Texas holds firm on physics closures | Hacker News Reader

Texas holds firm on physics closures

nature.com

17 pointsukdm9 comments

This plan runs the risk of lowering the standard for graduation in order to increase the number of graduates instead of its intended purpose which is to increase the quality of the instruction/instructors.

I doubt the issue is difficulty. It's probably an issue of enrollment/retaining students in the major.

You might be right, but this quote is what leave me to believe they are talking about quality of instruction, rather than enrollment issues:

"Until now, most faculty members thought their role was to do research and teach courses they were assigned. Now, researchers at institutions in Texas are going to have to take responsibility for students graduating successfully,"

Except these days enrollment/retaining rates have a lot to do with perceived difficulty.

It sounds like Texas is doing the taxpayers a favor.

...Mario Díaz, a physicist at the University of Texas at Brownsville...says his department was able to raise more than US$5 million for research on gravitational wave astronomy from the US National Science Foundation, in part because reviewers were encouraged by the prospect of enticing minority students into science.

Now that Brownsville's physics program is kaput, maybe the NSF will be forced to send money to someone who is actually good at gravity wave astronomy?

(I'm assuming, based on the statement quoted above, that Diaz would not have gotten the grant on pure scientific merit. If this is incorrect, his claim is pointless.)

Are you familiar with his research? As much as I dislike affirmative action, I find it difficult to accept that as justification for writing off his work.

Did you read my parenthetical statement?

I don't know much about his work, and I fully realize it is possible that he might have gotten the grant even without minorities (in contradiction of the statement he made).

In that case, his statement is entirely pointless, since he would have gotten the grant with or without a physics undergrad program.

I can't believe I'm saying this but, is it constructive to be so critical in the absence of any apposite information?

if anything, google search for "gravitational wave astronomy" returns UTB CGWA as the 2nd result.

Besides, even OP states that affirmative action was only "in part" responsible for funding success.

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