University of Alabama updates

[SpawnOfVulcan]

Originally Posted by Packer16

Always remember, Auburn is the University that is famous for their Sociology program that allowed athletes to take courses with no attendance and no tests. They just got A's for signing up. The NCAA ruled it OK because ALL Auburn students had access to and took the same courses with easy A's. Then, their Public Administration program was exposed for the same type of policy. Also, they have had a spotty history with SACS accreditation. I want Alabama to recruit the best students, not, the students who want an easy degree. BAMA will win this battle in the long run. The media always loves to attack the power and the power in this state is The University of Alabama. You are about to finally see the Engineering School at UA get its due. Stay Tuned. RTR

I do believe that Alabama will eventually become the broad-spectrum engineering school that Auburn currently occupies. However, I do not agree that Auburn is such a violator of educational standards and accreditation. Certainly, as with all schools, Auburn engages in some questionable practices to keep their players on their respective fields. But, I don't believe their violations are as prevalent as you seem to portray.

Originally Posted by atlanta68

Expand on that. Sounds interesting.

This activity is a sad fact of collegiate education of athletes. I do hope that Auburn is not engaging in such extreme measures.

[atlanta68]

Originally Posted by SpawnOfVulcan

I do believe that Alabama will eventually become the broad-spectrum engineering school that Auburn currently occupies. However, I do not agree that Auburn is such a violator of educational standards and accreditation. Certainly, as with all schools, Auburn engages in some questionable practices to keep their players on their respective fields. But, I don't believe their violations are as prevalent as you seem to portray.



This activity is a sad fact of collegiate education of athletes. I do hope that Auburn is not engaging in such extreme measures.

Oh, I agree! I think for too long, UA alumni have underestimated what Auburn created in terms of academic rep over the years. Why UA ever let Auburn Engineering take over as the perceived state engineering school is beyond me. It seems that within the state of Alabama, Auburn is STILL seen by too many as THE Engineering school. The irony is that top notch out of state engineering students overwhelmingly choose UA over Auburn.

But I was more interested in Packer expanding on future developments for engineering at UA.

[chadinhsv]

Still, I wonder if the admin has done any research to try to ascertain WHY Auburn has managed to once again, enroll more in state students. Is it a reaction to the huge influx of out of state students? Or the explosion in Greek mansions not available to middle and lower class students? Perceptions of Tuscaloosa as more dangerous?

I find it particularly galling that Auburn now enrolls more students from Madison County. Auburn has an office at the Space Center, but after UA opened an office there, UAH lobbied hard for UA to close it. Witt backed down and closed it. Doesn't seem fair for Auburn to have a strong presence there if UA can't. With UA now enrolling just as many engineering students as Auburn, it just does not make sense. The quality of engineering students who enroll at UA is also now superior to that of Auburn looking at avg ACT scores. So it is just strange that Auburn dominates Madison.[/QUOTE]

I believe AU does a better job of recruiting the cities in this state than we do. A huge amount of their in state numbers are from Madison, Birmingham, Montgomery, and Mobile. We seem to dominate them in the county school systems. I think some of these kids are turned off that they would be the minority at UA being from the state so they turn to their next best option. I've said it before though, I would rather attract and recruit kids who WANT diversity of thought and can work with students that don't look like them and believe what they believe.

I'm not too surprised that Madison County is Auburn territory being it is such a huge engineering town and for far too long AU has had the better engineering school name recognition. I didn't know they had an office at NASA; however, 2 out of the last 3 Marshall Space Flight Directors have been UA grads. I think you will see over the next few years that UA engineering grads will play vital roles in their companies all over the world.

[atlanta68]

Important Developments at UA

First the good news

1)UA enrolled more National Merit Scholars this Fall than any other year. 256! That is likely the most of any school in the nation.

https://talk.collegeconfidential.com...rs.html#latest

For next five data points, see https://talk.collegeconfidential.com...er.html#latest
2) Highest percentage in UA history of freshman in top 10% of high school class
3) More than 10% increase in in-state freshman enrollment
4) UA total enrollment down slightly, but still above 38,000
5) Approximately 40% have an ACT score of 30 or more for the third consecutive year
7) An increase of about 100, in freshman class, relative to last Fall

Also, UA Engineering's Grad program enrolled 504 students this Fall, a big increase from the 431 in last Fall's class. That is VERY important for the school's goal of improving productivity in research. http://oira.ua.edu/new/reports/#Tabl...%20by%20Campus

Now, the bad news.

UA continues to drop in the USNW rankings of all major colleges, public and private. https://talk.collegeconfidential.com...at-now-p1.html

UA is now at 153 in the rankings, way down from its high of 75 in 2012. Does anyone believe UA's quality has dropped that much or at all in such a short amount of time? Of course, a big part of the reason is the set of changes USNWR made to its criteria. UA and FSU essentially changed places in as little as eight years according to this nonsense.

Anyway, perception can be reality, so here is hoping UA admin takes steps to reverse the trend. The irony is that UA has never enrolled so many top students (ACT of 32 or higher, plus the positive stats I cited above). So maybe the rankings don't matter that much. But hard to believe that they won't have a corrosive effect in terms of faculty recruitment, rep, in the long run.

[atlanta68]

Really good news about growth in UA's research programs

https://talk.collegeconfidential.com...ms.html#latest

[atlanta68]

https://yellowhammernews.com/tubervi...rry-christmas/ I seem to be the only one posting here, so here goes another positive update.

UA has raised the thirty million from private contributions so it can now go forward with plans to build $60 million Hewson Hall, and have it ready by August 2021.

This looks like the Business equivalent to the SEC on the East side of campus in terms of its potential to transform the school.

[SpawnOfVulcan]

Originally Posted by atlanta68

https://yellowhammernews.com/tubervi...rry-christmas/ I seem to be the only one posting here, so here goes another positive update.

UA has raised the thirty million from private contributions so it can now go forward with plans to build $60 million Hewson Hall, and have it ready by August 2021.

This looks like the Business equivalent to the SEC on the East side of campus in terms of its potential to transform the school.

Nice that the school got the match! I've always thought that the area around campus drive has felt a bit "fake", doesn't really feel like an instituational environment. This building looks like it's gonna be nice, and it'll provide some good infill getting ride of that awful field.

[Packer16]

Engineering School ranking https://www.universities.com/find/al...st/engineering

[chadinhsv]

Originally Posted by Packer16

Engineering School ranking https://www.universities.com/find/al...st/engineering

I'm all about these rankings finally showing how good our engineering department is...………………...BUT you can't tell me UAH is behind UAB when it comes to engineering prestige. I think UAH is The best engineering school in the state. I do feel though that UA has finally caught Auburn though, putting out elite engineers even if we don't advertise it or claim how awesome we are compared to other schools like another school in this state.

[Packer16]

https://www.payscale.com/college-sal...rs/engineering

Check out #108 and #175

[chadinhsv]

Originally Posted by Packer16

https://www.payscale.com/college-sal...rs/engineering

Check out #108 and #175

Nice find! AL.com had an article a few years ago comparing salaries between graduates of Alabama and Auburn in each engineering field and Bama came out ahead on most of the fields. Sometimes I wish our Engineer grads would shove it in everyone's face that they graduated from UA engineer school like AU grads do.

[chadinhsv]

Seriously! Huntsville is already full of barners. What does UA have to do to freaking get deals done so AU doesn't dominate this city? I hate having to go to work and all the people I work around are Auburn grads.

https://www.al.com/news/huntsville/2...niversity.html

[SpawnOfVulcan]

Originally Posted by chadinhsv

Seriously! Huntsville is already full of barners. What does UA have to do to freaking get deals done so AU doesn't dominate this city? I hate having to go to work and all the people I work around are Auburn grads.

https://www.al.com/news/huntsville/2...niversity.html

Yea, I saw that and just groaned...

There's absolutely no reason why companies in Huntsville shouldn't be collaborating with UAH on practically everything engineering related.

No biotech company in Birmingham would even think of collaborating with South Alabama instead of UAB.

[chadinhsv]

Originally Posted by SpawnOfVulcan

Yea, I saw that and just groaned...

There's absolutely no reason why companies in Huntsville shouldn't be collaborating with UAH on practically everything engineering related.

No biotech company in Birmingham would even think of collaborating with South Alabama instead of UAB.

Exactly. They quoted that AU had a great STEM program. Well guess what? UAH is the pinnacle of a STEM school and it is literally just down the road. I'm hoping they are going to announce a partnership with other schools as well and AU was just the first one announced. Now I see why it is impossible to convince people that move here from a different part of the country that UA has a great engineering department, because all they see is AU engineers. I guess I will just have to suck it up. It truly is a crime the way UA administration is practically ignoring Huntsville. They need to realize Huntsville is the fastest growing city in the state and we are about to get absolutely shut out of the high schools with the way things are going right now

[atlanta68]

Originally Posted by chadinhsv

Exactly. They quoted that AU had a great STEM program. Well guess what? UAH is the pinnacle of a STEM school and it is literally just down the road. I'm hoping they are going to announce a partnership with other schools as well and AU was just the first one announced. Now I see why it is impossible to convince people that move here from a different part of the country that UA has a great engineering department, because all they see is AU engineers. I guess I will just have to suck it up. It truly is a crime the way UA administration is practically ignoring Huntsville. They need to realize Huntsville is the fastest growing city in the state and we are about to get absolutely shut out of the high schools with the way things are going right now

It was Witt who backtracked due to pressure from UAH, and agreed to withdraw UA from NASA. Why he did that boggles my mind. I guess he was trying to be nice and maybe was getting pressure from the UA Chancellor.

I like Dr. Carr a lot, but he has been head of UA Engineering a long time, and perhaps he has grown complacent.

[Packer16]

https://best-engineering-colleges.com/alabama

[Packer16]

https://www.ua.edu/news/2019/11/nasa...manufacturing/

[Packer16]

https://www.ua.edu/news/2016/11/nasa...act-agreement/

[Packer16]

https://www.prnewswire.com/news-rele...300954866.html

[Packer16]

https://yellowhammernews.com/univers...ut-candidates/