tune-out everything else.
It raises the question: What is more important to the University, making sure students doing well in their classes, or making sure they are not so much as a week overdue on a tuition payment?
I understand the University needs enough money to operate and make sure everything can run smoothly, but as I look around campus at how they are always tearing down one building or another, sometimes without any outwardly visible benefit (think pop culture building), money doesn’t appear to be a problem.
And whatever happened to giving your students the benefit of the doubt?
I guess I can understand if they have a newly enrolled freshman who has not yet shown that he or she will pay their bill, but if you have attended two or more semesters and your bill has always miraculously been paid, then how about a little faith that, based on their previous example, the bill will be paid.
Another example of the University’s love of money is their apparent dealings with the BGSU Faculty Association.
Now to be fair, I don’t know all of the details of the dealings between the University and the faculty, but I do know the University is among the highest in the state in tuition and fees while our professors are among the lowest paid.
So where is all that money — that they cannot afford to let you pay even a day or two late — going to if not to help pay for our educators? And can you think of a better way that the University could spend that money than by paying our professors well enough to keep the best and brightest wanting to come here to teach?
I sure can’t. I know it’s cool to have a multimillion dollar building emerging from the ground like a gopher peeking out for food, but I’d much rather have a professor teaching me who could have gone to teach at any university he or she chose, but decided to come to the University instead.
That’s the kind of thing that makes average schools good and good schools great.
The last thing I want to do is sound unappreciative for the opportunities that this University has afforded me as an old guy trying to get his education, but I love this school. I care about its future. And I care about the next generation of leaders being educated in a place that does not value greed above quality education.
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