Samuel Goldman doesn't believe what I believe.

Nice story today in The Southern Illusion by Caleb Hale about Sam Goldman. I have never met him, but I hear he is one of the good guys in Carbondale. A real contributor to our town and region. I'm happily reading along in the article and thinking this guy gets it and then -

Sam is quoted - "You go to a school like Chicago, advancement is not their issue, it's the core of learning," he said. "And I think that's the reason we have a problem today. We have not taught people how to do some very fundamental thinking, and I would say one of the weaknesses current students have is their inability to conceptualize."

OK, he gets it. SIU students are treating it like a trade school. They aren't there to learn, they are jumping through hoops with as little work as possible to get sheep skin and move on.

From the article ----
"The student body has remained relatively the same. We're drawing the same percentages of students from Chicago and other places ? so it rests basically with the faculty and staff," he said. "There are people who have been there a long, long time. They have institutionalized a lot of what creates and what causes SIU to be."

In that respect, Goldman said, there is little that will knock SIU off the course it has set.
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Here is where I'm more than a little concerned. If you are on the Board of Trustees for SIU, then you darn well should be saying that there are things to improve and demanding improvement from the staff. Maybe he knows something about "the course" that SIU has set, but to me it isn't good enough. It would be easy to do better and the BOT members are the people who should be asking for improvement and not just staying the course. The bar is too low for faculty and staff at SIU. If you know Sam, please let him know that he could do better.