Quote:
Originally Posted by atlanta68
I hope each of you has the chance to meet Dr. Mohler and hear him speak. He is very approachable and has a very clear vision of what UA should do and become to serve not just Alabama, but the nation. He asked us for help in implementing his vision.
Here are the main points of his brief talk:
1) UA is moving away from emphasizing enrollment size. I will come back to this as his answer to my question about selectivity was good to hear.
2) He asked for help in attracting more of Atlanta's top students. He said we need to get them back, implying UA has dropped the ball in recent years in recruitment of Atlanta area students. Too many he said are going to GA schools.
3) He wants UA to be a leader in how to use AI in an ethical manner. Before his talk I asked if UA would be working on making AI less of an imposition on communities in terms of resource consumption and he said yes, and that the university will develop IP to address such issues.
4) He wants to increase enrollment in Nursing and wants UA to graduate more teachers for K-12.
5) He wants students experiencing their field of study in the workplace before graduating.
6) He wants students across many disciplines to be able to learn to be effective leaders via the new Leadership and Policy College.
7) in the Q and A I said I assumed that UA was going to become more selective in admissions given his first statement about enrollment no longer being what alumni hear most about going forward. I suggested UA work with junior colleges and directional schools to encourage students who have proven themselves, to transfer to UA. He agreed that is a good strategy, but more importantly, that UA wants to dramatically increase graduation rates and that standardized tests help predict success and that they will be used largely to determine who needs help the most.
He said UA is now offerng FREE test prep for any applicant to UA, which indicates to me he wants to help less advantaged high school students AND he wants UA to be able to be more selective.
Later in a one on one brief discussion, I told him that I thought UA was too easy to get into and he shook his head, seemingly in agreement and reiterated what I said in the Q and A about students needing to prove themselves to transfer to UA. He brought that phrase up back up without me saying it again.
I told him that he is the transformational leader UA has needed, for which he expressed humble gratitude. Dude is legit. Please support him.
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Here is my update from last night in Decatur for the Huntsville, Decatur, Athens meeting:
He touched on a lot of what Atlanta mentioned but had a more region specific speech.
1.) He mentioned that we are not going to increase in size, if anything, we will decrease in numbers. This isn't surprising as he has mentioned that before and goes along with what Atlanta mentioned
2.) He touted the two new schools at the University. The Leadership and Policy college and the Data Analytics and AI college. Mentioned that there is a need for all colleges to at least take a few classes from each college if we want to be a more well-rounded institution
3.) Emphasized the need to recruit more in-state. I was happy to hear that, but I was a little disappointed in his lack of details on how to do that and not exactly answering my question at the end. I will get to that
Everything else that Atlanta mentioned above is what he went over last night so I won't go into that.
For my personal Q & A: I asked about the Research centers in Huntsville and how that is affecting the recruitment of students in Huntsville. I asked if UA has any plans on joining the circus so UA has more presence in the area. I even suggested going in with UAH to sort of combine resources. My disappointment was that UA will have a presence in Huntsville, but he didn't answer anything about the research center. So for those of us that was asking about it a few pages back, looks like we still aren't wanting to be competitive with Georgia Tech or AU in Huntsville anytime soon.
Overall, I think he is going to do some fantastic things for the University and I am thrilled that he is our President. I'm sure it will take some time for him and his administration to start making some in-roads in the state attracting students to my liking but I will just have to be more patient.
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