Talk:West Virginia Wesleyan College

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–This seems a little biased and written by a student with a non-neutral point-of-view. Definantly not NPOV anyway.

• I concur and have removed the "Quality of Professors" section -- it's possible that, if the college really does have difficulty retaining quality faculty and this is a long-term documented problem, an NPOV section might added to address this. --Chiacomo 04:13, 18 Apr 2005 (UTC)

What other thoughts are there regarding the addition of a section detailing the controversies surrounding the college? I feel this would be a good NPOV manner to address the various issues the college has had in the past. Leftsaidfred 03:00, 4 May 2006 (UTC)

You can verify through the Chronicle of Higher Education (http://chronicle.com/stats/aaup/aaupdetail.php?ID=3916) that, during Haden's term, faculty salaries rose (on average) 1% annually -- that's 2% to 3% less than inflation, and 4% to 5% less than the nationwide average. Clearly, this would have lead to a hemorrhaging of the better faculty and an entrenchment of lesser faculty. It is extremely rare for a faculty to institute a no-confidence vote against a college President. During Haden's tenure, the faculty institute *two* no-confidence votes against him.

I never argued that the added information was flawed or incorrect. I was suggesting that adding an additional section to address those issues would be beneficial to the article. However, what I did edit out ("In 2006, President Haden retired after taking over in 1995, he is reguarded as "the worst president that Wesleyan has seen". This is the opinion of many who feel he ran the college into the ground during his tenure.") was something I found not of the quality that Wikipedia should be looking for. Leftsaidfred 20:28, 4 May 2006 (UTC)

Agreed. I'm simply responding to your request for thoughts regarding the addition of a section detailing controversies. What I supplied you with is some factual information relevant to some of those controversies.

[edit] President Haden

I believe it is in the best interests to delete most of the copy in the last paragraph of the Wesleyan article. Not all of the information is factually correct and the copy once again places Wesleyan's financial challenges in a forum that is not helpful in its context for recruiting new students. I would like to suggest that we change the last paragraph to: William R. Haden, Wesleyan's second longest tenured professor will retire in June. Haden served 11 years at the College. Wesleyan's 18th president will be Dr. Pamela Balch, a 1971 graduate. Dr. Balch will be the first woman president at the College.

The information is, indeed, factual. The salary information can be verified at http://chronicle.com/stats/aaup/aaupdetail.php?ID=3916. The two no-confidence votes can be verified by any of the current faculty at Wesleyan. The existence of the votes along with the number of faculty voting for and against (the first vote was unanimous; the second was nearly unanimous) exist as a matter of record in the minutes of the faculty meetings. The revocation of tenure can similarly be verified.

Skinner_b is correct that the article places Wesleyan's financial challenges in a forum that is not helpful for recruiting new students. However, Wikipedia does not exist for the purpose of helping Wesleyan to recruit students. Wikipedia exists for the purpose of recording factual information relevant to the topic at hand. In this case, the topic at hand is West Virginia Wesleyan College, and the material cited above is not only factual but highly relevant to readers contemplating spending upwards of $100,000 to send themselves or their children there.

The revocation of faculty tenure was a temporary measure (November-February). No tenured faculty member was removed during this time and the condition no longer exists at the College.

In addition, a strong argument could be made that financial conditions in West Virginia have had as much to do with Wesleyan's fiscal challenges as administrative policies. This is again,one person's opinion who does not have access to all of the facts. During the Haden presidency, the West Virginia Promise Scholarship program began, providing free tuition for students to attend any public college in the state. While students can use the Promise at a private school, the "marketability of free tuition" is a major obstacle for private colleges. This new initiative was coupled with a decline in the number of need-based awards provided through the West Virginia Higher Education grant program. These changes put additional strains on the College's financial aid budget. Public education enrollment has blossomed under the Promise Program.

If the problem were due to "fiscal challenges," then we'd see many US colleges comparable to Wesleyan in size, endowment, pricing, etc. toying with bankruptcy. If the problem were geographic, then we'd see many West Virginia colleges/universities toying with bankruptcy. As we see neither of these things, the next logical source of the problem is the adminstration. Again, this is not "one person's opinion." It is a set of verifiable facts. No one has access to all of the facts. But, I have seen Wesleyan's financial statements for the past decade and have interviewed many of their faculty, so I am in posession of enough facts to make these statements. Now, in contrast to the facts stated above, here follows some opinions. The "Promise Scholarship" argument doesn't fly because most of Wesleyan's tuition dollars come from students outside of West Virginia. What does fly is this: In the early 90's and with virtually no market analysis, Haden committed $30 million to ensuring that every student was issued a laptop. Then he discovered (the hard way) two things he had been repeatedly told but refused to believe: (a) that the laptop program would become a monster that would require multi-millions annually to keep alive, and (b) that within a couple of years, students at every school in the US would be bringing their own machines to school, making the entire tens-of-millions investment pretty much meaningless. 24.30.84.6 17:58, 11 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Technology

Future students have the right to know that the speed of the internet it not enough for gaming and programs requiring decent bandwidth. Even browsing the internet is slow most days. Simply stating that the college offers so many connections to the internet would mislead people to believe that is also fast and reliable.