Could the Claremont Colleges eventually become one large research university?

xiggi · July 3, 2014, 2:29am

Really?

The lifestyle of tenured faculty could be leisurely, but you don’t know too much if you think untenured faculty lead leisurely lifestyles.

@xiggi‌: the assumption was made because you did not differentiate between the lifestyles of the tenured and non-tenured faculty. You say you know <<<

Did I ever mention tenure in my original post? What do you call debating a point that was never made but you had to introduce for reasons I consider irrelevant?

Stop calling people ignorant and start reading a bit more critically!

intparent · July 3, 2014, 2:39am

They barely get along sometimes now (kinda like the original founders of the Hogwarts houses, I think). If they weren’t in such close physical proximity, I wonder if they would still be in the Consortium. Honestly, I don’t buy that they would gain that much from merging. They have a lot of shared services now. Library, bookstore, health service, gym, software used by all students for campus-related into, etc. And I think they share services you don’t see – I noticed that my daughter’s paycheck for her summer research position on one of the campuses seemed to come from a pooled financial office. When the campus is on break, typically only one cafeteria across all campuses stays open. They coordinate some things like campus breaks and exam schedules to make it easy for students to take classes across the colleges.

If they merged, they would lose some of their unique personalities as schools, which I think would be detrimental to admissions. And they like their autonomy now. I think the consortium has a very powerful sales pitch now – benefits of a small LAC with a specific personality, with the course catalog and social options of a 5000 student college. I don’t see them merging, although more shared services could be a money saver. Not sure about maintenance and groundskeeping staff, for example.

PurpleTitan · July 3, 2014, 2:45am

@xiggi:

I’m saying you should have mentioned tenure. Not differentiating between tenured and untenured profs when saying their lifestyle is “leisurely” does show ignorance. Asserting that not differentiating between tenured and untenured profs when saying their lifestyle is “leisurely” is irrelevant not only shows ignorance but wrong-headedness.

I’m sorry if calling a spade a spade makes you uncomfortable, but I don’t suffer fools well. Especially when they never acknowledge that they may have been careless with their words and persist in making a fool of themselves.

I also love how you just ignore questions that make you uncomfortable.

So I’ll ask again:
A tenure-track professor can have zero teaching responsibilities at all and not have a leisurely life in the least. Do you not understand that? Do you not understand that the first and foremost responsibility of a tenure-track professor at a research university is producing publishable research? Are you trying to argue that you can produce enough research while living a leisurely lifestyle? Are you trying to argue that any job which is not teaching undergrads is by definition “leisurely”?

intparent · July 3, 2014, 2:51am

Wow… you go where angels fear to tread if you are calling @xiggi a fool. He will eat you for lunch. :)

nostalgicwisdom · July 3, 2014, 2:56am

As a student who goes to Pomona, a big reason I applied was because I liked the inherent contradiction of the Claremont Colleges. At any of the 5 colleges, you get a full liberal arts college education- a model which I think was perfect for my personal needs- but the addition of the colleges gives you the resources attributed to a mid-sized university. There is no consortium of schools in the country with that sort of nature.

As several have already pointed out, there are blurred lines of identity already at the colleges. One can exchange housing intercollegiately, the academic curriculum is combined, the dining halls at any college take any ID from the other college, and several prominent features like a library and health services are centrally located and meant for students of all the colleges. All of the schools prominently represent each other on their websites and admission materials, so there’s more of a connection than other college consortia. In a 5C event (which most are), you can’t readily distinguish one student as being from such and such school.

But the Claremont Colleges are so incredibly different from each other! Sure, they attract academic superstars, and they’re all selective, but the admission offices seek to invite very different types of people. Pomona attracts people from all backgrounds and heavily recruits low income, international, and underrepresented minority students. CMC places a priority on demonstrated leadership- and lacking that can ensure even a rejection, even if you’re a flawless applicant in everything else. Harvey Mudd and Pomona both attract strong science students, but the methodology at both schools is very different- at Harvey Mudd you’re expected to continue in the sciences while taking a very specific curriculum of humanities, while at Pomona you can do a complete 360 from what you came in wanting to do thanks to the flexible curriculum. Pitzer attracts students who want to make a difference in their communities- and again, the fact that it is so selective means that it will prioritize that over academic superstars. Scripps and the women’s college exist for a unique reason that attracts women to apply to them- combining the schools would get rid of that uniqueness.

Harvey Mudd College makes an excellent point on its website regarding this:

"Why not just make The Claremont Colleges one university?

There are many reasons we could give: our values and philosophies; our traditions and practices; our independence and individual identity; and more. Probably the most compelling reason is a desire to continue to shower the undergraduate students with the attention of our professors and to offer a more diverse and deeper blend of courses than could happen if we were governed under one umbrella. A simple cost-benefit analysis would suggest that, by combining, The Claremont Colleges would be giving up far more than they stood to gain."

The diverse and deeper blend of courses may seem like a false attribution, but it’s actually true. For instance, Pomona’s and CMC’s economics departments are very different from each other, even though they offer similar courses. Harvey Mudd and Scripps have different models for a math major and different classes offered. Combining the schools would mean having a “one-department-fits-all” sort of issue, which would not fit in with the differences among students.

Lastly, our graduate schools are not as stellar as the undergraduate schools, so combining them would bring down the quality of the Claremont Colleges.

PurpleTitan · July 3, 2014, 2:56am

Well . . . . I have been considered pretty tasty . . . . (;

dyiu13 · July 3, 2014, 3:43am

This is an interesting discussion. Do the colleges already share certain back-office operations and things like food service management between them for economies of scale?

intparent · July 3, 2014, 3:50am

They share common paycheck processing, as I mentioned above. The Sakai website for grades and things like that is shared. I am not sure if the same food service handles all the cafeterias, someone who attends might know. I wouldn’t be surprised if they do, but they offer variety in food choices across the campuses (for example, real fruit smoothies at Pitzer, can’t get 'em at Mudd). I think they definitely look to share services, it is more economical for them. They also share most sports teams across some of the colleges (thus paying one set of coaches for a given sport).

nostalgicwisdom · July 3, 2014, 4:04am

Intparent- I don’t think they do. The person who got her paycheck from another school was probably getting funded through them. For instance, if a Pitzer student does a job at Pomona, they get their check from Pomona. The business offices and accounts are different at each school. Pomona at least has its own business office and human resources.

The food services are also independently contracted at each school. Sodexo and Bon Apetit at Scripps/Pitzer/CMC/Mudd, and Pomona’s is self-run.

The only uniting force for the schools is the Claremont University services, which includes the library, the book store, health center, joint cultural centers like Chicano Latino Students and Office of Black Student Affairs, and campus security. Even though athletic facilities are shared among schools of the same team, Pomona and Pitzer have their own gyms, and students would seldom travel down to go visit the other’s gym.

S2Stan · July 3, 2014, 7:00am

@nostalgicwisdom‌ Thank you for your explanation. I think that a way to keep the admission process similar would be having a collegiate system (Oxbridge). While you would get a degree from this hypothetical “Claremont University”, students would apply to either:
Harvey Mudd College
Pomona College
Claremont McKenna College
Scripps College
Pitzer College

Each college would carry on with the tradition of its predecessor (Harvey Mudd nerdy, Claremont McKenna leaders, etc…). Also, by applying to a single college, the admission commitee will be able to see if you actually fit their student profile. Therefore this different cultures will not be a problem

Classes will not necessarely need to be cut, if there are enough students interested.

I am aware that the graduate schools arent as good as the claremont colleges, but with 3.5 billion dollars they would certainly have the money to improve them!

ucbalumnus · July 3, 2014, 7:16am

What practical benefits to the schools and students would such a merger give?

As far as service sharing goes, wouldn’t that be possible with or without a full merger?

warblersrule · July 3, 2014, 7:24am

Incorrect assumption.

Departments typically get a high rank due to their faculty members, which are measured by their scholarly output and contributions. Relatively few LACs have a majority of faculty members that produce prodigious amounts of highly influential research. As Xiggi notes, a high level of attention to undergraduates rarely exists in combination with a high level of scholarly output – most professors (and institutions) prioritize either teaching/advising or research. Dedication to teaching, of course, is one of the major draws of a LAC.

The Claremonts have many fine qualities – small classes, attention to undergraduates, undergraduate research opportunities, nice facilities, and so on. To suggest that you’d somehow suddenly get departments ranked in the top 10 alongside research powerhouses like Chicago or Penn by combining the five colleges, however, is absurd. In order to do so, the colleges would have to completely change their philosophy and quite possibly overhaul the entire faculty roster, something it would be very difficult to do. (Needless to say, I doubt this would go over well with either students or professors.) Even USC - hiring as many prestigious professors as it can wheedle, buy, and steal from other top universities - has found it difficult to overhaul its faculty quickly and break into the upper echelons of rankings of most academic disciplines outside the arts.

Note that undergraduate-heavy universities like Dartmouth and Wake Forest fare poorly in most academic rankings.

circuitrider · July 3, 2014, 8:17am

@warblersrule‌

That’s an odd statement because the only poll of which I am aware that actually counts faculty research as an output is the Washington Monthly poll which has few CC forum adherents. The USNews poll does not. A spot at or near Dartmouth’s would not be out of the question for a 6000 u/g university with Claremont’ s spending per student and selectivity.

warblersrule · July 3, 2014, 9:03am

circuit, my post responded to the “top 10 programs” assertion. It is patently obvious I was referring to department rankings, not the usual riffraff of undergraduate rankings. Perhaps I should clarify that explicitly before someone runs to the hills and returns brandishing the PhD productivity rankings!

Name a departmental or program ranking - the NRC rankings, AWRU, THES, Philosophical Gourmet, what have you - and research output will almost certainly be a major component of the ranking. In some cases, like USNWR’s rankings based purely on peer assessment, they are almost entirely based on faculty quality and research output.

To use USNWR, Dartmouth’s departmental rankings in engineering (#55), biology (#38), chemistry (#71), computer science (#40), geology (#60), math (#52), physics (#70), and psychology (#46) are not exactly top 10 quality. Why would a Claremont conglomerate fare any better? It is indeed very likely that it would fall “at or near” Dartmouth in such rankings.

S2Stan · July 3, 2014, 9:14am

“A spot at or near Dartmouth’s would not be out of the question for a 6000 u/g university with Claremont’ s spending per student and selectivity.”. I totally agree. Also, compared to peer institutions this Claremont university will be good across the board and not only in specialized departments.

If research opportunities are needed, the university could start a co-registering program with Caltech, 15 miles away. And, seriously, this would be mutually beneficial. Caltech offers world class engineering and pure sciences, just like Harvey Mudd, and similarly it has very small classes. With Caltech you would get a lot of new departments:
-Biology and Biological Engineering
-Chemistry and Chemical Engineering
-Chemical Engineering
-Biomolecular
-Environmental
-Process systems
-Materials
-Bacterium
-Chemistry
-Biochemistry and Molecular Biophysics
-Inorganic Chemistry
-Organic Chemistry
-Engineering & Applied Science
-Applied and Computational Mathematics
-Applied Physics
-Computer Science
-Electrical Engineering
-Engineering & Applied Science
-Computational and Neural Systems
-Environmental Science
-Materials Science
-Mechanical Engineering
-Geological & Planetary Sciences
-Geobiology
-Geochemistry
-Geology
-Geophysics
-Planetary Science
(Do I need to say that they are all top notch? lol)

Caltech also has the name recognition compared to the claremont colleges (yes I know, prospective will know both…) and has a global reach. However Caltech has always been considered a little bit less prestigious than Stanford, MIT, Harvard, Princeton and Yale (We usually say HYPSM instead of HYPSMC). In fact, their humanities departments are a bit lacking. But what if Pomona, Claremont McKenna, Scripps and Pitzer could be used as Caltech humanity department? They would certainly be considered on the same level as HYPSM! They would have a range of majors equal to Harvard, Sciences on par with MIT, Stanford’s climate, Yale’s humanities and Princeton’s undergrad focus!

And also, Caltech would provide grad schools.

Food for thought!

warblersrule · July 3, 2014, 9:57am

S2Stan, the Claremonts are already amazing colleges. They’re already highly selective, provide top-notch educations, and have great placement records. It is really best to leave it at that and let them do what they do best. Admittedly, I realize that from a high school perspective it can be difficult to parse the distinctions between LACs and universities.

The universities you mention (except MIT) have extraordinary breadth and depth in the humanities and social sciences that the Claremonts cannot and do not offer. For one, you are unlikely to find Assyriology, Inner Asian Studies, Celtic Studies, Folklore, Medieval Studies, or similarly obscure departments at a liberal arts college, and multiplying the number of colleges involved does not alter that. These programs aside (many universities do not have them either), even many of the more run of the mill disciplines would not quite measure up to the preexisting powerhouses – which doesn’t really matter in the slightest. As LACs, the focus is primarily on teaching undergraduates and/or preparing them for graduate school, and they do a terrific job of that.

To put things in a numerical perspective, all the Claremont institutions combined (including graduate colleges) spent $25.6 million on R&D expenditures last year. Princeton - similarly sized and with no medical school - spent $275.7 million. Subtracting medical school expenditures leaves Dartmouth in between with approximately $72 million. To use a humanities example, the Claremonts combined offer 12 languages – again, dwarfed by universities like Harvard (80+) but on par with a more LAC-like university like Dartmouth.

Your proposal is an interesting flight of fancy, but there’s nothing in the slightest to be gained from such an undertaking. The Claremont colleges are already virtually unique in their comfortable arrangement (only the 5 Colleges, the Quaker schools, and perhaps a couple others are nearly as interlinked), and there’s little need to rock the boat. For those who want an undergraduate focus with the wider focus of a university, options like Dartmouth, Wake, Tufts, Brandeis, and the like already exist.

circuitrider · July 3, 2014, 10:57am

@warblersrule‌

Nevertheless, the same publication has it listed as a top ten National University. Any idea how that happened?

intparent · July 3, 2014, 10:59am

I thought so, too, but this is my own kid’s paycheck that was mailed to our house last weekend for summer research. She asked me to deposit it in her bank account, and I noticed that it was from a “Claremont Colleges” account that appeared to cross college boundaries. She is a Mudd student researching on Mudd campus with a Mudd professor. The check is gone, but I will look again when the next one comes.

@ucbaalumnus, why couldn’t they service share? They do it now with some functions. Other colleges located close together do the same – an example would be St. Olaf and Carleton, located near each other in Northfield. I can’t see any reason they couldn’t, unless they didn’t want to share some things. And they don’t want to share some things. I can see, for example, why they want a Mudd student doing Mudd tours. And a Pomona student doing Pomona tour, etc. I wish I could remember the details of the presentation we saw at orientation that included historical info on the consortium. I was surprised that they were quite open about some of the conflicts between the colleges and the push & pull that still goes on today.

Honestly, if they were part of one bigger college, I don’t know if my student would have visited. it would be hard to retain the “small college” feel each of them has now if you merged them. When my D was at orientation at Mudd, Mudd’s president sought her out because she had gotten photos of all incoming freshman and memorized them so she could match faces with names. But about half a dozen photos didn’t get to her, somehow my D’s was one of them. So she sought out my D at orientation (watched for her nametag) and introduced herself. Don’t think that is going to happen at a 5,000 student college with one president.

ucbalumnus · July 3, 2014, 3:19pm

I am not saying that they cannot share services. Indeed, sharing services as a motivation for a merger does not seem like much of a motivation, since they can do that already in the current arrangement.

intparent · July 3, 2014, 6:55pm

Yes. I honestly think they have the best of all worlds with their current arrangement. It is unique (yes, there are other consortiums, but not with the same proximity and number of colleges). I don’t think it would be to their benefit to merge.

One thing no one has mentioned is that a pretty wide range of student abilities can find a good fit at Claremont. The ranges from the lowest 25% to top 75% across the five colleges is about:

CR - 600 - 770
M - 580 - 800

This would be harder to maintain with a combined admissions & graduation requirements pool, I would think.

Could the Claremont Colleges eventually become one large research university?

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