The Middle States Petition

Hello again, everyone.

Here at TBK we are all incredibly impressed with your response to our petition so far. Not only are you becoming more aware of the perils we face at the loss of our accreditation each day, but hundreds of you have rallied to our cause by adding your signatures to our list.

Our ultimate goal was to get 1,000 names on our petition; given the near-unanimous response from everyone we've talked to, we have decided to up the ante and shoot for 1,400 signatures, 10% of Kean's student body. With numbers like that, the Administration and Board of Trustees will have no choice but to listen to the voice of Kean's students.


Over the last few days we've taken note of the questions you all have asked us about the petition, and I think it's pertinent that we take the time to address some of them here on the blog. So, without further suspense, here is the Middle-States FAQ!

Frequently Asked Questions about the Middle States Petition:


1) How is this petition going to save Kean's Accreditation?

The truth is simple:  It can't.  Only the Administration can save Kean's accreditation; the purpose of this petition is to show middles states that, first, Kean's students are neither stupid enough to deserve their accreditation being snatched away and, second, that Kean's students are in fact aware of this situation despite the Administration's attempt to keep it quiet.


The idea is that, since the Administration won't listen to their Student Body, it is more likely that Middle States will, and that the Administration will in turn listen to Middle States.


2) Some of us like Adjunct Professors... Why do we need to decrease their numbers on campus?


Our petition does not actually suggest that we decrease the number of Adjuncts on campus.  We all recognize that, because of the size of our University, Adjuncts are a necessity in our modern economic climate; what we also recognize is that Middle States suggests a maximum of 40% Adjuncts on a campus and Kean's full-time faculty number less than 40%.  The best solution, we think, is to hire those Adjuncts who truly deserve tenure as full-time professors.  TBK would never suggest reducing the number of professors on our campus--to the contrary, we want more, and we want them to be tenured.


3) Where do we get our information?


All of our information comes from documents released by Kean University (many of which are on the Kean.edu website, some of which have been acquired through Open Public Records Act requests), interviews with Kean faculty, interviews with Student Org officers and representatives, and articles that have been published in newspapers or online through reputable sources.  We link to EVERYTHING that we can here on our site, and frequently give you the opportunity to view documents right from our Blog without having to travel elsewhere.  If you want more info, read up:  you've got months worth of TBK reporting right at your fingertips!


4) What did Kean offer Student Org in exchange for their transition into a Department?


As far as we can tell, The administration offered SO the use of their copying and printing services at no cost, as well as the use of their Media and Publications department.  The thought was that the cost reduction created by utilizing free office-services would allow SO to allocate more funding to students...  That much is certain.


The rest of the deal still remains somewhat shrouded.  Student Org signed away a lot of its power when it became a department, and has certainly lost any latitude it once had in putting items to vote.  Why the officers agreed to this is uncertain, but our guess is that they were newly-placed in their offices and therefore unaware of what, exactly, they were doing.  The Administration could not get SO to vote, initially, on becoming a department, and so they pushed for the next best thing:  They compromised, allowing the Org to remain independent for one more year, and then forcing them to vote on the topic of Departmentalization after the next round of elections.  Was it really a compromise?  Or a quick bait-and-snatch trick?  We can't tell you--but we'll sure as hell give you our opinion.


This ends the FAQ on our Middle-States Petition... if you have any additional questions, feel free to come to our meetings at 3PM in the Grand Study Hall (3rd Floor Library) on Wednesday afternoons, or email us at takebackkean@gmail.com.

Until next time,
Keep on Signing, Kean University!

Ever Wonder Where Student Org Came From?

Interested in Learning About Your University?

Have you ever heard of the compliment sandwich?  It's when you take criticism and sandwich it nicely between a complement and a jovial approach to fixing the problem.  Since Kean took down some of the documents we've linked to in other posts, here's what I'm going to term the Kean Compliment Sandwich Document.

Here's some of the meat—their words, not mine.  Let's call it the TBK Top-10: 

1:  The allocation of resources is not linked to formal planning and assessment processes

2:  Debt per student is $35,645, about 2.8 times the median for A3 rated institutions

3:  The University functions without a University-wide assessment plan

4:  There are significant problems in the dissemination of information from the administration, President, and Vice Presidents to faculty and staff

5: The administration has usurped the role of the faculty in academic program maintenance

6:  Lack in diversity of executive staff

7:  No formal written criteria for tenure or promotion and apparently arbitrary processes as a result

8:  The Office of Financial Aid does not recognize its role in increasing the graduation rates of students

9:  The burdens placed on faculty that impede their professional development have become unsustainable even though increased teaching loads have been met by substantially increasing the adjunct/faculty ratio during the past five years

10: Advisement practices do not provide students the guidance they desire either about degree completion or career development:  Too often students unknowingly complete courses out of sequence due to lack of explanation and knowledge


(Read the Report Here)

Coming Soon: Kean might be trying to keep Student Org under-the-covers...

Why do we say this?  Certainly SO has a prominent face on campus, but reference to it is lacking as far as reports to the Middle States Board of Accreditation are concerned.  In fact, the Organization is not mentioned at all in the Self-Study Report that we've been telling you about for the past few months!

We think the reason has something to do with a little known plan to further reduce our student government.  SO already lost its independence from the Administration but, if this happens the way it looks like its going to, SO will be little more than a funded group like, say, Crusaders for Christ, or the Asian Culture Club.

We think the school purposefully neglected to mention Student Org so that, once the next step of the transition is complete, it won't stand out as an issue in discussions pertaining to the renewal of Kean's accreditation.

Also, here's some food for thought:  A week or so ago we told you that our fees, in total, have increased 148.9%.  Well, as it turns out, our Student Activities Fee (the fee that contributes to funding Student Org and, through them, Student Groups) has remained constant at $63.75 since 2001.  That means that it is one of the smallest fees we pay each semester.  What does that say about how Kean views its Students?




More to come soon...

Historic Summit Brings Together Student Leaders From Nine Public Universities; New Organization Formed to Represent New Jersey College Students

New Brunswick, NJ – On Feb 5 at the Rutgers University campus, student leaders from nine of New Jersey’s public universities met and formed New Jersey United Students (NJUS).  The new organization developed a mission statement and a vision for addressing funding cuts and tuition hikes in the public university system.

The NJUS mission statement reads, “We the students of NJ higher education institutions gather to form NJUS with the purpose of advocating, representing and educating all past, present, and future students of New Jersey colleges and universities.”

NJUS will work to promote the importance of higher education among all populations in the state and avert further decreases in public funding that will be detrimental to future generations.

“The state of higher education is in crisis right now.  With more state money being allocated to incarceration than education, many opportunities for the State of New Jersey are being lost,” said John Aspray, a Rutgers University student who helped bring the coalition together.

Members also launched a campaign to promote awareness among school administrators, students, and legislators leading up to a statewide Day of Action on April 13 at universities across the state.  The Day of Action will demonstrate to elected officials that students are not apathetic towards decreases in higher education funding and that they desire and deserve a stronger voice in Trenton.

In preparation for the April 13 Day of Action, NJUS will work to foster solidarity amongst student populations on the issue of higher education funding.  Students will get involved directly by attending and testifying at the New Jersey state budget hearings in March.

Representatives from New Jersey City University, Ramapo College, Rowan University, Rutgers-New Brunswick, Rutgers-Newark, The College of New Jersey, William Paterson University, Kean University, and the New Jersey Institute of Technology were on hand for the formation of the coalition.  NJUS intends to include the state’s other public universities in the immediate future.

(Courtesy of NJUS)

Ticked off by Time Sheets: The Star Ledger takes interest in Kean

Hey everybody,

Check out this article that the Star Ledger ran this past Sunday:  Ticked off by Time Sheets.
Also, information is available here:  NJ Newsroom, Inside Higher Education, The Chronicle

It's about the new rule the Administration has imposed upon professors—they must now fill out a time sheet to track the hours that they work each week.  Having talked to professors about the new rule, I can tell you that, as a whole, they feel demeaned by it.

Professors work incredibly hard to prepare us for the real world, whether we plan to enter it as teachers, scientists, mathematicians, journalists, or what-have-you.  Their goal is to share with us the enormous amount of experience and knowledge they have accrued from their time spent in the field and as it turns out, most of them put in more than 50 hours each week.  A good teacher does not leave his work in the classroom—rather, it follows him around wherever he goes.  Preparing for class, writing up assignments and exams, examining texts, and grading students' work are all tasks that get done off the books, so to speak.

If the University thinks our instructors are not putting in enough time, then it is not just an insult to them, but also to us as students:  it means that they believe we are not getting the education that we deserve.  Furthermore, that the school has decided to require teachers to fill timesheets rather than judge performance based on how we feel about our instructors (remember those surveys we fill out every semester before finals week?), is an insult to our intelligence.

We are the consumer, and we should make the judgement.  I know that my teachers, regardless of whether they put in 80 hours a week or 25, are educating me well.  How do you feel about yours?

If you have any thoughts or comments, email the author, Kelly Heyboer, at kheyboer@starledger.com.

Student Non-Tuition Fees Increase 148% since Fall 2001!

We've brought up before the fact that Kean adds on fees like Capital Debt Service and Maintenance to our tuition bill, and that they often pay for things that we, as students, don't feel acutely responsible for.  We did not cause the school to overspend by millions each year we've attended, and the debt seems disproportionate—at least to the TBK crew—to the amount of improvements we've seen on campus.  Sure, we've got the STEM building and the Library addition, but what about the renovations to Hutchinson?  Is there really a need for it?  Will it be worth what we're paying?  The faculty who are being displaced by the overhaul don't think their offices need improvement, and no one I've come across so far thinks the classrooms need more than whiteboards and Credenzas.

In other news, Kean has recently decided to privatize maintenance services.  This means that they'll be turning to private contractors rather than posting bids in an open market, and we think it's an interesting coincidence that this is happening at the start of a new round of unnecessary renovation.  The idea is that this switch-over will reduce costs for Kean, but the rumor is circulating that someone higher-up is getting kick-backs.  Granted, these are just rumors—but we're good at doing research, and we'll get back to you if we find anything.

Last but not least:  Here's what we got your attention with in the beginning of this post, and what becomes most relevant now:  The way the University pays for all this renovation (aside from, of course, racking up debt):

In-State Undergraduates
total cost increase since 2001:     91.67%
total tuition increase since 2001:   70.96%
total fee increase since 2001:      148.9%

Out-Of-State Undergraduates 

total cost increase since 2001:     118.8%

total tuition increase since 2001:  111.6%

total fee increase since 2001:      148.9%