In response to the many debates on ugrad quality

[greatestyen]

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The system consists of: one or two students per class to pass out, then collect scantrons; the scantrons themselves; a scantron machine (though I’m sure departments could share a machine–there’s no rush to scan these things); someone to scan the forms; and a website with the code running the HKN website.</p>

<p>We already have students that gladly volunteer to pass out and collect scantrons. Scantrons are relatively cheap, even if we got all 22,000 students to participate that’d be around $2,000 total for the scantrons (their website indicates that they’re around 10 cents a piece in bundles of 500). Any administrative secretary could scan the forms. I don’t know how much a scantron machine costs, but considering their usage on campus already, I doubt we couldn’t get by with using existing machines. Websites cost nil, and the software is free (GPL license).

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<p>Ok. All of this sounds pretty reasonable. My guess is that if it does happen, it will be because an EECS and _______ double major demands it of his or her second major department. It’s unfortunate that EECS majors are not famous for being activists.</p>

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Have quotes, do you? References? I’d like to know. If that’s the case, then I’d say it’s a trade-off, bad for undergraduate education certainly, but since Berkeley is research-oriented, I could understand the trade-off.

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<p>Let’s just say I was talking to some professors in the impacted Psychology department and they strongly implied that the reason the department decided to impact itself is because the majority of its professors wanted to teach less and, if possible, not teach at all. </p>

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How much money do they need? How much money do they get? I’m well aware that econ classes don’t have labs (what the heck would they do in a lab?). How much do their professors get paid? GSIs? Is it more costly to hire prestigious econ faculty than comparable faculty in other fields? Do you know?

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<p>I am not aware of any website where that precise information is given. The best I can do is </p>

<p><a href=“http://apo.chance.berkeley.edu/scales0506.html[/url]”>http://apo.chance.berkeley.edu/scales0506.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

<p>In general, the more technical the field, the higher the salary for professors.</p>

<p>Not so for GSIs, since they are not paid by the departments. </p>

<p><a href=“http://hrweb.berkeley.edu/pay/uawwg.htm[/url]”>http://hrweb.berkeley.edu/pay/uawwg.htm&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

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PROVE IT! You say you’re not just guessing, so show me, how are you not ignorant of the costs necessary to run these departments and their budgets?

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<p>I do not have any numbers to show you. What I DO have is the knowledge that all of the departments in question are producing outstanding, “leading” research in their respective fields. That would not be possible unless they had all the money their faculty demanded in their paychecks and then some.</p>

<p>The reason I claim Mass Comm probably doesn’t have too much money is because it’s not a department. It’s a program. “Programs” very frequently find themselves underfunded at Berkeley. </p>

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I’ll believe you if you give me some type of evidence to back your claims. I don’t know the economics department budget. I don’t know how much it costs to educate a class of students. You haven’t told me those things, either. You’ve given me some vague reasons to believe it costs less to run an economics department than it does a chemistry department.

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<p>Well then I guess you won’t be believing me, since no such data is known to me. But it should be pretty obvious that the paper, pens, and computer programs used by the Economics to think out its research inside ONE building (Evans Hall) are much less expensive than over in Chemistry where they need to use rare and expensive machines, operate about 5 gigantic buildings to keep their research going, etc. </p>

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Also, I don’t know if it makes sense to say that the economics department has the resources to be a non-impacted major. If saying that comes with a qualifier like “if they moved 20% of their research budget into their education budget”, then that effectively means, to me, that they don’t have enough money.

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<p>But let’s be realistic here. It probably doesn’t take THAT much money to do research in economics. In fact, isn’t economics research carried out by simply sitting around thinking about economics? Of course, after that, the researcher would want to sit down and write out his or her “brilliant” observations. But that’s basically “it.” Sure, some areas of economics, especially non-theoretical economics appear to depend on empirical research. But economists rarely go out and DO that research. Instead, they choose to go to the library or talk to collegues in other disciplines about their research. These activities certainly DO NOT take much (probably no) money away away from the Economics department. </p>

<p>So, if Berkeley’s Economics research doesn’t take THAT much money (if any at all…) how can you claim that we need to “shift” some of the pretty much non-existent “research budget” to the “educational budget”?</p>

<p>And I’m still puzzled by just what might be included in this Econ “educational budget.” The only thing I can think of besides copies are advisors, commencement speakers, and post-commencement reception/catering. If there are indeed money shortages in that area, I do indeed support more money for Econ.</p>