WHY STANDARDS MATTER. Inside Higher Ed takes up community college articulation.

“There is an assumption about community college students that they went there because they couldn’t get into a better four-year school,” says Joshua Wyner, vice president of programs with the Jack Kent Cooke Foundation, which is highly focused on community college student development. “That assumption is simply false in many cases.”

Wyner says that many “traditional” students – those who enter four-year elites directly from high school – will have their misplaced notions challenged. Research commissioned by the Cooke Foundation has shown that transfer students to selective institutions tend to graduate at similar rates and have similar grade-point averages at four-year institutions as those students who begin as freshmen.

It's the motivation that matters more than the credentials. Northern Illinois's internal research suggests third-year community college transfer students do at least as well as those who began here. The university has tried a number of things to make the first- and second-year programs distinctive so as to encourage more initial enrollments.

The University of Wisconsin at Madison is one of the latest places where students have expressed concerns about community college transfers. Last month, the institution announced an articulation agreement that will make it easier for Madison Area Technical College students to transfer into the institution for their junior and senior years. As part of the agreement, students must complete 54 credits in the community college’s Liberal Arts Transfer Program and those who receive a 3.0 GPA will be guaranteed admission. Students who receive a 2.6–2.99 GPA will receive “special consideration,” according to the university.

Some students have argued that credits garnered at a community college shouldn’t equate to the rigors of UW’s curriculum, and that community college students should not be given any unique consideration. “I think it’s kind of a slap in the face,” Erica Christenson, chair of the College Republicans, recently told The Badger Herald student newspaper. “To be completely honest, I didn’t come home last night from the library because of all the work [I had to complete] … and I would like to think the GPA I receive here is different from one received at MATC.” Christensen couldn’t be reached for comment for further elaboration, but her comments have set off discussion on campus.

“There’s definitely a snob mentality at Wisconsin that we’re better than other schools,” says Terri Wipperfurth, who transferred from the technical college and is currently a student at UW. “People sometimes think of us as slime creeping under the door.”

Unless Madison Tech deals in more inflated grades or less demanding courses than Wisconsin, there ought not be a problem. It's not unknown for students to transfer to Wisconsin from, say, the Green Bay campus, or from Marquette, or from Creighton after two years. The onus, then, ought to be on the universities and colleges less well-recognized than Wisconsin to offer a similar intellectual challenge, something which might prevent those institutions from losing motivated students who perceive more of a challenge elsewhere.

RED IN TOOTH AND CLAW. There's generally little reason for Friday cat-blogging at Cold Spring Shops, but these pictures from the kitchen window at headquarters yesterday, which was a Friday, are a different twist on the theme.

"Ah, some take-out egg-drop soup from the Bluejay Cafe."

"First, I'll have a look around."

"What was that flash anyway?"

The digital camera decided the lighting called for some flash fill-in. Is the expression on the cat's face the one on the cat that ate the canary?

Every so often, one of the local cats tangles with a local polecat. First one hears this feline yelp of pain and then one smells the cause of the yelp ...

WHEN YOUR MONEY HAS A BORN-ON DATE. Illini or Huskie looks for alternatives to hauling a wheelbarrow-load of fiat money to buy a box of graham crackers, and King at SCSU Scholars considers a different caloric value for the money.

Funfhunderttausend Mark
Berlin, 1 Mai 1923

The inspiration for these posts is a hyperinflation in Zimbabwe, where the xenophobic socialist dictator preceded the hyperinflation.

ON THE LIGHTER SIDE. Is this an equilibrium?

OPPORTUNITY COSTS. Fencing where it isn't required and office redecoration and spiffy locker rooms don't come for free.

Administrators in the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences feel they have been hit particularly hard, having not received an increase in funding as the demand for their resources increases.

The result: the college has been forced into a deficit of about $400,000, according to acting associate dean of LA&S, Bob Self.

While there have been no budget cuts to any college across campus, there have not been any increases in funding to accommodate the increase in incoming students either, said Frederick Schwantes, vice provost for Resource Planning.

Six of the LA&S majors have experienced significant growth over the past few years. These departments have been labeled as impacted departments, meaning the number of majors within the department has increased at a faster rate than the number of faculty needed to meet the demand, Self said.

Words are plentiful, deeds are precious.

As enrollment in impacted majors continues to rise, solutions are being sought to meet the demand.

"We certainly are aware and are attending to shifting and providing new faculty to those departments that have experienced large growth," Schwantes said.

Schwantes also said research is being done to determine a possible redistribution of funds from non-teaching areas, and to see if some can go to adding faculty as well as establishing a sort of savings plan.

The college is currently experiencing more retirement among faculty. Typically, these professors have higher salaries than a professor just starting out, so by replacing retiring faculty with a wave of new and younger faculty, there are some savings involved, Schwantes said.

These impacted majors and courses are being continually tracked by Resource Planning, Schwantes said, so that shifting of faculty and resources can be done as needed.

Perhaps the simplest thing for me to do is simply ignore the train-wreck that is happening in the academic programs and put up with it as best as I can for three to ten more years.

On the other hand, the last of the finalists for provost has visited campus.

"I found NIU intriguing," [Nebraska's Jay] Noren said. "In a time of budget cuts, NIU maintains progress. NIU has a positive attitude in the worst of times."

Cheer up, it could be worse. So I cheered up, and things got worse. The academic departments that are not officially enrollment-impacted are also under greater strain, and many people are close to their breaking point.

"NIU seems to be on an upward, positive trend," Noren said. "Helping NIU to achieve its potential would be an exciting challenge."

Finally, Noren was asked what he would do in his first 60 to 90 days at NIU if he received the position.

"Not say much, and listen a lot," Noren said. "If you walk into situations and think you know something, you are probably wrong. So you need to listen. If you speak, ask questions."

I repeat. What potential is that? What, exactly, is a "premier regional public?" Getting that answer right is not simply for publicity purposes.

THE WELFARE ECONOMICS PARADIGM. Life imitates The Onion (via Radley at Liberty.)

TONE DEAF. The Education Wonks picked up a little flap in Alabama in which an integrated elementary school class did a Civil War retrospective that included The Bonnie Blue Flag. An African-American parent objected, and the school officials apologized. Despite the Wonks' demurrals, that objection was in order.

I believe it's unlikely that the school was being racist in its selection of songs. (Consider taking a look at the lyrics of The Bonnie Blue Flag here and more about the song there.) But I do think that they were being monumentally insensitive to their students, both black and white.

I concur with the last sentence, and I dissent from the first, because I have read and understood the lyrics. What, exactly, does that "property we gained by honest toil" refer to, and what "rights" were the Northerners attempting to mar? (Yes, secession and nullification, but somehow those never became cassus belli.)

FOR JUSTICE THUNDERS CONDEMNATION. Betsy's Page links to photographs of spontaneous worker solidarity in Tehran. Catallarchy continues its annual tribute to those who had to be further downtrodden in pursuit of that better world's birth.

NO, YOU CAN'T USE THE 0-5-0. The current formulation for environmentally-friendly summer gasoline requires an ethanol additive that has to be blended with the gasoline shortly before the stuff goes to the service station. (I vaguely remember something from earth science about a property called "miscible" that may be at work here.) But the ethanol comes from stills in Iowa, in tank cars, and there are only so many tank cars and so many spur tracks, and Craig at Division of Labour has news of Union Pacific attempting to get control of the congestion by embargoing further movement of tank cars to Texas. (No word of developments on the Fort Worth and Denver BNSF or Kansas City Southern.)

CARNIVAL CALL. Carnival of Education No. 101₍₈₎ has a new bannerline at The Education Wonks.

IT STARTS WITH EULER. Several of the participants in the Great America trip used some of their downtime to work on Su Doku puzzles. There are several different styles of working the puzzles. Some people prefer to work out the solution one absolutely positive entry at a time and they take pride in being able to work the problem in pen. Others are willing to make marginal notes or use trial and error methods. There are ample opportunities for a bit of woofin' at others' solution styles. All of that got me thinking about more efficient algorithms for solving the puzzle. A standard Su Doku puzzle (and this is true even if there are nine colors or nine distinct shapes or any other nine-way characterization) is a 9x9 matrix partitioned into nine 3x3 submatrices with the following properties.

1. Each counting number {1, 2, ..., 9} occurs exactly once in each row.
2. Each counting number {1, 2, ..., 9} occurs exactly once in each column.
3. Each counting number {1, 2, ..., 9} occurs exactly once in each submatrix.

The problem for the puzzle-solver is to use the relatively few numbers given in the puzzle to identify the remaining numbers, using properties 1, 2, and 3 to rule out numbers that do not fit, and with the knowledge that, as with a properly-posed chess problem, there is exactly one solution (no 'twin' solutions where, for example, a 2 or a 9 can solve the puzzle in each of two places within a submatrix.)

Not all puzzles lend themselves to easy elimination of choices. But is there sufficient structure in the problem to come up with an algorithm to solve for all the remaining elements quickly? It has to be the case that, for the top row,

55-a₁₁-a₁₂-a₁₃-b₁₄-b₁₅-b₁₆-c₁₇-c₁₈-c₁₉ = 0,

where the letters identify a particular submatrix (a, b, ..., g, h, j) and the numbers identify the row and column respectively of the matrix. Likewise, in the leftmost column,

55-a₁₁-a₂₁-a₃₁-d₄₁-d₅₁-d₆₁-g₇₁-g₈₁-g₉₁ = 0,

and within the top left submatrix,

55-a₁₁-a₁₂-a₁₃-a₂₁-a₂₂-a₂₃-a₃₁-a₃₂-a₃₃=0.

Thus, if there are fewer than 27 unidentified numbers, the solution can be obtained by working through no more than 27 equations. But are there more elegant ways?

The number theorists have been at work. The Wikipedia entry includes a number of nuggets, including a lower bound of 17 clues to determine a valid puzzle, and a reassurance that the puzzle composers will not lack for work, with 21 orders of magnitude (6.67x10²¹) possible solutions, although this includes rotations and transpositions of other solutions, and experienced puzzle solvers will probably pick up patterns that will enable them to quickly solve the rotations and transpositions. There is an algorithm available to a puzzle composer that will check for the existence and uniqueness of a solution given the 17 or more clues the puzzle-writer provides.

But that elusive solution algorithm ... not yet?

How many Sudoku solutions exist for each n? To put the question another way: Starting from a blank grid—with no givens at all—how many ways can the pattern be completed while obeying the Sudoku constraints? As a first approximation, we can simplify the problem by ignoring the blocks in the Sudoku grid, allowing any solution in which each column and each row has exactly one instance of each number. A pattern of this kind is known as a Latin square, and it was already familiar to Leonhard Euler more than 200 years ago.

Perhaps just as well. Suppose we could reduce all Su Doku to linear algebra problems. We could teach them in the eighth grade, and perhaps rob the puzzle of all its play value.

When you lay down your pencil on a completed Sudoku, the thought that you've just dispatched a problem in the class NP may boost your psychological wellbeing, but the NP label doesn't say anything about the relative difficulty of individual Sudoku puzzles. For that, a different kind of hierarchy is needed.

Quite.

WORKING YOUR WAY THROUGH COLLEGE? A sidebar to the Northern Star's coverage of the rally (or is it a general strike) notes a sign at a nearby McDonald's,

"Sunday the 30th and Monday the 1st we will be closing our lobby at 9 p.m. and drive-thru at 10 p.m. We will be reopening Monday and Tuesday at 5 a.m. Sorry for any inconvenience this may cause. Thank you, Management"

The McDonald's located in the Holmes Student Center was closed entirely May 1. The McDonald's franchises on 545 E. Lincoln Highway and 805 W. Lincoln Highway both refused to comment on why business hours were shortened.

Last year this service noted the remittances to the Former Warsaw Pact out of the Wisconsin Dells.

HUDDLED MASSES YEARNING TO BREATHE FREE? The Northern Star's coverage of the local immigration amnesty rally (or is it a general strike?) includes this instructive graphic.

Original source unknown.
DeKalb County is in the second row of counties south of the Wisconsin border,
four west (Cook, DuPage, Kane, DeKalb) from Lake Michigan.

Rallies (or general strikes) also took place in Chicago and Milwaukee.

Chicago Sun-Times photo by Rich Hein.

Editorialists for the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel and Chicago's Sun-Times and Tribune weigh in. All three papers reveal a preference for the Senate version of immigration reform. As the Sun-Times puts it,

This page has supported a bipartisan Senate bill calling for tougher border enforcement while setting up a mechanism for those who are here illegally to become citizens by paying fines and jumping through certain hoops. As President Bush said, it's not realistic to try to force all undocumented workers to leave the United States.

They continue,

Mexicans are drawn to the United States by our thriving economy, creating a political problem for this country. Mexicans then respond to our debate about solving the problem by hurting their own economy.

Indeed, lost in much of the immigration debate is the fact that our problem would be largely solved if Mexico could get its economy on track. Mexican President Vicente Fox recognized that fact when he said that his government must ''generate opportunities here in Mexico.'' That won't happen anytime soon.

Particularly, as I have long maintained, if the current and much-maligned border management policy of the U.S. is eliciting illegal immigration by the most entrepreneurial of Latin America's uncredentialed people. A government cannot "generate opportunities;" about the best it can do is remove impedimenta to opportunity seekers.

The Tribune contemplates another dimension of the problem.

Americans say they primarily want a crackdown on illegal immigration, particularly at the U.S. border with Mexico. They also want stern enforcement measures against employers who flout existing immigration law by hiring illegal immigrants. But for all this concern about the federal government's slipshod enforcement of existing laws, Americans also tell pollsters they're open to a liberalized protocol that would allow some of the people in this country illegally to pursue citizenship. By definition, though, the third of those three pillars of a new immigration scheme creates a fourth question Congress absolutely must answer: Going forward, how will we juxtapose the rights of illegal immigrants with those of law-abiding applicants for citizenship who are waiting overseas to be admitted here?

Particularly if the legal channels are so jammed that illegal entry becomes a tempting alternative. Why not offer more legal permits for sale but at a higher price? Pay more, enter sooner. Or pay a smuggler, take your chance on a subsequent amnesty. (Wait a minute, that's this paper.)

WE'LL NEVER LACK FOR MATERIAL. University Diaries and Signifying Nothing follow the athletic scandals among the Big Ten wannabes. A scandal surfaces in a mid-major.

Leneal Harris, a senior basketball standout at Milwaukee King who has signed to play next season at University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, has been charged with possession of marijuana and a concealed weapon.

Developing.

WE HAVE NEVER DONE BETTER THAN THIS. The academic-year traffic reports are in. Thank you for your continued support.

Cold Spring Shops traffic for May 2005 through April 2006.

I repeat last year's disclaimer.

With the end of the semester approaching, posting is likely to be a bit less frequent in the coming weeks. That is not an invitation for academicians to act foolish. I am watching, and I will hail "Protest" if provoked.

There are also likely to be procrastination opportunities during exam week.

THE GREEN IS HIGH AND THE BARK IS PEELED. Destination: Freedom reports on recent developments along the Boston and Maine's Western Route Main Line. The summer stop at Old Orchard Beach is now available for Downeaster passengers. (Illinois: a Gurnee stop for Six Flags traffic?) The ground floor of the Boston Garden (otherwise known as North Station) will receive additional passenger facilities. (The old Boston and Maine Railroad sold off much of its station space for other uses. A tavern along Causeway Street occupied the old waiting room, which at one time had benches allocated for destinations, and a station attendant who would awaken sleeping passengers in time for the next train. That tavern later closed, I understand, because of water damage from the ice system upstairs.)

WE KNOW BETTER. YOUR VOTES DON'T COUNT. The identity crisis at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, or Wisconsin State University, or MacArthur-Mitchell Normal School, continues. Referenda don't matter to vanguardists.

Although the referendum may be seen as a setback for name-change proponents, the movement isn't over, said Jim Price, a UWM journalism instructor who is part of a group of students and faculty working to change UWM to Wisconsin State University. The ad hoc group didn't ask for a referendum, which was initiated by the student senate.

"It's not like we're betting all of our chips on the referendum," said Price, pointing out that UWM is actually the sixth name for the school.

Price said the group advocating a change to Wisconsin State University will spend the summer lobbying alumni, UWM administrators and the Board of Regents.

"The fact that the majority were opposed to any name change at all doesn't surprise me in the least because it's Milwaukee - nobody wants to change anything around here," Price said. "I think we've got news for them that a name change is inevitable sooner or later, and we're just trying to make it sooner."

May Day used to be for Communist parades. It's useful to remember that vanguardism, let alone the dictatorship over the proletariat, still lurks in the shadows. Today the name of the university, tomorrow your tax cuts?

CARNIVAL CALL. Interim Thoughts hosts Carnival of the Capitalists. On the Internet, nobody knows if the hosting has been outsourced, unless the host tells you.

GET UP, GET UP, GET OUTTA HERE ... MORE OFTEN. More cheap hamburgers in Milwaukee, following another Brewer missed extra point at Chicago.

Ranging from a moderate drizzle to soaking showers, it rained steadily over the final three innings Sunday at Wrigley Field. During that time, the grounds crew never was asked to remove the tarp from the mound in the visiting bullpen.

A radio station noted this morning that the Brewers set a team record for home runs hit in April. Bear in mind that this team once upon a time was George Bamberger's "Bambi's Bombers" and then Harvey Kuenn's "Harvey's Wallbangers." The current manager is Ned Yost.

Yost challenged his team in spring training to find a way to win two more games per month than last year, which would put them above 90 victories and supposedly in the playoff hunt. Last year, the Brewers went 10-13 in April. This year, they finished the month at 14-11.

"We have to continue to build on that, keep playing the way we're playing," Yost said. "We're starting to feel good about ourselves."

Self-esteem follows accomplishment, amen.

Paul at Electric Commentary was at one of the games and reports that there sufficient Brewer fans were in attendance to annoy the locals. Chicago Sun-Times columnist and poster girl for bad Illinois drivers (excuse the redundancy) Mary Laney continues her one-woman jihad against speed enforcement in Racine County.

Cross the border from Illinois to Wisconsin and you'll see them -- usually at the bottom of a hill where your car may have sped up to just over the speed limit. It happened to me and to many others I know.

Maybe because you're using your Tollway bad habits?

There are speed traps throughout Wisconsin, and they appear to be looking for Illinois plates. Another friend tells me that the only time she has been stopped outside of Lake Geneva, Wis., was when she was driving a car with Illinois plates. She was stopped for leaving a 35 mph zone and speeding up to 55 mph 10 feet ahead of the 55 mph sign. A suburban mayor tells me he was stopped in Racine County and told to "shut up" when he asked why he was stopped.

Memo to Milwaukee-bound Cub fans: there are six Hiawathas daily (a seventh except Sunday) and the Route 10 or Route 18 bus will get you within walking distance of Miller Park. A trolley service of light snacks and beverages, including beer, is available on selected trains. Or bring your own.

It's a working day. Virtual Sprechers until the weekend.

TRAINS THAT GO AROUND IN CIRCLES. The press coverage I received (some time ago, nothing ever happens fast in the academy) as the local roller coaster expert earned me an invitation to go on a field trip, to be available as a resource person in case anyone was curious about the history of the rides or the economics of amusement park pricing.

A school bus on an Illinois tollway, even a recently maintained tollway, is not conducive to doing much talking in any event, although many of the passengers were able to nap both ways.


The Six Flags enterprise, which has a partnership with Warner Brothers, is celebrating its 45th year (that refers to the Texas location; the Gurnee park opened in 1976 and became a Six Flags property in the 1980s)

But we came here for the roller coasters. A number of the Community Advisors (that's Northern-speak for what I understood as "housefellows") asked if I'd like to tag along. Their objective was to ride all the roller coasters that were running.

First up is this combination of a Wild Mouse with a Tilt-A-Whirl.


On the lower level of U-turns, the machinery unlocks the coaster car, allowing it to pivot while the wheels below follow the tracks. No two rides alike.

On to more traditional fare.


Batman has received a new paint job (it used to be All Black) and it isn't as rough as it was a few years ago.


The shuttle-loop technology has morphed into these. The power source for this roller coaster is a linear induction motor. It still takes two runs through the field to achieve sufficient vertical velocity to reach this position.

The clouds look threatening, but the rain held off until later in the day. It's raw and windy this evening.

Six Flags makes a great deal of use of "rage" theming, perhaps not the best idea given that it is alongside a tollway full of Illinois drivers.

The tallest coaster is Raging Bull, with plenty of photo opportunities in the infield.



In the background is Viper, a twister inspired by the Coney Island Cyclone as well as my favorite at the park.

A legend remains in use.


The Whizzer, known as Willard's Whizzer in Marriott days, was supposed to be removed for a new attraction, but popular protest prevailed. The coaster is one of the few remaining Lionel-principle Schwarzkopf coasters with the electrified lift hill. (A few of the old-style scenic railways had third rail power at a number of points along the ride. Whizzer gets all its punch off one lift to the highest point.)

I'm not sure what this character is supposed to be.


Note the street railway tracks in the middleground. Like many a real city, Six Flags abandoned streetcar (well, horsecar) service but is a bit slow in removing or paving over the tracks. At one time, the tracks were used for an evening parade using battery-powered floats evocative of the Schuster's Christmas Parade.

We're a little out of sequence here, but that's because Superman was not functioning properly on our arrival.

It's running well later in the day.


Six Flags is a permissible Liberty Destination for recruits from Great Lakes. There is no North Shore Line shuttle from the Main Gate to the amusement park.


The circuit complete, my hosts were ready for some eats and some rest. Thanks!

And yes, if you see a picture of a roller coaster, you may conclude that the camera, which fits an inside jacket pocket, and its owner, did ride that roller coaster.