Improvements and Recommendations for St. John's

  Dave it is nice to be a part of this site and great job creating all things St. John's University related sub forum.
Every year or so on Redmen.com or on BEB I would create a thread asking St. John's shareholders(students, parents, alumni, season ticket holders etc.) to provide improvements, recommendations and suggestions the school should make.
Since Redmen.com is on hiatus I figured I would bring back this post and look forward to hearing from other posters. The school is definitely headed in the right direction with the addition of Steve Lavin; the buyouts to "dead wood" veteran professors/administrators Jim Pellow’s departure in my opinion are all positive signs. I do think more must be done see below:

• Move the majority if not all Tobin College of Business graduate courses to the downtown campus (SJU needs to attract more young financial professionals, the best place to do this is a few blocks from Wall Street) some classes could remain in Queens or SI but I like the Manhattan approach. Fordham does it and it works well for them

•The Tuition inflation issue –SJU’s tuition is now $33,125 per year. This is a serious burden to middle class families, I understand the school does a wonderful job in making sure 95% of its students body    gets some form of financial aid, however maybe if tuition hikes were frozen for a few years a certain % of the student body could afford the school, in 13 years when my daughter will be 18 I could see SJU being a $60,000 school, at what point is it worth sending your daughter or son there. More needs to be done, I would love Fr. Harrington have a discussion with Brendan Dugan President of St. Francis College and ask him how is able to offer a comparable undergraduate education at half the price of St. John’s. To me the recent school’s budget deficit was the result of “Let’s follow what every other preppy private school in the country is doing”. SJU is not Fairfield or BC, it has a different mission


-  Use 25% of the endowment funds immediately to help defray tuition increases as the school works on a real long term tuition solution

• Merge core departments like Math, Philosophy, Theology, English and Math in one school, there is no reason the school needs to have increased professors, and admin support for similar subjects in both St. John’s College and CPS(formerly St. Vincent’s College)

• Investigate which majors are lacking attendance, interest and alumni support and eliminate these programs.

• Please create seats with backs on both sides of CA only doing it on one side was very shortsighted

• Invest more resources into a PA program than what is currently offered(health care is still a booming field SJU needs to be a part of this change)

• Devote increased resources to the Computer Science program 

• Father Harrington(or whomever) the Next President is needs to be more accessible to students, parents and alumni, Fr. Cahill would eat his lunch in the cafeteria, he was very likable person FH will only have a conversation with you if you are spending a $1,000 a plate, this arrogant attitude needs to change

Thanks,
1985 

Seat backs on the other side is not enough. For a 35 million dollar renovation they got 35cents worth. Should have enlarged to at least 8,000 cushioned seat backed seats.

A lot of good ideas but being a TCB graduate student I don't know how I would feel having to trek to Manhattan for class every day.  The Queens campus is just so much easier to get to for many students.  It would probably be beneficial for the academic portion but the students and professors would probably not want to travel.

I love this thread. Keep it going. University administrators look at this site and with reasonable well thought out suggestions I'm sure they'd be taken under advisement.

Those interested in St. John's welfare, beyond the basketball team, might find the Dec. issue of Kiplinger's interesting. They rate private colleges, considering both academic and economic variables. The mag ranks the top fifty and the website had the top hundred. Many of our regular opponents were listed, including ND, G'town, Villanova, Providence, Marquette, Fordham and most of the Catholic schools from the West Coast Conf. Absent from the top hundred were STJ, DePaul, Niagara, as well as Hofstra and Seton Hall. While there have been some improvements at STJ, they are still far from being a solid academic institution. The survey also projects the tuition at each of the schools, absent financial aid, and it will shock some, as it averages about $50,000.

205 Tuttle I would love to get your opinion on improvements and recommendations...Thanks 1985

Those interested in St. John's welfare, beyond the basketball team, might find the Dec. issue of Kiplinger's interesting. They rate private colleges, considering both academic and economic variables. The mag ranks the top fifty and the website had the top hundred. Many of our regular opponents were listed, including ND, G'town, Villanova, Providence, Marquette, Fordham and most of the Catholic schools from the West Coast Conf. Absent from the top hundred were STJ, DePaul, Niagara, as well as Hofstra and Seton Hall. While there have been some improvements at STJ, they are still far from being a solid academic institution. The survey also projects the tuition at each of the schools, absent financial aid, and it will shock some, as it averages about $50,000.

Regarding St. John's being far from being a solid academic institution. That is simply not true as a blanket statement.  St.  John's School of Pharmacy has an excellent program as are other disciplines within The College of Allied Health Professions.

TCB has an excellent Accounting program.

In addition, the university has other solid programs which can hold their own compared with many of the aforementioned.

Does this apply to every program.? Of course not.

I wouldn't get too caught up in the various rating/ranking services/magazines as a be all and end all.

Structurally there are some things that work against St. John's. For example, St. John's has a School of Education and The College of Professional Studies which act as a drag on the university's overall SAT scores for entering freshmen.

However, both (School of Education and CPS) offer students an opportunity to prepare for a profession that is important to them.

Schools like ND, G'Town, BC and Fordham do not offer these programs on an undergrad level and there is also nothing wrong with that.

St. John's also doesn't have a Schools of Engineering, Nursing, Foreign Service, or Architecture which help the so called elite institutions improve their overall student academic profile.

St. John's is also a fairly large school. If you took the top 1200 - 1500 or so freshman at St. John's and compared them with the their peer group at Nova, PC or Fordham, I would think they would shape up very well. In addition, the Catholic colleges on the West Coast have relatively small student bodies so it's tough to compare on an apples to apples basis.

By the way, I was out in San Diego a few weeks ago and visited USD. It does have an amazing campus and will be one of my favorites in the next life!!

PC is a fine institution but I always thought of it as a back up plan for kids who didn't get into BC.

St. John's is far more financially diverse institution with a huge chunk of the student body coming from families with AGI's below $50K annually.

Typically these students are the first members of their immediate family to attend college. You will be hard pressed to find a first generation college student at many elite schools. St. John's isn't a finishing school. Many (or a majority) of the kids that enter St. John's are not the products of families of financial advantage.

Although I am an alumnus, I realize (and have for quite sometime) that St. John's is never going to be G'Town, BC, or Notre Dame  and I'm fine with that.

St. John's offers young men and women the opportunity to get a good education, make the most of NYC and it's opportunities and provide a good life for them and their families.

Also remember that recognition typically lags reality. Let's not forget that the many major capital projects and the introduction of resident students (who have higher SAT's and GPA's) than non-residents have happened within only the last 20 yrs. These dynamics will, no doubt, have a positive influence in the perception of the university as we go forward. Particularly as the university is in a position to realistically recruit students from a more geographically diverse pool of applicants.

And it certainly would help if we talked up the benefits of St. John's and what it has meant to us. . At times, I think many of us have an inferiority complex as it pertains to St. John's and we don't champion our alma mater as much as other graduates may and often do about theirs.

205 Tuttle I would love to get your opinion on improvements and recommendations...Thanks 1985

For fun, let me ask if anyone thinks that The Law School could (or should) be moved to Manhattan or S.I. to open up an academic building or a dorm for undergrads in Queens?  Would the university be better off (as it pertains to undergrads) if the Law School was somewhere else. Remember Seton Hall Law is in Newark, not South Orange and Fordham Law is located in Lincoln Center not Rose Hill. In addition, Georgetown Law is in D.C. and not on The G'Town campus.

Realize that is somewhat of an outlandish statement but what the heck always good to provoke some thought.

Which Big East school looks best on the resume?

Which Big East school looks best on the resume?

Notre Dame?  If you must play FB then I'd guess Georgetown.

ND certainly has the more loyal alumni base. Grads like to hire Domers and often do. Excellent Placement Office

One of the few schools whose alumni still wear their college rings.

If you are looking for a job in the tri-state area, a degree from ND (particularly in Accounting, Engineering, Architecture, or "the sciences") will usually get your resume a look.

Re 1985's observation re tuition at St. John's

To me the issue is the amount of scholarship money that the university can provide so that kids don't have to graduate with over $20K in debt.

St. John's is not going to use their endowment for a source of funds for scholarships.

Unfortunately, a majority of our grads either can't, could care less, or do not want to write checks to fund scholarship programs.

Just read ND is expected to award $106 million next year in scholarship awards nearly double the $60 million awarded for the 2004-05 academic year.

205,

Thanks for your insights valuable as always. I will agree to disagree on tuition, I think the school needs to be proactive and do their best to make tuition affordable, decreasing or stagnating tuition in the long term will lessen the need for financial aid and help families.

The only figure SJU provides is that 95% receive some type of aid(well what % of  the 95%  are for loans the student needs to pay back after graduation) If that % is significant and the debt burden is north of $20K, then something needs to be done.


SJU needs to go back to being an affordable option, not an expensive option like Fairfield.

Think St. Francis College but with better academics, Big East sports and more students.

I would keep SJU Law where it is for now, unless maybe the School of Risk Management in Manhattan can expand to be an SJU grad center for business, law and insurance.

The Harrington way, has been build, borrow, and leverage more from middle class families. The Cahill way was more austere and closer to the real ideals of the Vincentian mission.

I think the next President (hopefully gets on board sooner than later) can bring the likability and down to earth ways of Fr. Cahill, with the fundraising corporate professionalism of FH.

Thanks,

1985

I graduated from that PA program before SJU bought it.  It's a great program and there is little room for it to grow, as it's size is already large enough and comparable to other PA programs.  The attrition rate isn't high from the pre-PA program because it is very challenging.  Essentially it weeds out the kids that can't hack it.  Bottom line is that the acquisition of the PA program was one of the best things the school did in the last 10 years.  It is one of the hottest fields in America, and SJU is pumping out quality grads from every field in the school of Pharmacy and Allied Health.  IMO it is one f the strongest schools that SJU has and needs little change except to maybe add more healtcare fields available.

SJU should certainly do a review of the schools that a pulling down the academic standing at SJU and try to trim them or at least skim some of the lower level applicant pool.  I also read some recommending SJU start a school of Engineering and I think it is a fantastic idea if they ever did so.

MCNPA's points are well taken.

I would also add, that a School of Nursing and a School of Physical Therapy would dovetail nicely with The College of Pharmacy and Allied Health Professions.

Not only would these schools attract "good" students, but they would also prepare them for a rewarding career.

If a student and his/her family is going to be on the proverbial hook for over $20K in loans after graduation, it would be nice to know that their chances of obtaining a job in their chosen field were reasonably good .

IMO, there are 2 things that this world doesn't need more of: Italian restaurants and Psychology majors.

For what it's worth, noticed The President said today that the U.S. should graduate 10,000 American engineers every year.

For those that have suggested, in the past, (on this site as well as redmen.com) that St. John's should create a School of Engineering, the aforementioned would appear to give support to that idea.

Assume for a second that a resident student, after grants and other non-loan financial aid for tuition and room and board, needs to pay $10K per semester out of pocket. That is $80K over 4 years as we all can figure out on our own.

If someone (student and/or parents) is shelling out that kind of $$, shouldn't they be receiving a first rate education that will allow them to compete with those who attend the so-called highly competitive universities.

Realize this will never, ever happen but I would require the following courses for graduation from St. John's:

2 courses on The Great Books of the 20th Century.

4 courses on The History of Western Civilization.

An Ethics course

A course on Logic

4 Math courses (realize this would start a small riot, but this is the 21st Century. Course work could be adopted to a student's proficiency in the subject)

2 courses on The Great Religions of the World. As an aside, only about 50% of the St. John's undergrad student population identify themselves as CATHOLIC.

4 Science/Technology/Computer Science courses (see observations for math courses).

A Creative Writing courses

 A Macro Economics course

Arguably, one can take a majority of "fluff" courses that will result in an impressive GPA and a degree no one cares about, or one can follow a rigorous program of study that will enable them to successfully compete for a well paying career.

4 courses on The History of Western Civilization.

World's becomin a smaller place bre. While I dig the Renaissance and the Age of Enlightement same as the next brutha, think it would best serve kids to look at the histry of the Mid East and East Asia.

Plus African histry is severly underrepresented in schools.

Wouldn't have any objection if you wanted to knock out a Western Civ. class or two, and substitute your suggestion. It's a point well taken.