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Interesting. Only 3 days old so I assume this came out of the recent budget cut story.

One caveat I have with these -- don't post anonymous stories. Only post stories from those with the gumption to stand by their statements. It makes them infinitely more powerful.
 
Unfortunately they just voted to give her an extension not very long ago, so I think we're stuck with her for a while.
 
Jason Svoboda said:
Interesting. Only 3 days old so I assume this came out of the recent budget cut story.

One caveat I have with these -- don't post anonymous stories. Only post stories from those with the gumption to stand by their statements. It makes them infinitely more powerful.
Click to expand...
I think the budget cuts were sort of the straw that broke the camel's back. Really, from the people I've talked to that work at ISU, it seems her support is limited to her executive staff and 5 members of the 9 member BOT. Other than that...
 
IndyTreeFan said:
I think the budget cuts were sort of the straw that broke the camel's back. Really, from the people I've talked to that work at ISU, it seems her support is limited to her executive staff and 5 members of the 9 member BOT. Other than that...
Click to expand...

I'm curious how they justified her extension. They are trustees of the University, not the position. Has anyone seen Ball State or other comparable school enrollment numbers?

I still believe the fundamental flaw was building everything around the first gen college student. There are systematic reasons outside of both the student and school's control that will lead to poor retainment. The fact they don't sell the shit out of their Honors College and spend the majority of their time in the donut counties going after high achievers is ludicrous. Then you supplement that base with the at-risk populations.
 
Those members of the BOT that I mentioned above actually told another BOT member that because she's a woman, they will support anything she does regardless of outcomes. It's righting the wrongs of female exclusion from upper administration. Seriously, that's damn near a quote...
 

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Are you KIDDING me????? From the website already:


My main reason for sharing is not about CURTIS though. I wanted to draw attention that while she is failing us, it’s not just her. It’s all of the higher up Administration. I worked in Admissions at Indiana state for years. Last year we lost ALL of our admissions counselors. Not a single one has been there for more than a year at this point. For about 4 months we operated with one admissions counselor and then had 2 for the next couple of months. Jason Trainer the person in charge of admissions is tearing it apart. We cut down our mailers we send out and no longer care about incoming student experience, just numbers. Orientation was one of my favorite things when coming to ISU and now it’s online videos for a day.


And we wonder why enrollment is where it is? 10-20 more stories like this and the website won't just be dismissed as a few disgruntled staff/alums. It'll gain traction and could get really ugly.
 
IndyTreeFan said:
Those members of the BOT that I mentioned above actually told another BOT member that because she's a woman, they will support anything she does regardless of outcomes. It's righting the wrongs of female exclusion from upper administration. Seriously, that's damn near a quote...
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That's why we have to keep women libers and racists from positions of power. It's all around us in our federal government and schools and our whole country is being gradually taken down.
 
IndyTreeFan said:
Those members of the BOT that I mentioned above actually told another BOT member that because she's a woman, they will support anything she does regardless of outcomes. It's righting the wrongs of female exclusion from upper administration. Seriously, that's damn near a quote...
Click to expand...

Sounds like they are in violation of their duties as a trustee. Like I said, you are a trustee to the University, not to any individual. I would hope fellow trustees would have some sort of mechanisms in place to rectify this. I'll be honest, I'm ignorant in the setup and what checks and balances are in place.

I'm seeing a lot of chatter on Facebook so people are certainly fired up about the issues on campus. We'll see if it is just social media outrage or if they'll actually action it.
 
Jason Svoboda said:
I'm curious how they justified her extension. They are trustees of the University, not the position. Has anyone seen Ball State or other comparable school enrollment numbers?

I still believe the fundamental flaw was building everything around the first gen college student. There are systematic reasons outside of both the student and school's control that will lead to poor retainment. The fact they don't sell the shit out of their Honors College and spend the majority of their time in the donut counties going after high achievers is ludicrous. Then you supplement that base with the at-risk populations.
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Other than the Governor, to whom does the BoT justify their decisions? Holcomb's mother is an ISU grad as is one of his siblings - not sure that gives ISU a pass or more scrutiny...

honors college... they can sell the sh*t out of it, west lafayette, gloomington, iupuIndy, purdue-Ft Wayne, ISU-Muncee... all have honors college, not sure ISU has an advantage by also hosting one,

agree they admission office needs to target the Indy donut areas hard; an old soapbox but iupui, purdue ft wayne; isu-evansville have ALL been obstacles to ISU's growth, sustainment, improvement. Add all of the "upper level" iu regional high schools and it's not surprising ISU is struggling to find, retain students

Curtis has mentioned ISU's being typically the choice of 1st generation college student(s), Pell Grant eligible students... not sure either are marks of "at-risk" students, certainly both groups may need extra attention, support but there is, was a lot of support available IF the student's were willing to seek it
 
nationalroadmagazine.com

Two Days, Two Presidents - National Road Magazine

On two separate days, I shadowed two college presidents at Indiana State University. One impressed me tremendously, mostly by not caring one bit what I thought about him. The other one ended up not impressing me at all, for all the worst reasons. Editorial Disclaimer: The views and opinions...
nationalroadmagazine.com nationalroadmagazine.com
 

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I need some perspective. How does this effort to replace Curtis compare with the effort to replace Benjamin 15 years ago?
 
Jason Svoboda said:
nationalroadmagazine.com

Two Days, Two Presidents - National Road Magazine

On two separate days, I shadowed two college presidents at Indiana State University. One impressed me tremendously, mostly by not caring one bit what I thought about him. The other one ended up not impressing me at all, for all the worst reasons. Editorial Disclaimer: The views and opinions...
nationalroadmagazine.com nationalroadmagazine.com
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That's an interesting article.
 
CardLake49 said:
Hey IT folks, is this typical?

www.kokomotribune.com

ISU says website not intentionally blocked

A former Indiana State University student trustee critical of President Deborah Curtis and what he views as the university's "downhill slide" has created a website that was initially blocked on
www.kokomotribune.com www.kokomotribune.com
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Would depend on how strict their filters are, but having implemented several of these, there would be so many sites blocked that the administrative overhead would be impossible. I'd be willing to bet a rack on this that someone requested it blocked hoping there would be no backlash.
 
Jason Svoboda said:
Would depend on how strict their filters are, but having implemented several of these, there would be so many sites blocked that the administrative overhead would be impossible. I'd be willing to bet a rack on this that someone requested it blocked hoping there would be no backlash.
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See, that's why I asked. That was my first thought also but I have no idea how this stuff works.
 

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CardLake49 said:
See, that's why I asked. That was my first thought also but I have no idea how this stuff works.
Click to expand...

Yeah, usually the way it works is the firewall solution you implement will maintain a large database of sites categorized by type (Adult, Gambling, Known Phishing/Malicious, etc.) that you can pick/choose from to block entire categories to shift the administrative overhead left. Additionally, these services have an individual site whitelist/blacklist you can manually override for granular control for individual sites. For example, lets say they blocked the entire Sports category but whitelisted ESPN.com so that one would still be accessible.

Why I don't believe Indiana State here is this domain was registered 3 days ago. Because of the sheer number of domains out there, usually only the largest or most reported sites end up getting categorized and there can be significant lag from the time the site was reported to the service provider until they get it added -- if they add it at all. Even then, the only sort of sites that get immediately added are called "zero day" sites that fall in the Malicious type of categories.

I'd bet a large chunk of coin that an administrator found out about this site and requested it be blacklisted. Then once people found out it was blocked and started getting vocal, they pulled it from the blacklist and played stupid.

The only other plausible scenario is that the site may not have had a HTTPS cert when it first launched and that could trigger a block but I just checked the site and they have one and it says it was signed as of 2/18 so I doubt that was it.
 
I have had a few dealing with her as president, and I work with her in Illinois on the Teachers Certification Board. Our endowment has risen with her as president. Last year, over $1m was raised on Blue Day in March. She and the alumni center work closely with me in establishing a scholarship in the School of Education. The dip in enrollment, I would imagine, has a lot to do with Covid. Let's give her a chance to see if they can start to bounce back.
 
Well, nothing in the article surprises me. All the excuses, rationalizations, and other bullshit about what's happened the last few years can't hide what is in plain sight. This person -- NOT this woman -- cannot do the job. If they wanted to make at least an honest effort to bring a woman to ISU, while still actually looking for someone great -- male or female -- to lead ISU, well I'm fine with that. But hire someone great -- male ....white.....Asian American ....female .....Hispanic ......gay ......African American .......straight ..........Native American ....... Just hire someone GREAT ! Be able to really judge the real true self of the person you're interviewing. Don't be fooled by broad generalizations or other BS. Instead, we got what we've so often got over the years ...........
I'm a long way from campus, attending a few athletic events a year; but it's so painfully obvious Curtis is exactly the person she is portrayed to be in the article.
Better insight from a young writer, than from folks with lofty credentials who should have been looking for someone amazing. AMAZING ! Someone who could lead a university with 12,000 plus enrollment (at the time), who plays a major role in many aspects of the state of Indiana -- especially education, part of a highly successful mid-major athletic conference that ISU should be having continuing success in, a school that should be leading a city with tons of potential toward a much brighter future. Instead we get this ???
Decline in enrollment .....drastic decline ....shameful decline.
Crazy PR recruiting ads ---ISU is like a Private School --- Folks at IU, Purdue, DePauw, Notre Dame, Hanover.......all likely laughing their ass off.
Destruction of Homecoming. Did it have issues -- sure did. Fix them ! Don't destroy the largest event of the entire school year.
Did ISU have many areas that need improvement from sporting events to academic programs. Probably so. Like most places did we have people in various positions who were weak. Make those situations better -- new people or raise expectations of those existing people. That's her job. Instead it's worse.
I remember eating lunch at the Saratoga on Homecoming 2 - 3 years ago. Surely ISU President Curtis would be dining with other high level staff, alumni, etc. No, there she sat eating alone with I assume her husband at the table next to us. Sad. Somewhat like what you see at Hulman Center. Sitting with her husband, alone. Sad Sad Move quickly ISU. Stop the bleeding. Replace with someone AMAZING
 
Jason Svoboda said:
Yeah, usually the way it works is the firewall solution you implement will maintain a large database of sites categorized by type (Adult, Gambling, Known Phishing/Malicious, etc.) that you can pick/choose from to block entire categories to shift the administrative overhead left. Additionally, these services have an individual site whitelist/blacklist you can manually override for granular control for individual sites. For example, lets say they blocked the entire Sports category but whitelisted ESPN.com so that one would still be accessible.

Why I don't believe Indiana State here is this domain was registered 3 days ago. Because of the sheer number of domains out there, usually only the largest or most reported sites end up getting categorized and there can be significant lag from the time the site was reported to the service provider until they get it added -- if they add it at all. Even then, the only sort of sites that get immediately added are called "zero day" sites that fall in the Malicious type of categories.

I'd bet a large chunk of coin that an administrator found out about this site and requested it be blacklisted. Then once people found out it was blocked and started getting vocal, they pulled it from the blacklist and played stupid.

The only other plausible scenario is that the site may not have had a HTTPS cert when it first launched and that could trigger a block but I just checked the site and they have one and it says it was signed as of 2/18 so I doubt that was it.
Click to expand...
I understand that it was over the weekend, but does 2 days to legitimize the website sound appropriate for a university?
 
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