Tuesday, February 10, 2009
Still hanging around
Preface: I wrote this over a week ago, Monday Feb. 2. I was unable to post it immediately though because either the UT server would not accept it or Blogger's server would not accept it. That is why you'll find some references that are out of place. i.e ground hog day.
As I walked out of my house this morning I realized that the winter weather is still hanging around, which is probably appropriate since today is groundhog day. I wonder if he saw his shadow? When I say that the winter weather was still hanging around I mean that it was snowing like crazy pretty much all day.
This past weekend we had a rowing competition in Chattanooga. It's an annual event and is always accompanied with anxiety. It's an indoor competition and as you can probably guess rowing indoors on the machines is no where as fun as rowing outside. It is also more of an individual competition but on the team relay portion we came in second, so I was happy to get a silver medal, but we missed first by about two seconds. I feel we represented the school well.
When I got back in town late Saturday it had been brought to my attention that in my previous post, which I feel was pretty bold for my blogs, that I had some "factual" errors. I would consider them more technical errors than factual, but really they go hand in hand. But, as you could probably tell from the previous post, I'm not going to make bold statements from no where. I tried to place sources where possible in the post, I hope you can see them, they are the highlighted links on the page.
The first error that I want to talk about, and one that I feel is the most important, is the section about the bonuses that are being awarded to certain employees. I said that the bonuses were going to be awarded to teachers who had helped raise money for the university. I waited to make this post till today so that I could get to campus and find a paper from Friday. So after looking around extensively and digging a paper out of the recycling bin, I found one. And here is what the article says:
"Amid belt-tightening and possible layoffs, the University of Tennessee still plans to pay nearly $416,000 in bonuses to 202 employees who woo alumni and donors. The bonuses are for raising $184 million in donations in 2006, surpassing the year's goal by $9 million and putting UT $44 million ahead in a seven-year schedule to raise $1 billion by the end of 2011."
It goes on to say that they university intend to honor the commitment for 2008 but the incentive program is currently suspended and under review pending economic factors.
What was brought to my attention is that the incentives are not necessarily for teachers, but for staff who are employed with the sole purpose of raising money for the university. I don't have a problem with corporate incentives, it gives employees a reason to work harder and it has apparently worked. And as I said in the last post, $416,000 really isn't that much compared to the full amount that they had raised, but still, that money could be used for much needed teachers.
Now, the reason I said that this was more of a technical error in my view than a factual error is that the article says "employees" which is left to the reader to interpret as to what kind of "employee" it is. So I probably jumped the gun and asserted that teachers were the ones receiving these bonuses, in reality it is the "employees" of the university, those with they job of fundraising. Whether or not they hold teaching positions, I don't know. They probably don't. If they do, it's sure to be a very small percentage of those 202 that are to receive the bonuses.
The other factual error that was brought to my attention was when I said the university had been rated by the Princeton Review as the best value in college education. If you had clicked on the link that I provided you would have read that the University of Tennessee had been selected as "one of the best values in college education". I think where I got the terminology wrong was that the school news paper said that UT was the only public school in Tennessee to make the list and was the best value in Tennessee. I wanted to link that article but I could not find the article from the school news paper. Regardless though, the University of Tennessee is worth the money, as of now.
While on the Princeton Review website the other day I was reminded of the bad, and in my opinion, unworthy reputation that UT has received as one of the more non-beautiful campuses. As I was walking across campus today and seeing everything covered in snow, I just didn't see that. And I realize that snow has that ability to make everything prettier, but even without snow I still think campus is nice looking.
I consider UT's campus as an eclectic mix of architecture and landscaping. There are buildings from many different eras of architecture which together gives you something interesting to look at with every turn. The grand Neyland Stadium can dominate your view from many locations and the hills provide a rolling land scape. The trees that surround campus provide plenty of shade and are really nice with the changing of seasons as the leaves begin to change.
People say that there is not enough green space, and I agree, we do not have much, but I consider this as a sign that the university has taken advantage of their resources and have used what land they have rather than spending money on more land. Being on the rowing team and also just the fact that I travel often, I've seen quite a few campuses. Probably the nicest campus I have seen is the Clemson's. They have some rolling hills with plenty of green space and are right on the river as UT is. Sure this is nice, but what good is it? More grass that has to be mowed? (Which equates to more expense for the university.)
When making your decision to come to UT, don't let it come down to the beauty of the campus and what others have said. I know people that have left decision to much more arbritrary details. Beauty is in the eye of the beholder and you can find it if you really look for it. Also, does it really matter? The campus is located in the downtown portion of a thriving metropolis, at least I consider it a metropolis. It's a great school as the Princeton Review has told you already, and how the campus looks doesn't have anything to do with how much you learn.
With all that said, I've got to start doing some homework before it becomes too late. I want to apologize for the errors I made in my previous post, but with the articles that I cited you can read and decide for yourself. That's the good thing about an opinion, (take for example the campuses beauty), in the end, my informed opinion really isn't worth too much more than your informed opinion. But I want to give you the facts first.
-Patrick
As I walked out of my house this morning I realized that the winter weather is still hanging around, which is probably appropriate since today is groundhog day. I wonder if he saw his shadow? When I say that the winter weather was still hanging around I mean that it was snowing like crazy pretty much all day.
This past weekend we had a rowing competition in Chattanooga. It's an annual event and is always accompanied with anxiety. It's an indoor competition and as you can probably guess rowing indoors on the machines is no where as fun as rowing outside. It is also more of an individual competition but on the team relay portion we came in second, so I was happy to get a silver medal, but we missed first by about two seconds. I feel we represented the school well.
When I got back in town late Saturday it had been brought to my attention that in my previous post, which I feel was pretty bold for my blogs, that I had some "factual" errors. I would consider them more technical errors than factual, but really they go hand in hand. But, as you could probably tell from the previous post, I'm not going to make bold statements from no where. I tried to place sources where possible in the post, I hope you can see them, they are the highlighted links on the page.
The first error that I want to talk about, and one that I feel is the most important, is the section about the bonuses that are being awarded to certain employees. I said that the bonuses were going to be awarded to teachers who had helped raise money for the university. I waited to make this post till today so that I could get to campus and find a paper from Friday. So after looking around extensively and digging a paper out of the recycling bin, I found one. And here is what the article says:
"Amid belt-tightening and possible layoffs, the University of Tennessee still plans to pay nearly $416,000 in bonuses to 202 employees who woo alumni and donors. The bonuses are for raising $184 million in donations in 2006, surpassing the year's goal by $9 million and putting UT $44 million ahead in a seven-year schedule to raise $1 billion by the end of 2011."
It goes on to say that they university intend to honor the commitment for 2008 but the incentive program is currently suspended and under review pending economic factors.
What was brought to my attention is that the incentives are not necessarily for teachers, but for staff who are employed with the sole purpose of raising money for the university. I don't have a problem with corporate incentives, it gives employees a reason to work harder and it has apparently worked. And as I said in the last post, $416,000 really isn't that much compared to the full amount that they had raised, but still, that money could be used for much needed teachers.
Now, the reason I said that this was more of a technical error in my view than a factual error is that the article says "employees" which is left to the reader to interpret as to what kind of "employee" it is. So I probably jumped the gun and asserted that teachers were the ones receiving these bonuses, in reality it is the "employees" of the university, those with they job of fundraising. Whether or not they hold teaching positions, I don't know. They probably don't. If they do, it's sure to be a very small percentage of those 202 that are to receive the bonuses.
The other factual error that was brought to my attention was when I said the university had been rated by the Princeton Review as the best value in college education. If you had clicked on the link that I provided you would have read that the University of Tennessee had been selected as "one of the best values in college education". I think where I got the terminology wrong was that the school news paper said that UT was the only public school in Tennessee to make the list and was the best value in Tennessee. I wanted to link that article but I could not find the article from the school news paper. Regardless though, the University of Tennessee is worth the money, as of now.
While on the Princeton Review website the other day I was reminded of the bad, and in my opinion, unworthy reputation that UT has received as one of the more non-beautiful campuses. As I was walking across campus today and seeing everything covered in snow, I just didn't see that. And I realize that snow has that ability to make everything prettier, but even without snow I still think campus is nice looking.
I consider UT's campus as an eclectic mix of architecture and landscaping. There are buildings from many different eras of architecture which together gives you something interesting to look at with every turn. The grand Neyland Stadium can dominate your view from many locations and the hills provide a rolling land scape. The trees that surround campus provide plenty of shade and are really nice with the changing of seasons as the leaves begin to change.
People say that there is not enough green space, and I agree, we do not have much, but I consider this as a sign that the university has taken advantage of their resources and have used what land they have rather than spending money on more land. Being on the rowing team and also just the fact that I travel often, I've seen quite a few campuses. Probably the nicest campus I have seen is the Clemson's. They have some rolling hills with plenty of green space and are right on the river as UT is. Sure this is nice, but what good is it? More grass that has to be mowed? (Which equates to more expense for the university.)
When making your decision to come to UT, don't let it come down to the beauty of the campus and what others have said. I know people that have left decision to much more arbritrary details. Beauty is in the eye of the beholder and you can find it if you really look for it. Also, does it really matter? The campus is located in the downtown portion of a thriving metropolis, at least I consider it a metropolis. It's a great school as the Princeton Review has told you already, and how the campus looks doesn't have anything to do with how much you learn.
With all that said, I've got to start doing some homework before it becomes too late. I want to apologize for the errors I made in my previous post, but with the articles that I cited you can read and decide for yourself. That's the good thing about an opinion, (take for example the campuses beauty), in the end, my informed opinion really isn't worth too much more than your informed opinion. But I want to give you the facts first.
-Patrick
• • •
2 Comments:
I recently came accross your blog and have been reading along. I thought I would leave my first comment. I dont know what to say except that I have enjoyed reading. Nice blog. I will keep visiting this blog very often.
Elaina
http://www.craigslistpostingtools.info
I recently came accross your blog and have been reading along. I thought I would leave my first comment. I dont know what to say except that I have enjoyed reading. Nice blog. I will keep visiting this blog very often.
Elaina
http://www.craigslistmaster.info
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