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Post by accelerate on Apr 4, 2024 19:51:14 GMT -5
Let's compare Georgetown stem to one of our closest ivy peers: dartmouth. For Physics Georgetown has 18 professors. Dartmouth, a far smaller school, has 27. For computer science, Georgetown has 27. Dartmouth has 46.
That is unacceptable. Georgetown is a RESEARCH university. Dartmouth is an undergraduate college. I am tired of us hiding behind the "we are an undergraduate focused school" excuse to hide our utter lack of academic/research excellence, when schools that are even truer to that spirit, like dartmouth, kill us in research capacity. And meanwhile, we have probably 10,000 random (and non-research oriented) graduate degrees. Interesting for an "undergraduate focused" institution. At Georgetown, graduate students -- not undergraduates -- represent the numerical majority.
Georgetown has become complacent. It is not enough to have rely on diminishing cultural favor/visibility in the wealthy / politically connected circles of old. We need to be an actual university, too. The scene is just as bad when you look at the departments that are our supposed "strengths".
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Post by DFW HOYA on Apr 4, 2024 21:38:33 GMT -5
That is unacceptable. Georgetown is a RESEARCH university. Dartmouth is an undergraduate college. I am tired of us hiding behind the "we are an undergraduate focused school" excuse to hide our utter lack of academic/research excellence, when schools that are even truer to that spirit, like dartmouth, kill us in research capacity. And meanwhile, we have probably 10,000 random (and non-research oriented) graduate degrees. Interesting for an "undergraduate focused" institution. At Georgetown, graduate students -- not undergraduates -- represent the numerical majority. For Georgetown to focus more on this area, it probably has to start at the provost level. None of the prior seven academic VP/provosts dating back to 1955 had any experience as an instructor or an academic in the sciences, though Groves has more research experience than his predecessors: Brian McGrath SJ: Political science Thomas Fitzgerald SJ: Theology Aloysius Kelley SJ: Theology J. Donald Freeze SJ: Philosophy Dorothy Brown: History James O'Donnell: History Robert Groves: Sociology The preponderance of graduate students is a more recent phenomenon, but it's not about research, but revenue.
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RusskyHoya
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Post by RusskyHoya on Apr 4, 2024 22:05:42 GMT -5
That is unacceptable. Georgetown is a RESEARCH university. Dartmouth is an undergraduate college. I am tired of us hiding behind the "we are an undergraduate focused school" excuse to hide our utter lack of academic/research excellence, when schools that are even truer to that spirit, like dartmouth, kill us in research capacity. And meanwhile, we have probably 10,000 random (and non-research oriented) graduate degrees. Interesting for an "undergraduate focused" institution. At Georgetown, graduate students -- not undergraduates -- represent the numerical majority. For Georgetown to focus more on this area, it probably has to start at the provost level. None of the prior seven academic VP/provosts dating back to 1955 had any experience as an instructor or an academic in the sciences, though Groves has more research experience than his predecessors: Brian McGrath SJ: Political science Thomas Fitzgerald SJ: Theology Aloysius Kelley SJ: Theology J. Donald Freeze SJ: Philosophy Dorothy Brown: History James O'Donnell: History Robert Groves: Sociology The preponderance of graduate students is a more recent phenomenon, but it's not about research, but revenue. Would you consider statistics to be a science? Because Bob Groves (a Dartmouth grad, ironically) is a statistician and has an appointment in the Department of Mathematics and Statistics. "He is an elected fellow of the American Statistical Association, elected member of the International Statistical Institute, elected member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, elected member of the US National Academy of Sciences, and elected member of the National Academy of Medicine of the US National Academies."It's impossible to discuss the undergraduate vs. graduate balance without highlighting the hard headcount cap on traditional Main Campus undergraduates - not something that Dartmouth or most schools have to contend with. Dartmouth's endowment, by the way, is roughly twice that of Georgetown's, spread across far fewer students and in a far lower cost-of-living area. You can hire a lot more faculty on that. And if you want to close that gap... well, maybe revenue from graduate programs is not something at which to turn up one's nose.
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Post by accelerate on Apr 5, 2024 11:39:20 GMT -5
Personally, I just want confirmation that the administration is actively thinking about this. I want to know that the admin understands the need to overhaul our sciences. Both for the profile of the school and also the broader undergraduate experience too. When you get a bunch of hard sciences and social sciences students in a room, really interesting conversations begin to happen. Particularly in the realm of venture and startups but also in interdisciplinary research, thinking, and problem solving. And I personally believe it is incredibly important for the University to start breaking into the technology / innovation world. We just don't get top science students and that is a loss for everyone -- it renders the Georgetown campus a stifling environment.
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Post by accelerate on Apr 5, 2024 11:41:42 GMT -5
Would you consider statistics to be a science? Because Bob Groves (a Dartmouth grad, ironically) is a statistician and has an appointment in the Department of Mathematics and Statistics. "He is an elected fellow of the American Statistical Association, elected member of the International Statistical Institute, elected member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, elected member of the US National Academy of Sciences, and elected member of the National Academy of Medicine of the US National Academies."It's impossible to discuss the undergraduate vs. graduate balance without highlighting the hard headcount cap on traditional Main Campus undergraduates - not something that Dartmouth or most schools have to contend with. Dartmouth's endowment, by the way, is roughly twice that of Georgetown's, spread across far fewer students and in a far lower cost-of-living area. You can hire a lot more faculty on that. And if you want to close that gap... well, maybe revenue from graduate programs is not something at which to turn up one's nose. Frankly, statistics is the joke version of pure math. Anything applied is generally a deviation or two below the rigor of pure academia. We need thinkers not just doers.
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Post by reformation on Apr 6, 2024 22:19:40 GMT -5
Lots to discuss, may take a few posts. I think I have a unique perspective on the Gtwn "Science" discussion as I teach at an Ivy Engr school, am co-founder of a decently big AI company in the med tech space, and maybe most importantly have a current HS senior going through college process now, so I'm pretty current re Gtwn's and other schools STEM programs.
First just want to address a couple of misconceptions. The idea that Statistics is a joke is seriously misguided. The whole AI thing is based on applying algorithms (most ML, Bayesian Networks to name a few-admittedly some come out of computational statistical physics) were developed by statisticians. Think Stanford's Stats dept and Bell Labs Operations research staff years ago. If one is thinking about statistics based on AP Stats from HS sure it's not an interesting field, but that is hardly the case in either the academic or the real world. In practice people from Stats /CS/Math/EE work on these opptys collaboratively
Second, the idea that Gtwn has made the right historical calls re deploying resources and developing academic programs in STEM broadly is kind of silly-nobody at Gtwn really thinks that, so I'm not sure why some here make believe that is the case. I actually think Gtwn has some good STEM programs, profs and external opptys for students but can do a lot better without new buildings, e.g., as a prerequisite. Specifically, Rusky, the biggest miss in the social sciences in recent memory was the failure of the whole Soviet studies apparatus to anticipate the fall of the Soviet Union. A close second is the misjudgment of China's rise. The traditional social science crowd that made these important misjudgments reign supreme at Gtwn. I'm glad Gtwn has strengths in these areas and would not say that they are in shambles because of their bad calls in the past. The idea that Psychology is in Shambles is silly--The top places in the world have integrated Psychology, Computer Science, Linguistics, Neuroscience and do a lot of work on decision science(econ/pol/soc) and brain science generally--most of the work is quantitative and the grads from these programs tend to get jobs in the tech sector that a lot of Gtwn grads would love.
A third fallacy is that it would be hard for Gtwn to recruit faculty competitively with say Dartmouth. Most faculty want to live in an urban environment with a lot going on--particularly the young ones. I've asked academic colleagues in NY and London re Gtwn specifically and they've always indicated that it would be an interesting place to work, especially if Gtwn wanted to build in a particular field. Most external academics feel Gtwn has some good people but tends to build strengths in areas that do not take advantage of its unique location. For econ Ex Gtwn has a lot of theory-oriented staff, where it should really be focused on policy/applied micro--in bio for ex theres no reason it shouldn't be elite in computational bio and neuroscience, and applied stats and data science. Hiring theory-oriented people in the center of the policy world makes no sense across the disciplines.
In terms of where I think Gtwn has a competitive miss in STEM it's really in math/CS and computational approaches to Bio/Psych/Econ/Poli Sci/Linguistics. If I were Gtwn I would double the size of math/CS and populate the hires with people who specialize in the areas where Gtwn wants to focus elsewhere, e.g., Computational Bio and Neuroscience, Poli Sci, etc. In terms of academic programs for undergrads we should have explicit computational tracks in Bio/Chem/Govt/Psych/Linguistics etc--most top schools do--we are an outlier for no good reason. Other simple things we could do to attract more STEM oriented students is have some special honors tracks in Math, e.g., like most other top places--again it would cost a lot. Also we could have academic exchanges with top STEM places--I'd bet they'd all be willing to do it as Gtwn would be a super attractive place to go for a year for their students.
In terms of peers Dartmouth is actually not a bad one, as are some of the lib arts colleges in terms of evaluating Stem programs along with the usual suspects among bigger research places. I think the lack of thinking creatively re the honors STEM experience for undergrads is due to a draw of resources for the proliferation of Masters programs + some lack of strategic thinking re the admin generally, but thats just a guess.
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Post by bill on Apr 8, 2024 13:16:33 GMT -5
That's an extremely interesting take on the issue, reformation! Take another look at the campus plan I sent a link to, though. There's a building south of Regents, and then Reiss is demolished into two buildings. This would be an ideal opportunity for the university to expand its CS and Math faculty, and (as you said) expanding the faculty can't be that hard to do. I used to be a faculty in the sciences (at a top ranked liberal arts college) and just as you experienced, so many of my peers would jump at the chance to relocate to a place like DC.
So it's simple: build the building south of Regents. Populate that building with more sciences and lots of lecture halls (similar to Reiss 103 and 112). Then demolish Reiss. They can do it. They demolished Henle. Build two buildings as they suggest and have one for math and one for CS.....there you have it.....the science complex at G'town. This'll also free up some space in the north side of campus, as St. Mary's can now be a dorm again. It's an ambitious project for sure, but it's simple.
And I'd be cautious about making target hires (i.e., hiring in specific fields). Hire across the board and make the academic environment as flexible as possible. Allow faculty and students to follow their own interests, and the academic footprint of G'town will grow organically.
And it's important to make clear, in this discussion, that my science experience at G'town wasn't bad at all. On the contrary. Georgetown was one of the best things that happened to me. It was clear that undergraduate education was a priority to my professors, and it was also clear that success in the sciences at G'town (particularly chemistry) was not a trivial task at all. As I think I mentioned before, the undergraduates at a very highly ranked liberal arts college (which is more selective than G'town) did not have nearly the rigorous experience I did at G'town.
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RusskyHoya
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Post by RusskyHoya on Apr 9, 2024 11:32:46 GMT -5
Personally, I just want confirmation that the administration is actively thinking about this. I want to know that the admin understands the need to overhaul our sciences. Both for the profile of the school and also the broader undergraduate experience too. When you get a bunch of hard sciences and social sciences students in a room, really interesting conversations begin to happen. Particularly in the realm of venture and startups but also in interdisciplinary research, thinking, and problem solving. And I personally believe it is incredibly important for the University to start breaking into the technology / innovation world. We just don't get top science students and that is a loss for everyone -- it renders the Georgetown campus a stifling environment. I don't think that the mere lack of "top science students" renders a campus stifling. If that were true, then a place like Julliard or SCAD/RISD would be unbearable - no top science students to be found there! For that matter, depending on your definition of "top," most schools in the country would be deficient in that way. Certainly the standardized test scores and other attributes of Georgetown science majors are toward the very top of the national distribution. In any event, interdisciplinarity is good, and you're seeing increasing moves in that direction, whether it's the new-ish joint BSBGA between SFS and MSB, the new Joint Environment & Sustainability (JESP) B.S. Degree approved just this past December, the new College/McCourt bachelor's that allows one to merge science with public policy, etc. If it's "the realm of venture and startups" you're after, there's things going on there too. By way of examples, see, e.g., georgetownventures.org and eship.georgetown.edu/venture-lab/ and www.forbes.com/sites/heatherwishartsmith/2024/03/04/georgetowns-venture-in-the-capital-nurtures-tomorrows-innovators/Frankly, statistics is the joke version of pure math. Anything applied is generally a deviation or two below the rigor of pure academia. We need thinkers not just doers. I'll give you points for originality, man. Whenever people complain about the need for more STEM, it's always because they consider that to be more practical and productive and contributing to tangible value, as opposed to the "That's just your opinion, man" nature of the humanities. You are the very first person I've ever heard say that no, actually, applied STEM is *too* practical, and what we need instead is pure, abstract, theoretical science!
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RusskyHoya
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Post by RusskyHoya on Apr 9, 2024 12:40:38 GMT -5
Second, the idea that Gtwn has made the right historical calls re deploying resources and developing academic programs in STEM broadly is kind of silly-nobody at Gtwn really thinks that, so I'm not sure why some here make believe that is the case. I guess this is directed toward me? You're going to have to be more specific - what historical calls? What academic programs in STEM should have been developed further and at whose expense? Let's be evidence-based here, in the finest traditions of the scientific method, rather than making sweeping general, unfalsifiable claims. Specifically, Rusky, the biggest miss in the social sciences in recent memory was the failure of the whole Soviet studies apparatus to anticipate the fall of the Soviet Union. I respect your subject matter knowledge in your field, but here you are treading onto my area of expertise. Many, many Georgetown people were closely tracking developments in the Soviet Union and publishing accurate analysis, both openly and in non-public fora. For a useful discussion of this, see Berkowitz, Bruce D. "U.S. Intelligence Estimates of the Soviet Collapse: Reality and Perception." International Journal of Intelligence and CounterIntelligence, 21: 237–250, 2008 (https://www.cia.gov/readingroom/docs/20080229.pdf). A close second is the misjudgment of China's rise. The traditional social science crowd that made these important misjudgments reign supreme at Gtwn. What is this "misjudgment of China's rise" of which you speak? Allow me to offer a quote: Just because politicians fail to take action on something does not mean that scholars were taken by surprise! The idea that Psychology is in Shambles is silly--The top places in the world have integrated Psychology, Computer Science, Linguistics, Neuroscience and do a lot of work on decision science(econ/pol/soc) and brain science generally--most of the work is quantitative and the grads from these programs tend to get jobs in the tech sector that a lot of Gtwn grads would love. Yes, that interdisciplinary field is often called Cognitive Science, and Georgetown has been one of the leading institutions in its development, starting with the creation of the Georgetown Institute for Cognitive and Computational Sciences back in the mid-90s, which was ahead of many more science-focused institutions. (https://apps.dtic.mil/sti/tr/pdf/ADA302646.pdf). As for psychology, "shambles" is not a descriptor I just chose off-hand - that is the verbatim language used by Jeffrey Lieberman, Past President of the American Psychiatric Association, back in 2015, to describe the state of the field. It's hotly debated of course, but that debate is anything but "silly."
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Post by Nevada Hoya on Apr 9, 2024 21:49:47 GMT -5
"Frankly, statistics is the joke version of pure math. Anything applied is generally a deviation or two below the rigor of pure academia. We need thinkers not just doers."
The hardest course I have ever taken (at Cornell, my grad school) was Statistical mechanics, which was taught by a professor, who collaborated with a Nobel Prize winner.
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Post by reformation on Apr 9, 2024 22:03:59 GMT -5
Don't want to stray too far from the science discussion but briefly re the whole Soviet Studies thing: There is a whole literature about this: topic has its own wikipedia entry!--excerpt below: I get that there is a debate about this, but most people feel this a was a substantial miss.
In 1983, Princeton University professor Stephen Cohen described the Soviet system as remarkably stable.
The Central Intelligence Agency also over-estimated the internal stability of the Soviet Union and did not anticipate its rapid dissolution. Former Director of Central Intelligence Stansfield Turner in 1991 wrote in the US Journal Foreign Affairs, "We should not gloss over the enormity of this failure to forecast the magnitude of the Soviet crisis . . . Yet I never heard a suggestion from the CIA, or the intelligence arms of the departments of Defense or State, that numerous Soviets recognized a growing, systemic economic problem."[
Yes, you are correct that I am not a strategic or Russian Studies professional; however, I have some acquaintance with the subject, having also studied abroad in the Soviet Union and have done business in the region over the years, speak Russian etc.
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Post by reformation on Apr 9, 2024 22:30:44 GMT -5
On Cognitive Science you are definitely correct that Gtwn recognized the potential of the field early--even earlier than you indicated as we had a collaboration with an Italian Pharma(Fidia Spa?) in the 80's that unfortunately went bankrupt.
The sad part is that we did not capitalize on our early work in the space and generally did not capitalize on Gtwn's linguistics dept or recognize the quantitative turn in the field, i.e., integration with Computer Science. It's probably not too late to catch up TBH.
Regarding the decision not to invest more in CS/Math, the idea was discussed/proposed in the Georgetown Faculty Senate in the late 90's early 2000's. I was told this directly by members of the econ dept (incl head of the faculty senate) as they debated Gtwn's competitive advantages in making investments in the sciences. The econ faculty argued specifically for the positive spillover effects generated by making a big investment in statistics would benefit econ/govt psych. The econ faculty also argued that the costs of post docs + hard facilities argued for more CS/Math investment at the margin vs hard sciences. They cited LSE & NYU as urban places that had made big investments in Math/CS respectively which yielded institutional rewards. If you really want to know the individuals involved, I can message privately.
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Post by bill on Apr 10, 2024 14:27:02 GMT -5
Interesting that we should have this conversation just when US News and World Report releases their rankings of grad school programs.
For the sciences:
1. Biology is ranked 58 (with Penn State). And it's well above Notre Dame (68), Tufts (74), BU (80), U Rochester, Wake Forest, Tulane. 2. CS (relatively new program) is ranked 70.....not really THAT far behind many of its peers (Notre Dame -- 56, Tufts -- 56, Vanderbilt - 50, Dartmouth - 50) 3. Physics (relatively new program) is ranked 78, along with Tufts, William & Mary, and well above Tulane. Again....not THAT far behind many of its peers (BC - 73, Emory - 55, Dartmouth - 55, Notre Dame = 47) 4. Chemistry is shockingly low (in the 100s). Not sure why this is, because this is the oldest PhD program in the sciences at the college (I think). Apparently there was a prof. in the chem department who was a super star researcher and was poached by Michigan State to chair its dept.
So....with these (possibly bogus) numbers in mind, consider this: these PhD programs are new and small. So there's an upward trend AND if this directly measures output of the department, then the few members of the STEM faculty at G'town are quite prolific. Another good thing. But it still needs more visibility. Much more visibility. Right?
Oh....and here's one thing I'm very confused about and have an extremely difficult time explaining to the people I interview for G'town. I enrolled in the early 90s (before the internet) and for the most part picked G'town out of a book. I thought I wanted to be a doctor. I was from one of the rectangular states in the west and got into some pretty good schools (Penn, Northwestern, UVA, Cornell, and G'town), and G'town was far more selective than any of those schools. Acceptance rates at Penn and Northwestern were almost 40%. What???!!!! Now they're super competitive and their acceptance rate is far below that of G'town. What's happened? How did this happen? What's going on? How do I explain this?
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Post by bill on Apr 10, 2024 14:42:12 GMT -5
Also.....G'town medical school is consistently ranked in the 50s. Strange. I'd think it'd be much higher.
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RusskyHoya
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Post by RusskyHoya on Apr 10, 2024 18:57:39 GMT -5
Don't want to stray too far from the science discussion but briefly re the whole Soviet Studies thing: There is a whole literature about this: topic has its own wikipedia entry!--excerpt below: I get that there is a debate about this, but most people feel this a was a substantial miss. In 1983, Princeton University professor Stephen Cohen described the Soviet system as remarkably stable. The Central Intelligence Agency also over-estimated the internal stability of the Soviet Union and did not anticipate its rapid dissolution. Former Director of Central Intelligence Stansfield Turner in 1991 wrote in the US Journal Foreign Affairs, "We should not gloss over the enormity of this failure to forecast the magnitude of the Soviet crisis . . . Yet I never heard a suggestion from the CIA, or the intelligence arms of the departments of Defense or State, that numerous Soviets recognized a growing, systemic economic problem."[ Yes, you are correct that I am not a strategic or Russian Studies professional; however, I have some acquaintance with the subject, having also studied abroad in the Soviet Union and have done business in the region over the years, speak Russian etc. Cohen was a Kremlin apologist to his dying days - he thought the Soviet system to be remarkably stable because he wanted it to be. But he's Indiana, Columbia, and Princeton's problem, not ours. Setting aside Stansfield Turner's various axes to grind against the CIA specifically and the IC more broadly, his comments in 1991 are pretty remarkable considering that he himself stated the following in May 1977 (where did he get these ideas if not from the CIA/IC/Soviet Studies? He was a surface warfare officer, not in intelligence): (Source: www.cia.gov/readingroom/docs/CIA-RDP80M00165A001300130009-8.pdf)I was born in the Soviet Union and am a native speaker of Russian (as certified by Georgetown), so between that and my academic training, I can really do this all day
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Post by SSHoya on Apr 10, 2024 19:07:22 GMT -5
Don't want to stray too far from the science discussion but briefly re the whole Soviet Studies thing: There is a whole literature about this: topic has its own wikipedia entry!--excerpt below: I get that there is a debate about this, but most people feel this a was a substantial miss. In 1983, Princeton University professor Stephen Cohen described the Soviet system as remarkably stable. The Central Intelligence Agency also over-estimated the internal stability of the Soviet Union and did not anticipate its rapid dissolution. Former Director of Central Intelligence Stansfield Turner in 1991 wrote in the US Journal Foreign Affairs, "We should not gloss over the enormity of this failure to forecast the magnitude of the Soviet crisis . . . Yet I never heard a suggestion from the CIA, or the intelligence arms of the departments of Defense or State, that numerous Soviets recognized a growing, systemic economic problem."[ Yes, you are correct that I am not a strategic or Russian Studies professional; however, I have some acquaintance with the subject, having also studied abroad in the Soviet Union and have done business in the region over the years, speak Russian etc. Cohen was a Kremlin apologist to his dying days - he thought the Soviet system to be remarkably stable because he wanted it to be. But he's Indiana, Columbia, and Princeton's problem, not ours. Setting aside Stansfield Turner's various axes to grind against the CIA specifically and the IC more broadly, his comments in 1991 are pretty remarkable considering that he himself stated the following in May 1977 (where did he get these ideas if not from the CIA/IC/Soviet Studies? He was a surface warfare officer, not in intelligence): (Source: www.cia.gov/readingroom/docs/CIA-RDP80M00165A001300130009-8.pdf)I was born in the Soviet Union and am a native speaker of Russian (as certified by Georgetown), so between that and my academic training, I can really do this all day As an aside, I worked briefly at the Agency under Turner before heading to law school (and my father was a career officer under Dulles through Colby) and not surprisingly, Turner was not particularly well thought of by the career officers given the insular nature of the Agency. IIRC Turner pinkslipped many career officers in his belief intel could be gathered more accurately and efficiently through national technical means.
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Post by RusskyHoya on Apr 13, 2024 9:53:16 GMT -5
Oh....and here's one thing I'm very confused about and have an extremely difficult time explaining to the people I interview for G'town. I enrolled in the early 90s (before the internet) and for the most part picked G'town out of a book. I thought I wanted to be a doctor. I was from one of the rectangular states in the west and got into some pretty good schools (Penn, Northwestern, UVA, Cornell, and G'town), and G'town was far more selective than any of those schools. Acceptance rates at Penn and Northwestern were almost 40%. What???!!!! Now they're super competitive and their acceptance rate is far below that of G'town. What's happened? How did this happen? What's going on? How do I explain this? Short answer: The Common Application. Many schools saw their admit rates plummet because it became far easier to apply to multiple schools - in some cases, just check one more box and pay one more fee. Georgetown (in)famously does not use the Common App. Longer answer: Every school's trajectory is unique. To understand Penn, this is a great resource: archives.upenn.edu/exhibits/penn-history/images-in-flux/part-1/To understand Northwestern: northbynorthwestern.com/from-back-then-to-top-10/Both of those schools saw reducing their admission rates as being a key brand-building activity, and there are many levers schools can pull to achieve this. Even just fiddling with the parameters of whom you send direct mail to based on PSAT scores can case multi-percentage point swings.
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Post by reformation on Apr 13, 2024 13:32:45 GMT -5
Re the whole Soviet Studies thing, the quotes from Cohen and Stansfield Turner came straight out of the Wikipedia entry on the subject. I think they are there to represent consensus opinion at the time, so Cohen's turn to being a Russian/Soviet apologist in his later years is not that relevant to the discussion-he was on Nightline all the time in the early 80's for ex as a leading academic expert etc. Same general idea goes for Stansfield Turner.
More to the point I don't remember any of the Russian/Soviet Studies people at Gtwn having a way out of consensus view re the Soviet Union. The only Gtwn person who could come close to having some prescience re the Soviet Union's impending demise was Murray Feshbach (an adjunct prof of Demography-who ironically given the discussion here had a very quantitative approach forecasting decline in Soviet Life expectancy etc.). Feshbach was the world's foremost demographic expert on the Soviet Union at the time. I would say that the academics who studied the Soviet Union in the US/Europe tended to break down into the Russ-European emigre and non-emigre camps with the emigre's generally being more hawkish, but few really saw the collapse.
Fyi my father-in-law was also a CIA guy focused on the Soviet Union and I had many friends in the agency, other friends running big multinationals there etc--I'm quite confident that the CIA did a full-scale reappraisal of its approach to its intelligence failures on the topic as have many in academia--conferences, articles etc.
There is nothing really uniquely bad or good re Gtwn's approach to the topic at the time. The idea however that the Soviet collapse did not cause people to reevaluate the utility the methods of traditional Area Studies in general just is not the case.
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Post by reformation on Apr 13, 2024 14:13:23 GMT -5
Re Northwestern (which I know a lot about--my wife is on the board of one of their major professional schools) and Penn which I know mostly as a parent of kid looking at the college and also have lectured there a few times I would say that both of those places are run more like a business vs Gtwn. Both Univ's have clear strategic targets, are focused on rankings.
From an admissions perspective they are very focused on restrictive ED. That + the common app makes them seem much more competitive than Gtwn than they actually are.
I would say however re Penn and Northwestern specifically vs Gtwn, Wharton has really separated itself from other undergraduate business programs and has a big rise in popularity. Wharton has great joint degree programs in Science/Engr and Intl affairs that are more comparable to HYP in terms of admission than Gtwn or regular Penn for that matter. That was probably not the case 15-20 years ago.
Re Northwestern they have made major investments in things like CS and have a number of innovative undergrad programs (Integrated Science, Quant Social Science/) which are very competitive to get in. Thier biggest investments are in CS & Engr. They also have some decent joint programs between undergrad and Kellogg etc.
The guys who run these places are very pragmatic for the most part (excepting maybe the Penn pres who was booted), results oriented and have clear strategic goals and benchmarks. Gtwn has none of that TBH-which one can take as a good or bad thing. Northwestern benchmarks its clearly vs U Chicago, so it has a pretty clear goal to shoot for-we do not have the same focus or perhaps myopia depending on how one looks at it.
The guys who run most top univ's are generally top academics themselves. They have confidence to make strategic decisions that favor/disfavor academic departments/programs. My gut feel is that Gtwn's admin does not have similar confidence, so we are timid in making changes (even obvious ones).
Back to the main pt--some of the admissions selectivity gap is manufactured by restrictive ED and the common app--some probably also relates to perceptions re quality of STEM/offerings.
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Post by accelerate on Apr 15, 2024 13:38:50 GMT -5
The guys who run most top univ's are generally top academics themselves. They have confidence to make strategic decisions that favor/disfavor academic departments/programs. My gut feel is that Gtwn's admin does not have similar confidence, so we are timid in making changes (even obvious ones). we need a new president who fits this description
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