T minus one day to UTRGV

Tomorrow is the start of The University of Texas Rio Grande Valley. And I’m nervous.

Last night I learned that The Texas Higher Education Coordinating board didn’t approve a bunch of courses that was planned to be offered as part of the required core curriculum. And this has meant that one and a half thousand students are getting screwed.

There is a list of the non-approved classes. There’s is no explanation or justification as far as I’ve been able to see. What is completely weird is that a class titled “PHIL 1300 Critical Thinking” was not approved for the core, which has as one of it’s requirements that students learn...

Critical thinking.

A class named critical thinking does not meet the requirements for critical thinking? Okay, colour me completely baffled.

Rex Peebles, the board’s assistant commissioner for academic quality and workforce, is quoted as saying:

“It’s really not uncommon at all that submit courses get denied. In a lot of ways there’s nothing kind of unusual that is going on here with UTRGV.”

Except, of course, that it’s happening just days before the opening of a new university, when practically nothing is ready and everything is straining under the load and breaking fast. It is not just business as usual.

I’m not sure it’s a good sign that I’m learning about this through my social media. This seems like the sort of thing that faculty might want to know.

Similarly, I learned that UTRGV is getting a research vessel; the Ridley. I’m excited about this, and I think there could be some good research opportunities for our department and for me. I am still annoyed that I learned about it through social media and not from anyone in my institution.

And today’s editorial today in The Monitor reprinted the untrue statement that UTRGV is the first new university this century. Sigh.

Hat tip to Janet Stemwedel.

External links

About 1,500 UTRGV students displaced from core courses

Texas High Ed Board vs. Logic
Courses not approved for the UTRGV core
Floating classroom passes from Aggies to Vaqueros

Bronc bouquet

This is it, folks. This is the last full business day of The University of Texas-Pan American. On Monday, we will be The University of Texas Rio Grande Valley.

RIP, Bucky.

Picture from here.

This is not the image you want, UTRGV

Seen on the UTRGV home page this morning:

Plastering the home page with an image of a space shuttle is a bad idea, considering that all the space shuttles have been retired and stopped flying over four years ago.

So we’re advertising the launch of a new, twenty-first century university with a picture of obsolete 1970s technology. Great.

Why not an image of the Falcon 9, particularly as UTGRV likes to tout all the anticipated benefits of having a SpaceX launch site in the lower Rio Grande Valley at every opportunity it gets?

I’m using this as an excuse to link to Karen James’s awesome personal account of the last shuttle launch.

Creation myths for universities

It’s weird to watch my new institution create stories about itself. It has to convince everyone that it is going to be a big deal, not just more of the same.

The University of Texas Rio Grande Valley (UTRGV) launches in just a little over a week, and it’s already trying to create its own creation myths. This headline in The Monitor local newspaper on the creation of UTRGV declares the forthcoming university to be:

(T)he first university created in 21st century

I think this myth is originating from incoming president Guy Bailey. I recall him making that statement in a town hall, and I used something close to it here.

Except that, at best, UTRGV is the fourth university created in the twenty-first century, according to this list. In this century, before UTRGV, we have:

1. Soka University of America – Private university founded 2001, accredited in 2005
2. University of California-Merced – Public university founded in 2005, accredited in 2011.
3. Ave Maria University – Catholic university founded in 2007, accredited in 2010.

And that’s only the American universities. It wouldn’t surprise me if there were more universities founded since 2001 in that small place known as the “rest of the world.”

As a new university, it would do us good to show we value good scholarship by getting simple, verifiable facts right.

Related posts

In search of an identity for UTRGV, or: why Bucky must go 
External links

The road to UTRGV, the first university created in 21st century
The Youngest and Oldest Universities in the U.S.

What does an institution brag about?

There are times it feels like my university is focusing on all the wrong things.

I may be a grumpy prof, but I’m still a prof. I wondered if it was just my confirmation bias. Is there more coverage of stuff that annoys me, or do I just remember the stuff that annoys me?

I decided to do a little survey. I went to my university’s news site. It had the last four months of press releases up. I went though each one, and categorized the press releases into a few categories. (Click to enlarge.)

It’s understandable that the most common press release was to promote upcoming events. Plays, exhibitions, public lectures, and the like.

I was pleasantly surprised to see student success coming up in second place. Showcasing our students is one of the most important things an institution should do. The plugging and cheering for the other members of the university community – faculty, staff, administration, alumni – was surprisingly even in representation.

Some of the things that I thought was getting more attention than they deserved (those who know me can probably guess) weren’t anywhere near as high on the list as I expected them to be. I probably was indulging in a little confirmation bias, but I’d almost like to do a breakdown of other venues, like tweets and media coverage, before I completely chalk my annoyance at news coverage up to my grumpiness.

This time frame (February to June) included the end of the school year, a time when there are lots of “end of the year” awards. I wonder if the distribution of news would be different in the fall semester.

Riding into the sunset: my last class at UTPA

I just taught my last class at The University of Texas-Pan American ever. And, in contemporary fashion, I marked the occasion with a few selfies with my students.

Today is the last day of classes for the spring semester. There are still grades to calculate and such, but there are no more lecture days.

I am not teaching in summer 2015. I desperately need time not teaching to do many, many things. My office is about two years overdue for a purge, I have two manuscripts waiting for my revisions, there’s administrative stuff...

And when Fall 2015 rolls around, I will be teaching at the University of Texas Rio Grande Valley.

When I got here in 2001, the first class I taught was General Biology. And today, the last class I taught was General Biology again. And the students were good sports, so it was a nice class to end my UTPA teaching on.

It’s the end of an era.

A new email signals the beginning of the end

Late today, I got notice that it was time to activate my email address for UTRGV.

Done.

It was quick to do, but in many ways, it signaled the end of an era for me.

An institutional email address is central to modern academic life. It is the first point of contact that people look for if they are trying to connect with you. More than office space, building keys, an ID card, or listing on an university website, a .edu email address defines your affiliation with an institution, both to that institution and to the rest of the world.

The UTRGV email drives home for me that UTPA is coming to an end.

Since I practically live online (“Hi, my name is Zen, and I’m a netaholic”), I have made the problem much, much worse for myself. I use my academic email for a lot of online services, and now I will have a long, slow trudge of switching all the profile account information. Updating a single paper in my academic sites took me half a day. I have no idea how long it will be before I swap over all my accounts to my @utrgv.edu email addy.

This is probably a good time to start listing my university affiliation on new manuscripts I submit as “University of Texas Rio Grande Valley,” too.

I have a lot of mixed feelings about this, because I am watching how this institution is developing. And I am not always feeling optimistic about what I see. But maybe that’s another post for another time.

Related posts

Updating, updating. and updating some more

The first registration for UTRGV...

We’ve started registering students for the inaugural fall semester of University of Texas Rio Grand Valley (UTRGV), and it’s kind of a mess.

Student records are not showing up properly in the student record system. Prerequisites are not properly in the system. Classes are disappearing from registration. 

The next few months are going to be extremely interesting.

Jobs at UTRGV

The Department of Biology at the University of Texas Rio Grande Valley has put out the call for two tenure-track assistant professor positions!

• Anatomy and physiology (no reason it can’t be a neuroanatomist, by the way)
• Environment toxicology

Applications close 23 March 2015.

If you have questions about the institution, department, and so on, you can find all my pertinent contact information on my home page.

Come work with me!

Analyzing the UTRGV Vaqueros logo, or: Who was that tanned man?

The UTRGV mascot was unveiled... at 4:00 pm on Friday afternoon. I do not think the timing of this release was accidental. After the uproar that followed the announcement of the “Vaqueros” name, I think someone hoped that late Friday afternoon would provide a “soft launch” for the logo.

Pros.

I like the look of the logo overall. The horse and rider look dynamic and distinctive. It reads well from a distance.

There is one thing I absolutely love about this logo. It's a little Easter egg that shows a very sharp, professional graphic designer did this. There is a map of Texas hidden in the negative space of the horse’s front and back legs. That is just a detail that delights.

Cons.

In the full colour version of the logo, the rider looks like he’s had a spray on tanning mishap. Sort of like Ross in the Friends episode, “The One with Ross’s Tan.”

Our female athletes got ignored. We have dozens of alternate logos, and there are no Vaqueras. Not even a team name in any of the zillion logo variants.

Our friends at Brownsville got short changed. Again. Most seriously, several of the logo variants have the outline of the state of Texas, and a single star in the Valley... pretty much right on Edinburg, where UTPA is. Either there should be a star for each campus, or no stars.

On a minor note, the UTRGV colours are supposed to be orange, green (UTPA’s heritage colour) and blue (UTB’s heritage colour). But in the full colour logo, the navy blue it so dark that it doesn’t read as blue.

Some people have said there are some similarities with the Texas Tech Mascot, the Red Raiders. Both have a man on horseback.

I personally don’t see this as a big problem. The colours, poses, letters... There is no way the two would ever be confused.

The lettering looks very similar to the type used for the current UTPA athletics workdmark, and to other institutions. Both have big chunky slab type, with a spikey bit emerging from the top left.

Overall, the logo is sharp, but it’s a shame that it doesn’t show awareness of the criticisms of the Vaqueros name, and the regional tensions that have been brewing because of it.

Maybe the UTRGV mascot should be the zombie, because the debate won’t die

Just when thought we had finished with the whole Vaqueros controversy, it’s back in the news. Texas lawmaker Terry Canales has made good on his threat.... er, promise... to introduce legislation that would almost certainly get rid of the “Vaquero” as mascot.

The bill, from my point of view, is... problematic. It reads:

The university shall include on the ballot:

1. the “Broncs”;
2. the “Ocelots”; and
3. any other options the university chooses, including nicknames nominated by students and approved by the university.

This is a rigged ballot for a single outcome: to get the Bronc back. It was clear in the discussion leading up to this that people affiliated with UTPA students favoured the Bronc, and everyone not affiliated with UTPA were “Anything but the Bronc.” Nobody was strongly arguing for the Ocelots.

There is no doubt that if there was a student vote held now, UTPA students would overwhelmingly vote for the Bronc.

I get that “majority rules” is very popular option... when you’re in the majority. It completely sucks to be given a message that what you have to say is not even worth listening to when you’re in the minority.

Let me give you a little “Zen predicts” on this bill: it will never come up for a vote, for two reasons.

First, legislators from the rest of the Texas will not see the value in interfering with a decision that was done above board and according to Hoyle. It was always Guy Bailey’s decision, and while his decision was unpopular, it was his to make.

Second, the UT System, and other Valley legislators from outside the Edinburg area, will lobby against this bill and stop it before it hits the legislative floor for a vote. The representatives of the UT System will resent what they see as political second-guessing and micromanagement. Other legislators will resent that the bill silences their constituents.

Additional, 27 January 2015: What also bugs me about the wording of this bill is that it removes the voice of any stakeholders other than current students. I’m faculty member, and I have a stake in this institution and am affected by mascot decisions (as much a students, at least). Why would I not get a say under HB901?

Maybe if the wording of the bill was “Vaqueros, yes or no?” I could get behind this bill, as it would address legitimate concerns about that particular mascot; that is, issues around cultural sensitivity, inclusion of men and women, and so on. But the point of this bill is to not to get passed. The point of this bill is for Representative Canales to be seen to be doing something.

External links

HB901
Bill seeks election for UT-RGV nickname
Proposed bill to leave UTRGV nickname up to students

A step back for UTRGV grad programs

Well, this is frustrating.

Currently, both The University of Texas-Pan American and University of Texas Brownsville handle graduate applications using a externally provided specialty system called Embark. Having used it for a few years, I can say it works well.

I learned yesterday that the new University of Texas Rio Grande Valley will use a completely new system for processing student applications to graduate programs. Actually, it’s already in place. It’s called ApplyTexas. It was intended to let students apply to any public university in Texas. Its sounds like a nice, simple idea: one system for students to deal with instead of many.

So, existing system that universities already have replaces subscription service, money saved, what’s the problem?

The problem is that ApplyTexas was designed to handle undergraduate admissions. It does not support attachments like personal statements or recommendation letters. To deal with this, it looks like applicants will have to go to ApplyTexas to enter their demographic data, then go to another website to upload documents, and then a third website to deal with recommendations. So instead of one common site, grad applicants will actually be interacting with three. The, they are “hoping” that all of the documents generated in these three systems can be combined into a single document.

And this decision was made after some UTRGV graduate programs had already started taking applicants.

It’s a mess.

Who decided this? The University of Texas System. Thanks a bunch, people.

2014: fruitful and frustrating in equal measure

I worried that I would never had a professional year as productive as 2011. I had six papers that year. I'm super pleased I matched my 2011 record this year, with six papers out again, four of which were data-driven papers.

The year started crazy, with the parasite symposium I co-organized with Kelly Weinersmith being a big success at the Society for Integrative and Comparative Biology meeting. What I thought would result in one paper turned into three. And a few other manuscripts deadlines on top of those meant that I had my door closed a lot of the first part of the year.

I had two papers that, according to their altmetric scores, were more widely seen and discussed (post-publication peer review and crowdfunding) than anything I've ever written.

But I was also frustrated. For one, I could have broken that 2011 record by a couple of papers.

One paper, whose publication seemed to occur in geological time, came out this year... but it has a 2013 publication date on the article, because it was supposed to come out at the end of last year. So it doesn't add to annual tally in my CV.

Then, I had a paper that could have been out in November. But it didn't make it out because my institution couldn't pay the publication fees on time. It's now scheduled for March.

My frustration was compounded by my apparently inability to get manuscripts off my desk and into the hands of editors in the latter part of the year. In this quiet week between Christmas and New Year's, I made good progress on revising one long-suffering manuscript. Now if I just can get a couple of other manuscripts started, which have data in the can and ready to write up... maybe I'll start feeling more productive.

Personally, it was a year of many unbloggable changes.

I am hoping that a habit of a productive person is to think about not just what you have done, but what you could have done better. And there was a lot I could have done better.

The big news on the horizon for 2015 for me is easy to pick. My current institution, The University of Texas-Pan American, is abolished and we will see the start of University of Texas Rio Grande Valley. I expect all manner of craziness to ensue as part of the creation of the new university. We have less than a year to go, and there are huge amounts of things that haven't even been close to being decided.

Related posts

All downhill from here?
In the hands of editors now

Monday morning quarterbacking the UTRGV “Vaquero” decision

The University of Texas System is confirming that the mascot for the University of Texas Rio Grande Valley will be the Vaquero.

I feel sorry for UTRGV president Guy Bailey (third from left; pic from here).

There was just no decision that was going to make people happy. There were a lot of people in Edinburg and McAllen who wanted to keep the University of Texas Pan American’s mascot, Bucky the Bronc. But that choice would have ostracized everyone who had ties to University of Texas at Brownsville.

One of the last surveys showed a lot of people wanted some sort of compromise. That came though in the colour recommendations: UT system orange, plus green from UTPA, plus blue from UTB.

I think Bailey was hoping that “Vaquero” would be that compromise. The word “vaquero” is thought to have morphed into “buckaroo.” Bucky, buckaroo, and there’s a whole horse motif going on... I bet Bailey thought this would be the way to assuage the “Save Bucky” brigade. “There’s still a horse!”

From his opening comments, it was clear that Bailey saw “Vaquero” as Americana that nobody could object to. “Nothing more iconic than a cowboy” is pretty close to what he said in his comments.

While Bailey might have expected that nothing would keep the Bucky fans happy except Bucky, I don’t know if anyone could have anticipated the flames that started pretty much the instant he announced the recommendation.

Having watched this process from the very first meeting at UTPA,“Vaquero” was a name that people suggested. It did not come out of the blue. It was not a random choice from Bailey, or the Board of Regents.

But when it was mentioned as a possibility, I never got, from any of the discussion, a hint of the fury that emerged over the decision. It wasn’t just that people were mad about losing Bucky (which I expected), but the charges erupted almost immediately that the name was racist – and, to a lesser degree, sexist.

I was disappointed to see how fast people trotted out negative Hispanic and Mexican stereotypes on Twitter. Out came the taco and sombrero jokes. I documented a lot of them in my Storify. For me, this was a low point:

Really? I get being upset with the decision. But that? That art’s not okay.

I was also upset by the number of people who said they either would not come to, or wanted to leave, UTRGV because of the mascot. As a faculty member, it bothers me that a foam rubber suit means more to students than the work my colleagues and I do in trying to perform the best possible research and do the best possible jobs of giving students a top notch education.

If the mascot means more to you than the quality of the faculty and staff, I invite you to re-examine your priorities.

I have problems with this choice of mascot. I deeply dislike that it’s “cowboy,” which overlooks that about 60% of UTPA students (and, I’m guessing, UTB students) are female.

There’s already been complaints that people (including Bailey) don’t pronounce it right. Wiki says it’s “baˈkeɾo,” with a B, which makes the connection to “buckaroo” make more sense.

Finally, I think it’s just too obscure a name. I spent years explaining to people where UTPA was. Now I have to look forward to years of explaining what a “Vaquero” is.

It’s interesting to contrast to the decision to name of the institution, where UTRGV bubbled up pretty quickly and had wide community support.

 “Vaqueros” made nobody happy, judging from polls in local media, which show even more rejection of the name than my own. Here’s radio station KURV:

The local newspaper, the McAllen Monitor:

Bailey admitted there was no consensus on the mascot, which must have made his job tough. (Results of one of the last surveys is here. 45% said “none of the above” to the suggested names.) But now, I worry that Guy Bailey has just burned up any support or trust that he might have had from the community.

I wish there had been images like this to go with the announcement. Because, damn, that’s a cool image, and a reminder to me that maybe, just maybe, this name could work.

Update: The UT System has just put out a press release that is, frankly, a little more honest about the pushback than I would have expected.

While the selection drew support from many... it also spurred a backlash on social media, primarily from those who wanted to keep UT Pan American’s nickname, the Broncs.

It then goes on to the “Rah rah rah!” tone more typical of press releases.

Update, 7 November 2014: As I suspected, Bailey argued in the video below that “Vaquero” honors the legacy of the “Bucky” nickname:


External links

Vaquero chosen as UTRGV mascot
The UT-RGV Mascot Saga Ends with The Vaqueros and Apparently Nobody Is Happy 
It’s official: Vaqueros approved as UT-RGV mascot
Opinion: Former school changing mascot, and I’m disgusted

Watching the UTRGV Vaqueros controversy

Instant controversy: just add Vaquero!

Well, that escalated quickly.

I’m tracking the reaction to the recommendation to have the UTRGV mascot be “Vaquero.” Here’s a Storify:

Bucky is gone - move on!

The mascot of the University of Texas Rio Grande Valley will be the Vaquero (Spanish for cowboy).

The announcement happened just at the start of my General Biology class, so I streamed the announcement, and did a quick poll. The choice got more “Boos!” than anything else.

UTRGV president Guy Bailey noted in his remarks that there was no consensus on the mascot. Judging from my Twitter feed this afternoon, that’s an understatement. I don’t think I have seen a single tweet enthusing over the decision yet. And this was a trending topic on Twitter:

I think Bailey is going to have to do a lot of public relations before people are okay with his decision.

I’ve written about the prospect of “Vaquero” before, and I stand by those comments. In particular, I’m surprised at the choice when another institution, Santa Barbara City College, already has that as its mascot.

I’m even more baffled when I consider the colour choice. The choice of colours was UT system orange (which had to be there) along with UTPA green and UTB blue. As I noted before, one potential mascot that had both those colours: the green jay!

But I am pleased that one way or another, the campaign to #SaveBucky is over. Bucky is going away. Whether you’re pro, con, or indifferent to Vaqueros, let’s move on. It’s a new university with a new identity.

Update: A local television station poll shows little support for Vaqueros.

Related posts

In search of an identity for UTRGV, or: why Bucky must go
The great UTRGV mascot debate continues

External links

UT-RGV mascot recommended to be the Vaquero
UTRGV President recommends “Vaquero” as athletic nickname for new university
UTRGV president recommends "Vaqueros" as school mascot

Watch out for UTRGV’S Phase II

Inside Higher Education has an article about the hiring process for University of Texas Rio Grande Valley. Twenty-five faculty from UTPA and UTB did not get offered their jobs back yet.

The article goes into quite a bit of detail about the Phase I hiring process, and list all the reasonable concerns about the new university being used to remove tenured faculty for questionable reasons.

What the article barely mentions is that there is a Phase II in the hiring process. I sat through quite a few discussions about this, and I got the impression that Phase I was more or less a rubber stamp. Not being selected in Phase I was certainly not the end of the process. It just indicated a little more vetting would be done. That doesn’t strike me as crazy or unreasonable, though it certainly could be implemented in an unreasonable way.

The outcome of Phase II will be a much better indicator of the direction that UTRGV is heading than Phase I.

External links

Voted off the island

Hand waving about technology and teaching

Our incoming president UTRGV president, Guy Bailey, said at a presentation this morning:

I wouldn’t think students would have to be traveling throughout the Valley with technology.

I’m getting frustrated. Every time we hear questions asked about the UTRGV having multiple instructional sites, some almost a hundred mile apart, and how students will cope with that, multiple adminstrators, advisors, and politicians have all had the same answer.

“Technology!”

If all you’re saying is “Technology!” in response to questions about teaching, you might as well be saying, “Magic!”

What does “technology” even mean in this context? Bullet trains to take students from site to site? Online course through Blackboard? Google hangouts? Skype calls? Low emission bus systems? Those are all “technology.”


I think that what all these people are thinking is that we’ll have video conferencing capabilities and online courses.

But let me tell you, as someone who live online: you have to be careful about this. I think in the time from when UTRGV was conceived to now, we’re already move through a hype and bust cycle with massive online courses (MOOCs). There is evidence accumulating that they work for a small subset of students, who are highly prepared and motivated and already pretty well educated.

That is not the majority of our undergraduate student population.

Online courses in the sciences face even more problems, because we have labs. And those labs are important.

My big fear is that administrators and politicians genuinely don’t have a plan, won’t ask for input on a plan, foist the problem off on lower levels, and then complain when something that faculty said would not work does not, in fact, work.

The great UTRGV mascot debate continues

“It’s like Springfield versus Shelbyville.”

I was chatting over the weekend about the still undecided mascot for The University of Texas Rio Grande Valley. I’d heard that Edinburg city council had passed a resolution in support of keeping the current mascot, the bronc.

What I hadn’t known was that Edinburg’s resolution had prompted counter resolutions, by a lot of local organizations and councils, either supporting or condemning the Edinburg resolution. And the split is generally the McAllen metro area (Edinburg, McAllen, Pharr) versus the rest of the Rio Grande Valley. A Texas Monthly article noted:

Ultimately, this will come down to power and politics, as much as anything, which is presumably why the anti-Bucky crowd is concerned: UTPA is the larger and more powerful of the schools, and Edinburg is by a substantial margin the wealthier of the two communities, compared to Brownsville (Edinburg's median household income is more then 30% higher than Brownsville's).

It is surprising to me the amount of political heat that mascot names generate, but the UTRGV mascot situation is far from unique. At the national level, we have the Washington Redskins being pressured to change their name. And a few years ago, the change of another university mascot, from a plantation owner to bear, got national attention.

Dan Solomon has been covering the mascot debate at Texas Monthly. He arrives as similar conclusions to my own about the shortlist. Having reflected on the short list some more, I am coming around to like “Tortoises.” A tortoise reflects tenacity, resilience, and maybe even wisdom. The Texas tortoise has character:

If the University of California Santa Cruz can have a banana slug as a popular mascot, why not a tortoise?

Update: Same day I posted this, I get an email about another survey on the UTRGV mascot. Interestingly, some of the options were not on the previous shortlist of ten. I see “Green Jays” and “Vaqueros” as choices (which I’d heard before), “Storm” (what? – another seemingly random surprise option) in addition to “Phoenix.”

Update, 6 October 2014: Brownsville has gotten in on the action, joining the “Anything but Bucky” campaign. The Texas Monthly wryly observes:

(T)he resolution highlights how sensitive everyone can be when it comes to debating pagan-like animal worship.

Update, 28 October 2014: The Texas Monthly considers the biggest sporting debate in Texas right now to be, “Are you for or against Bucky?” The article raises the specter of this being a bellwether for constant infighting over the direction of UTRGV.

Related posts

In search of an identity for UTRGV, or: why Bucky must go
Bland mascots

External links

UT-RGV Has Narrowed Its Search For a New Mascot Down to the Final Ten Contenders 
The Debate Over What The Mascot For The New UT-RGV Campus Is Getting Heated, Y'all  (Quotes this blog)
And then there were 4 
Brownsville city leaders request ‘new identity” for UT-RGV 
Get Bucky

Tortoise pic by Sara Viernum on Flickr; used under a Creative Commons license.