RobPort
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Posts posted by RobPort
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5 minutes ago, jdub27 said:Wow....The REA and it's board decided to design the court how they wanted to instead of taking input from the UND President, Athletic Director and every coach who plays in the Betty because they didn't want the Fighting Hawk at center court. Kennedy calls them out and says they aren't acting in the best interest of the University of North Dakota, which puts them in violation of the governing documents of the relationship.
I guess there's no argument anymore on whether or not the REA is intentionally dragging their feet and intentionally not incorporating the new logo. And KEM's comments about it not being about the nickname seem to ring pretty hollow, especially considering JH relayed that she specifically stated she wanted to brand the floor of the BESC with the wordmark and not the logo. Not a good light shed on the REA or KEM, no wonder they went on the attack first. Assuming as soon as they heard about the open records request, they new they needed to do some damage control.
For what it's worth, the Herald's reporting on the feud is what prompted my open records request, which I put in yesterday. The university turned it around promptly which, to their credit, they typically do.
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hey, i said that your better than shirvani!
I'll take whatever common ground I can find. ;-)
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Kudos to you for having the guts to post here. You were getting ripped pretty good on here during the nickname/logo soap opera. I don't always agree with you, but I welcome your input here.
Ha, well, if you've ever seen my own comments section you know I'm pretty inured to getting "ripped." But I believe in open forums. I take strong and often provocative positions on controversial topics. If I'm going to give the public my two cents, I think they should be allowed to give me their two cents.
That's the standard I hold myself to. And hey, we'll just have to agree to disagree on the nickname thing. It's over now, for better or worse. Water under the bridge.
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makes me queasy to be on the same side of an issue as a sleazeball imbecile like rob port. Oh well, shirvani is a clown and needs to go, we're stuck with port.
Oh, come now, i'm not that bad am I?
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Is that who I think it is?
If you read the police report, yes it is who you think it is.
And I've been getting emails from him upset that his name was disclosed in the police report. Not my problem though. It's a public record. I posted it exactly as I got it from the state patrol.
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The NCAA agreed to a date, and those idiots in Bismarck can't be there?? Al Carlson you make me sick.
Well, there's this little thing called the legislative session going on which is constrained to 80 days by the state constitution. Carlson is the House Majority Leader. He can't exactly jet off to Grand Forks.
But Grant Shaft just said on the Scott Hennen Show that they've moved the meeting to Bismarck to accommodate the legislators. So all is good.
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So here are the cliff notes:
1. You show up out of nowhere and have attempted to wrap your issue (privatize North Dakota colleges) into the intense dislike of the state board (which on these boards is mostly driven by their mishandling of the nickname).
2. You continually link to your blog over and over.
3. You lead everyone to believe that North Dakota taxpayers are funding $1.2 billion for higher education.
4. I ask you to source it, you link to your blog who quotes a politician.
5. I ask for a better source, you give me the governor's budget.
6. I read it and find that the actual North Dakota taxpayers are funding about half of the $1.2 billion.
7. You then tell me it's complicated, but give me another link which shows the budget to be $1.1 billion, of which only 29% is supported by North Dakota taxes.
8. You claim that tuition, fees and room/board are a form of taxation (I guess that's what you are saying) and should be included in the $1.2 billion figure.
9. You get mad when I point out you sure post your link back to your blog a lot.
I certainly could be wrong, but my guess is your readers will quickly realize that the "numbers" you like to cite are a little too "complicated" for their tastes.
By the way, I like the nickname, am conservative, and I hope the legislature ends up trumping the state board. As a reader of many other blogs, it's fair to say I won't be adding yours. Don't fret, as you have pointed out, it's a little too advanced for me...you should rely on more sophisticated readers.
Now, I'm going to go watch the Sioux kick some Pioneer ass!
I pointed out, accurately, that the universities have a budget of roughly $1.2 billion. This is what Rep. Dosch pointed out as well. Now, the last I checked, the universities existed to serve the people of North Dakota. That's why they were founded, and so the tuition and fees paid when you actually send your kids to the universities are a valid part of the equation.
As are the federal tax dollars we pay. Those things combined makes up the lion's share of that $1.2 billion.
I put the link to my blog in the signature because I kinda thought that's the sort of thing people do on forums. l link to my posts because I write about this stuff all the time, and my posts are in turn based on my sources. It's handy.
I hardly need the readership from this form, which gets about a fraction of the traffic SAB does. I came here because it seemed like folks were interested in this higher education issue, especially as it has manifested itself in this nickname fight.
Apparently I was wrong, and I'll bow out. Enjoy the game. I'm not even that much of a hockey fan, but I'm glad to see people waking up to the arrogance of the SBHE.
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In my experience, as an alum, the University of North Dakota has a solid reputation regionally. I have never, ever heard anyone with whom I have interacted professionally say either UND or NDSU is a mediocre school.
Right. And Pauline Kael didn't know anyone who voted for Nixon.
By the way, Mr. Port, are you on this message board to support UND or to spread your extreme conservative ideology? If its the latter, you really should stick to blogging.Yeah, I'm a conservative, and how dare I have an opinion about how our universities are run, I guess.
But why do I care about supporting UND? I'd rather see all of these schools support themselves by selling a product (education) to students (customers) who need it. I know that sort of market-driven common sense is distasteful to those in the ivory tower, but subsidized higher education is heading for a big collapse.
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100% completely agree with you here!
So it's ok to be against fiscal irresponsibility at the federal level, as long as we're not slaughtering the higher education sacred cow here in North Dakota?
C'mon. Let's have some common sense.
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You mean, like over 70% funded by non-taxpayer sources?
I don't have a blog that I can link to every other post plus my signature line, but on page 2 of the link you provide: "Approximately 29 percent of operations are supported by the state general fund. The remainder of the operations of the University System are self-supporting through tuition and fees, room and board charges paid by students, and private and federal research grant and contract collections."
Some may have been viewing your major argument as the $1.2 billion was out of the tax-payers pocket. I'm sure you weren't trying to do that, right?
Ha, so the taxpayers who pay the tuition and fees to go to the universities they own don't matter?
And are we not federal taxpayers too?
No need to get huffy with me. It's pretty clear you don't really understand the issue at hand. There are none so blind as those who will not see, and all that.
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On a side note, I see that the DPI (K-12) recommendation is for $919 million (page 41).
Let's talk about K - 12 spending for a moment. Ask yourself why we've seen a 33% increase in spending there despite a 15% decline in public school enrollment.
Another sacred cow nobody wants to slaughter.
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There we can agree.
Well, to be fair, how are going to be able to afford this exhorbitant higher ed spending after oil revenues peak and/or production falters? What if the EPA puts a moratorium on fracking?
We're going to regret spending in higher ed willy nilly.
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Look, I know you really like your own blog, but maybe you should use something else to source your arguments. And by the way? Where does US News and World Reports rank our colleges? They have been at it much, much longer than Forbes.
Well, I guess I assume that you actually read the links because all of my sources are linked in the posts. I link my posts because I write about this stuff every single day, and it's ready reference for me.
Maybe I'm giving you too much credit for wanting to inform yourself on this subject.
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Well, just a quick look at the budget, I see on page 42 the following: "The executive recommendation includes a $656.8 million state-funded higher education system budget for the 2011-13 biennium." If we really spent $1.2 billion last year on Higher Education, is the Governor proposing a $600 million cut?
On a side note, I see that the DPI (K-12) recommendation is for $919 million (page 41).
I also see on Page 40 that Higher Education constitutes 19.7% of the overall budget, in third place to Health and Human Services and Elementary and Secondary Education (29.3% and 28.7%, respectively).
I don't see the $1.2 billion that you and the good Representative speak of, but I am not an accountant and could be missing something.
You are. Here's a summary from the University System itself showing their total 2010 - 2011 operating budget as $1.133 billion.
http://www.ndus.edu/uploads/reports/32/8-2010-summary-of-2010-11-annual-budgets.pdf
Dosch's figure was based on what he is projecting to come out of this legislative session. Despite rhetoric to the contrary from the state's media and the university officials, this legislature will be increasing the budget.
Now, to be fair, some of this funding is from non-taxpayer sources. But also note that the total doesn't include hundreds of millions in capital projects that are coming out of the taxpayer's pocket.
As for K - 12, you'd expect that to be bigger. Educating what amounts to every single kid in the state vs. college enrollment means a bigger budget. As for health and human services, we have a very elderly population in ND and most of that is Medicaid and other federal programs administered by the state.
If you want to go down another dark alley, consider that roughly 41% of our state's budget is federal money. How do you think that's going to shake out as our bankrupt federal government is forced to make cuts?
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I thought you were a political commentator. Why bother if you believe the above is true?
You asked for a measurement, not an opinion.
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Its only about you when you make assertions that would to me, require first hand experience. Now, have you had experiences with the Universities that would lend any credence to the notion that they are mediocre, ie have you attended any of them and do you have a degree? Also, how would you measure the worth of the the Universities that suck up too much money?
Ha, so things like graduation rates don't matter? How about this: Forbes ranked both UND and NDSU, these supposed world-class universities, below 500 nationally.
But we never hear about these things, do we? We always hear about new buildings being built and record-breaking attendance.
By the way, my personal observations don't matter (and neither do yours) because they are mere anecdotes and not at all useful in a sound analysis based on facts.
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Hmmm...You may be right, but I'm going to have to look at this more closely. No offense, but the blog is written by you, and the Representative was responding to someone or something. Politicians like to use numbers to support their positions.
I guess when the Governor signs the budget, there should be a public copy of that...should be able to take a better look.
Here's a copy of Governor Dalrymple's 2011 - 2013 budget recommendations:
http://www.nd.gov/fiscal/docs/budget/executivebudgetsummary2011-13.pdf
You can find funding from the previous biennium, combined with the Governor's recommendations (with the legislature is acting on now) for the various aspects of higher ed in the state addressed there. That's where the $1.2 billion figure is from, and it's entirely accurate.
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Hmmm...You may be right, but I'm going to have to look at this more closely. No offense, but the blog is written by you, and the Representative was responding to someone or something. Politicians like to use numbers to support their positions.
I guess when the Governor signs the budget, there should be a public copy of that...should be able to take a better look.
It's a well known fact, not surprising at all to people who actually follow the budges and higher ed issues.
Which is a real problem with a lot of this debate in the public. The state's media doesn't dig into anything, instead relying on the higher ed bureaucrats to tell us how it is. And the picture they paint is rosy, outside of needing more money to build their empires.
But by all means, please do look into it. I don't think you'll like what you see if you look honestly.
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You may be right, and I may be ignorant, but can you source your $1 billion price tag?
Absolutely. As Rep. Mark Dosch (who sits on the Education and Environment Appropriations Committee) wrote in the Bismarck Tribune earlier this week:
The bottom line is that the Legislature has increased funding of higher ed more than $225 million (60 percent) in just the last three bienniums. In addition, the Legislature added more than $300 million in capital projects. Yet higher education officials claim they have been underfunded. The fact is, the budget for higher ed now exceeds $1.2 billion a biennium.This is total higher education appropriations. It gets a little confusing, because often when they talk about the higher education budget it's just the university system budget which doesn't always include university-specific appropriations.
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Sure sounds good on paper...must be a good idea then;)
I'm not necessarily married to merging the two bodies, though I think it would be a good idea. I'd settle for simply allowing the Governor to fire SBHE memebers when he seems it necessary.
That's why we elect these people. To make decisionsike that. And I say that as someone who is less than enamored with Dalrymple.
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Not stated by you, but several times in this thread, this idea was brought up.
Look, college isn't for everybody. Based on national averages, North Dakota has a comparable graduation rate. To think that everyone who starts out in college here in North Dakota should end up with a degree is a little like the entitlement argument you brought up earlier, in my opinion. I mean, NDSU and UND could have a 90%+ rate if that's what is wanted...the colleges would just loosen grade standards and let everyone graduate. However, dissolving the state board could help increase the graduation rate, so if that is the goal, then I would agree.
The state board, no matter how flawed, is a smaller version of government. Right now, they point the colleges in the strategic direction they think is important. The bill would return strategic control over to a much larger body of government...the legislature.
Maybe, but turning it back over to the legislature has been tried before and it failed miserably. Guaranteed if this happens the logo/nickname issue would become the least of our problems. Again, I understand your points, and I think it comes down to you think the system is broke and I think the people making the decisions are doing a poor job. As you stated, reasonable people can disagree on the solution.
The existing structure of the sbhe was put in place because of an our of control governor. At the time they saw it as a solution to protect the university from politics. What we've learned since is that the solution isn't to make higher ed isolated from the will of the people. The solution is to not elect crazy governors.
We made a huge mistake in 1930 and we should fix it now. We are a state with just 670000 people and a university system that costs well over $1 billion. It makes no sense.
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By the way, here's the structure now: ND DPI Org Chart
I think the amount of new government workers would be vastly greater than what we have now.
Just my two cents.
Not sure how you're seeing the merging of two existing departments as an expansion of government. That's a silly argument. It's a streamlining, and much needed.
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I'm not sure what your experience is with the university system as a student, maybe you could enlighten us.
However, I will say (having earned a degree from UND) that there is EVERY opportunity for a student to graduate on time. My wife finished in 3 years, whereas I took a bit more time.
The graduation rates are more reflective how students today view their time at a college or university these days than how "university bureaucrats" view their jobs.I have to chuckle at your inane attempts to turn this into something about me. I'm a political commentator, and our universities are a) mediocre and b) sucking up far more tax dollars than they're worth.
We have a national problem with higher education. The cost is inflated even as the degrees are devalued. We're heading to a day of reckoning. Our out of control local higher ed bureaucrats are simply accelerating it here.
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Our system of higher ed is overbuilt but good luck getting that fixed, a few colleges are basically entirely redundant and only remain open so a few towns don't suffer an economic impact. Most of the schools in the state are very efficient, especially NDSU but we have a few too many. That is the problem.
NDSU has to compete with those schools from other states, the funding they get definitely has some meaning. No two schools are the same but you can't stick your head in the sand and act like what other states are doing doesn't matter.
The only thing that should matter is NDSU's performance. Is the school attracting students, and are those students being educated. Now, in 2008 ND taxpayers spent roughly $71 million on tuition waivers for out-of-state students. If we're having to give the product away for free, there's a problem.
Second, let's keep in mind that the four-year graduation rate at NDSU is just 19% (UND ain't much better at 22%). That's abysmal, and it doesn't get much better after even six years when it goes up to just 53% (56% for UND).
This, again, speaks the mentality of the university bureaucrats which is build lots and lots of buildings and herd students into them with little regard for outcomes. And we've seen little improvement in these numbers despite pouring a windfall in appropriations onto the universities.
We can agree or disagree about what the appropriate level of funding for these universities is, but it's clear that the money they're getting now isn't being spent appropriately. Mostly because the higher education folks aren't accountable to anyone.
Kennedy vs. Engelstad Foundation: GF herald feature
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I don't think it's just that they may have wanted it to be public. I've made a lot of public records requests to UND over the years, usually working with Peter Johnson. He's always done a fine job by me. And I say that as someone who has no problem being critical of the universities.