This discussion began on the Potential Head Coach Hires thread but I thought it would be smart to move it to this related thread.
@UgaBlows @takethepoints
"Also, this GT created myth regarding the Board of Regents should die away. I too have several contacts on the board and they have been wanting GT to add majors for years and begged GT to expand its engineering capabilities before they ever approved ga getting an engineering degree."
From another guy who seems to have a lot more contacts in GTAA than most of us:
"My understanding is that GT was told to expand its undergraduate engineering program to handle increased interest and qualifications of in-state students. GT faculty refused to do it instead wishing to drive even higher the academic qualifications of HS students coming in, and also pushed the requirements higher for out-of-state students (only accepted 19% last year compared to 37% in-state). In others words, the GT faculty wished to increase qualifications more over expansion....thus forcing the BOR to give the engineering expansion to UGA."
So I probably agree with the part of this post I didn't quote, but I feel like I need to push back on some of this here:
This seems like it's conflating two different attacks on Tech by the BOR (and don't kid yourself, they were designed and intended as attacks on GT).
1. The BoR, like a damn stereotype of marketing idiots from a Dilbert strip, got a half formed idea in the inbred malignancies they use instead of brains that Georgia needed these new, exciting engineering disciplines just like Ohio or Wisconsin or whatever their golf buddies told them they read about in a magazine this one time. These new engineering disciplines included agricultural engineering, computer systems engineering, and mechatronics engineering. Now, it may shock ya'll to hear this, but I could be a big pompous *** and throw contempt all over the very idea of these programs like I do at the BoR. Well, the BoR deserves it. But I can rightly point out that none of these 'engineering' programs are ABET accredited anywhere. Additionally, those that aren't a euphemism for something else entirely are kind of cross engineering degrees, like mechatronics. The trouble with that is that it really screws your students over. Sure, in the heat of the moment there may be some opportunities around robotics, but when that industry experiences a downturn (and don't kid yourself, EVERY industry eventually is subject to cycles) you find yourself beat out for jobs that are written specifically for EE and ME professionals. Hell, any AE graduate can tell you this is painfully present in their industry and AE very genuinely contains disciplines and knowledge that EE and ME do not. Just the reality of the market.
Of course, being concerned about the well being of our students and daring to suggest we might have more insights into the engineering market than the finance degree from U(sic)gA and the 20 years in the company pappy left to them strikes the old BoR as rank elitism. Sure, guilty.
2. GT made a proposal considered at the same time as the U(sic)gA to expand the CE, ME, and EE programs by more students than the leg humpers intended for 3 million less in state money. The problem, of course, which this anecdote twists on its head, is that GT was intending, and in fact showed the BoR, that we could do so without substantially lowering the quality of accepted student to the Institute.
Well that just made 'em madder than a skinhead watching the Jeffersons, because that was in the middle of the intelligence backlash school building era. You see, not just GT but U(sic)gA, GSU, Georgia College, and Southern were all raising their standards and getting harder to get into in the wake of the Hope program. And so when the BoR's precious baby prince glue sniffer got out of high school, he just couldn't get into one of the state colleges. By Gawd, he'd sat in a high school class for four years and he sprang from some very illustrious loins so he's ENTITLED to immediately get into a four year college! It's an outrage! Never mind you can get into any of those school guaranteed (except the nut lickers) through a transfer program from the state two year college system. Those families are much too rich and their families give way too much money to politics to have to suffer the indignity of a junior college!
And now you know.
