Is Capella a Black College?

Unfortunately, the issue does not only focus on lowered standards of admission but on a lowering of the academic criteria and levels of academic performance required for graduation. There is no doubt that this occurs in many public schools as well as in certain universities. Many teachers and faculty bend over backwards to ensure that certain students get through their courses in order to avoid being labeled a racist.

Anecdotically, I recall taking an online graduate course at a major distance learning doctoral program and found that a sizable number of students could not write a coherent sentence. When the professor attempted to hold these students accountable for their substandard academic work one student developed a "poll" and inquired of the other students whether the professor was attuned to minority students. Quite frankly a number of these students should have not been allowed to progress in their doctoral programs based on their inadequate academic competencies. However, fearful faculty and perhaps the school's "liberal" academic performance policy allowed them to continue. This experience was a turn off considering the fact that this student was attempting to intimidate and bully the professor. In addition, I questioned why I was expected to pay $4,000 to be in an online doctoral level classroom with a number of students who were functioning academically at a high school level, if that. Most significantly was the implied message that one's ethnicity could possibly be a major factor in whether one would graduate from this program.

The bottomline is that such experiences result in stereotypical generalities and misperceptions and reduce the positive academic accomplishments of individuals from diverse ethnic groups who truly have displayed academic excellence. So, as long as special admissions and criteria for graduation are held for certain individuals and not others, resentment and lack of credibility regarding certain graduates of these programs will continue.

 

BS

"Because some schools that target a minority will only accept minority group. And there is nothing wrong with that but I was not sure about Capella."


There certainly is something wrong with that, it is illegal, immoral, and pandering to special interests. People should be judged on their merit and not the shade or sexual preference or location of first breath.

 

BS

"Because some schools that target a minority will only accept minority group. And there is nothing wrong with that but I was not sure about Capella."


There certainly is something wrong with that, it is illegal, immoral, and pandering to special interests. People should be judged on their merit and not the shade or sexual preference or location of first breath.

 

Re: BS

There certainly is something wrong with that, it is illegal, immoral, and pandering to special interests. People should be judged on their merit and not the shade or sexual preference or location of first breath. [/B][/QUOTE]

In fact, in areas of our lives as work and school certain affirmative action policies do provide preferential treatment to minority job applicants and to students seeking admission into competititve educational programs. Although such policies had a reason for being when first proposed due to years of discrimination, there appears to be a point when such preferential interventions result in resentment, feelings of unfairness as well as questioning the job skills and academic competency of individuals who are the beneficiaries of these programs.

I noted in a previous post the disproportionate level of success of many Jewish individuals in relation to educational and professional accomplishments (btw, they are true minorites numbering less than six million in the US). Hopefully in the near future more individuals belonging to minority groups will understand that insisting on preferential admission and grading standards or schools that cater to their ethnicity will most likely not change commonly held perceptions that there are credibility gaps in the academic performance standards relating to their degree attainments.

 

Three points and a comment.

First, in a state-supported institution I fell that the major metrics utilized for admission decisions (GPA, ACT-SAT) should be used solely for the purpose of determining whether an admission candidate is academically qualified to complete their degree program. Once that threshold is met, there is no reason not to use other factors in the admission decision. Extra-curricular activities, creating a diverse rather than an elitist campus environment, and serving ALL stakeholders that may benefit from a college education makes more sense to me.

Two, what you call preferential treatment can be considered such only if you believe that the current admission criteria is relevant and fair.

Google the correlation between the standardized college admission tests and first-year college academic performance. It's an eye opener. Never again will you look at the claims that someone that was not admitted but " was more qualified" because of a higher SAT or ACT in the same way. I have student's with 17 ACTs that consistently make Dean's List and others with 31 ACT's that pray every semester for the one B- that will keep them from being academically dismissed. BTW, your goggle search will likely discover the fact that standardized admissions tests were developed specifically to discriminate against Jews. In the early part of the last century there was a sense that with the "merit-based" admissions criteria used at the time, far more Jews were admitted than the deans back then felt were acceptable. A deliberately culturally-biased admission exam fixed the problem. Interestingly, this "problem" of over-representation appears to have re-emerged with students of Asian descent in California. There's quite a few people in California that would like to find a 21st-century equivalent to the standardized admissions test to fix the "problem."

Finally, people rarely complain about legacy admissions where one receives admissions preference because their parent, grandparent, or great-great grandparent is an alum.

Legacy admissions are strongly biased toward the majority ethnicity.

Finally, I can't imagine anyone supporting a different grading criteria for minority students. I sure as heck do not take that into consideration in my grading. If that in fact is being done, I am with you in saying not only no, but HELL NO! This would set ANY student up for a subsequent, brick-wall-in-face type failure.

 

SIMON: I am glad to hear that you believe in a fair shake for all individuals. Unfortunately, this is not the case in many schools. Many faculty are scared out of their wits regarding being labeled a racist and bend over backwards to avoid such a designation.

 

I'm a minority student as well (Black), and I wish for Affirmative Action and any programs similar to end. As someone else pointed out, it has served its purpose and now it's more hindrance than helpful, especially to the people who are supposed to be helped by such programs. Too many times friends and family of mine have come across people who ASSume that they have their jobs because they are minorities. Too many times I have come across people (especially online) who are quick to dismiss a minority in a high position as only being where they are because of their minority status and Affirmative Action. That angers me more than anything, because it doesn't matter how many degrees that person has, or how intelligent and hard-working that person may be, their success is chalked up to them being of a minority race and Affirmative Action helped them.

Yes, let's end it because I'm sick of hearing that Affirmative Action is the sole reason my brethren are succeeding.

James Brown put it best in his song "I Don't Want Nobody to Give me Nothing" (Triple Negatives are his )

"I don't want nobody
To give me nothing
Open up the door
I'll get it myself."

The doors have been opened...

 

I have a really bad habit. I look upon people as humans, not distinct ethnic and religious entities. However in our ethnic-centric oriented society it is politically incorrect and ill advised to see others as just another person. One is an Italian, Black, person of color, Irish, White, Hispanic, Jew or whatever BUT NO longer a fellow human being. When applying for jobs or applying to schools we are asked to provide our ethnic background. The result? Many people believe that ethnic minorities will have a clear advantage for employment and admission to schools even though the application says otherwise.

I recall many years ago in my senior year in university I and a number of my peers applied for admission to a number of doctoral programs in Clinical Psychology. Many of us had 3.5 to 4.0 GPAs (this was an era when there was no grade escalation or social promotion) and GRE scores ranging from 550 to the 700s (back then it was mandatory to take these tests for admission into graduate school). However, due to the fact that Clinical Psychology was one of the most prestigous professions at that time, these programs sought the brightest students and admission standards were extremely high resulting in only a handful of applicants being admitted yearly. Many of us were lucky to recieve acceptance into one doctoral program no matter where it was located.

However, even with very high academic achievement NOT ONE OF THE BRIGHTEST students in my graduating class gained admission into a local Clinical Psychology Doctoral Program with one exception. A student, who happened to be black (this was the beginning of requesting one's ethnic background be listed on admission applications), with a GPA of approximately 1 (1 out of 4 which is equivalent to a "D"), and a GRE score in the three hundreds, was the only one admitted to a local Clinical Psychology doctoral program with a full scholarship! So here we were, "breaking our backs" for four to six years taking the most difficult undergraduate coursework and achieving very high grades to improve our odds of gaining admission into a local Clinical Psychology program and we were bypassed.

What an indelible experience that was for all of us. Unfortuntely, such practices continue to this day leaving many with skepticism as to whether the academic and professional achievements of ethnic minorities are meritorious or actually part of affirmative action policies.

So as I related to a workout buddy of mine, who reminded me frequently that he was a black man, there hopefully will be a time when one can look upon another solely as a "man". He mocked my responses until one day when we were driving to the gym there was a sign on a billboard from the NAACP indicating almost verbatim what I had responded to my friend regarding being related to as a man, not a black man. Lets hope that in the future the realization of the need to institute true equality and meritorious policies relating to school admissions and employment will once again be implemented as public policy. It will be healing for all of us.

 

As educated people, it appears that each poster, seeks equality for all, and a strong desire that all humans are judged by their character. Unfortunately, humanity has a long ways to go. We academics have an obligation to lead society in the path of social justice. We will not be around for the end result, say 100 years from now, but our pleasure is in being a servant for such a noble calling.

 

Simon said, "However, even with very high academic achievement NOT ONE OF THE BRIGHTEST students in my graduating class gained admission into a local Clinical Psychology Doctoral Program with one exception. A student, who happened to be black (this was the beginning of requesting one's ethnic background be listed on admission applications), with a GPA of approximately 1 (1 out of 4 which is equivalent to a "D"), and a GRE score in the three hundreds, was the only one admitted to a local Clinical Psychology doctoral program with a full scholarship! So here we were, "breaking our backs" for four to six years taking the most difficult undergraduate coursework and achieving very high grades to improve our odds of gaining admission into a local Clinical Psychology program and we were bypassed.

What an indelible experience that was for all of us. Unfortuntely, such practices continue to this day leaving many with skepticism as to whether the academic and professional achievements of ethnic minorities are meritorious or actually part of affirmative action policies. "

So Simon... this sounds like "sour grapes"....

I agree with your assessment.

 

BLACKBIRD:So Simon... this sounds like "sour grapes"....

I agree with your assessment.



SIMON: Sour grapes? Nope. A "Sour dose of reality is more like it.

 

So a minority student with a GPA of "1" got into a prestigious program in clinical psychology?? I don't believe this.

 

Believe it! The fact that this student was admitted into this doctoral program with a "1" GPA mindboggled us. We were very irate about this situation especially considering that we worked our as_ _ s off to achieve high grades in very difficult course work and this student was able to gain admission without meeting specific language requirements (back then one was required to complete three years of German or French).

In fact this situation was the beginning of a trend that continued throughout graduate school to the current time.

 

Can you substantiate that?

Abner

 

"We were very irate about this situation especially considering that we worked our as_ _ s off to achieve high grades in very difficult course work" = Sour Grapes!

 

Enough with the fabrications, Simon. You know and we know that you will not give us anything reliable to verify this because it did not happen.

 

I know that you wish to get even because I indicated that you were engaging in sour grapes rationalization. Unfortunately you are showing your lack of understanding of the appropriate application of this defense mechanism that in fact does not apply to the scenario I related.

So please review your cliff notes and get back to me with the correction.

 

I would suggest that you begin to behave appropriately on this forum and cease attempting to flame a situation of your making.

If you can't help yourself than perhaps the administrators can.

 

I reviewed my Cliff notes and found that we both have "sour grapes"... you're in denial and I'm not...

We can still be friends...

 

Nope. You engage in rationalizations aka sour grapes. I engage in processing reality!

BTW, we can definitely be friends as long as we are clear that there can be only one genius. And according to you, its me!