The policy debate at Mount St. Mary’s University has from the start involved more than President Simon Newman’s comparison of at-risk students to bunnies that should be drowned or killed with a Glock.
Faculty members and the provost (whom Newman has since demoted) objected to plans to give all freshmen a survey and then to use the survey to identify new students who might — in their first weeks in college — be encouraged to quit before Mount St. Mary’s would have to report them as having been enrolled and thus dropping out. The theory behind the plan was to increase the university’s retention rate.
Amid all the attention to Newman’s metaphor and his subsequent firing of two faculty members (one with tenure) for failing to show sufficient loyalty in carrying out his retention plan, relatively little discussion has focused on the questionnaire itself. It is now circulating, and faculty members at Mount St. Mary’s (speaking privately, fearing for their jobs) and outside experts (speaking publicly) say it shows just how problematic the retention program was. (The university also sent a new letter to one of the professors it fired, referring to the possibility of reconciliation, but it is unclear what would happen in the event of meetings the letter appears to propose.)