Thursday, January 27, 2011

Save Soutehrn.
Recall Jimdel.
(Timdel?)
Aw, screw it.


Gov. Bobby "Jimdel" (Timdel?) laughs. Louisiana weeps. (Then again, ma-bee nout.)

And "Soutehrn University" is soooooo screwed.

I don't know what to say about this. Explication is so superfluous right now, considering the overwhelming nature of just the unvarnished reportage.

So here you go. The latest on the proposed merger of Southern University of New Orleans and the University of New Orleans. From
The Times-Picayune . . . or is that Tha Tymze Picounne . . . or Thee Teyems Pickeyun . . . or . . . oh, screw it.



I'm really sick and tired about
graduation rates. Graduation rates
mean nothing.
Southern University was
not developed to graduate people.
-- Randolph Scott,
alumni president
HERE'S the story from the newspaper. Satire is dead:
Starting with a fiery invocation and continuing with a long line of angry speeches Wednesday, speaker after speaker voiced support for Southern University of New Orleans and condemned the proposed merger with the University of New Orleans. In the prayer that opened a town-hall meeting in a packed SUNO gymnasium, Darryl Brown, a professor of English, asked God for guidance but said: "If this merger goes through, this will be the end of SUNO. We're not going to let that happen. We are here to fight."

In a voice that rose steadily throughout his invocation, Brown concluded by saying, "We stand in vision for one goal ... to retain SUNO forever."

That set the tone for the meeting at the 52-year-old historically black university. "They want you gone. They don't want SUNO here," said W.C. Johnson, a community activist.

"SUNO," he said, "is going to be a thing of the past unless you stand up and be counted and do your share."

The rest of his comment was drowned out by long, loud cheering, which was the response most speakers received from the several hundred spectators sitting in bleachers and in folding chairs on the gym floor.

AND WHAT are folks tryeing . . .tryyng . . . treyying . . . and what due do folks want to save? This.

Several speakers Wednesday emphasized the importance of historically black colleges such as SUNO for the work they do to nurture students who are poorly prepared for college work while in high school.

One criticism of SUNO has been its low graduation rate, which most recently was 9.28 percent, according to SUNO records. The most recent number from the federal Department of Education is 5 percent.

SUNO officials contend that the federal figure undercounts the number of people who earn degrees there because it counts only full-time freshmen who finished undergraduate work at the same institution within six years.

This is not possible for many students because they have to juggle jobs and family responsibilities, several speakers said, and many return to college after years away from academics.

Anthony Jeanmarie, a 35-year-old senior, called SUNO "the only place where a 35-year-old ... who walked away from college and came back can earn a degree. If not SUNO, where?"

UH . . . Delgado Community College, for starters? And then UNO?

Louisiana: It's more doomded than you thought.

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