On Monday, President Obama, university chancellors and presidents from 10 institutions and experts on higher education cost and productivity met to discuss college affordability. I was inspired to write the following editorial, published in today's Inside Higher Ed. Here is an excerpt from my editorial:
"As President of Frostburg State University, in the University System of Maryland, it is important to me to give voice to the work that we do so well. If one looks across the country we see countless examples of the colleges and universities that are truly the foundations of their communities - without whom the economies and work forces of their region would surely collapse. And our institutions educate and graduate their students with amazingly low per-student costs.
We have no choice but to be affordable, because the resources don’t exist to be anything but lean operations. We continue to find solutions to issues such as diminishing funds and resources, the inability to raise tuition at the same rates as in-state peers, marginalization in our state capitals when compared with our states’ research flagships, and demoralization of our world class faculty for their choice to work at teaching institutions.
Regardless of these obstacles, we persist and provide a high-quality education to our students in support of our missions. We are focused on educating the best and brightest as well as those students who may not have graduated at the top of their class but understand the importance of a college degree and are working hard to earn theirs. Access isn’t just a catchphrase for our institutions, or a new focus - it is at the heart of what we are all about."
You can read the rest on Inside Higher Ed here. Learn more about Monday's discussion with President Obama here.
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2 comments:
Frostburg State University is diminishing the quality of the community it's in by boosting it's enrollment through lowering standards and not providing access to students in your own back yard with scholarships and resources to attend FSU. Do your recruiters even go into the high schools in Allegany, garrett and Washington counties and the middle schools to start talking to students about getting college-ready as apposed to workforce-ready or army-ready? Do you? I'd like to know the answer. I hope it's "Yes."
Dr. Gibralter,
Who are you trying to fool? FSU is NOT the backbone of the Frostburg, Maryland or Allegany County communities in which you think you pristinely sit. (Even though you claim in this editorial that you don't see yourself in a protected Ivory Tower.) You didn't think to add that your institution has witnessed 2, yes 1-2, student murders in the past 18 months, one by a student wielding a sawed-off shotgun and another by a student who chose to thrust a knife into a fellow student. A backbone institution would have apologized to the community immediately for its students' poor judgments and behavior and taken full responsibility. After all, you claim, on your own website and blog, to vet for the best and most deserving students. Instead of standing in judgment of Obama and Duncan for getting the conversation about college affordability started, why don't you look at your practices that surely brought some unworthy, unprepared so-called students to the peaceful mountainside of Western Maryland and wasted many thousands of Maryland tax-payer dollars?
2000 Frostburg Alumnae
Paula Reeves
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