Is this off topic, or what? On Fri, Aug 29, 2003 at 09:09:03AM -0700, Jay Taylor wrote: > I might as well throw in my .02c... > > overall concept and mission statement of The Honor Code. However, I > cannot support this totalitarian form of implementation where the > students fear the honor code office. I have seen time and time again; > if you mess up and make a mistake at BYU, you're OUT. GONE. > Zero-Tolerance. It seems just kind of extreme in general to me, and it
Dr. Kearl once explained this phenomenon beautifully in an Econ 110
lecture. To Church members, BYU is a scarce resource. In fact, it is
*the* prestigious Mormon school in the world, period. There are other
Church-owned schools, but I think it is safe to say that BYU-Provo has
the most well-regarded academic reputation. Every member of the
Church aspires to go there to find an eternal companion and to get a
good education in a Church school environment. In addition, to help
qualified students gain a BYU education, the Church sees to it that
the tuition has a very low price ceiling. This does nothing but
increase even more the demand to get in.
Dr. Kearl explained that this is the reason why the BYU administration
can ``make the studnets jump through hoops.'' The simple fact of the
matter is, for every student that does not like the totalitarianistic
approach to administration, there are 5 people out there in the world
who would fall flat on their faces and willingly let themselves get
stepped all over just for the privilege of being at BYU. If a group
of students try to unionize, BYU can afford to expel the whole lot,
because they will be quickly and easily replaced with less toublesome
students. If any student challenges the administration (i.e., the
Honor Code office), it is very easy for them to just say, ``Fine.
You're outta here. There are plenty of students who we can bring into
this university who will not give us such a hard time anyway.''
Jason said that student apathy is one of the reasons that unionization
has not yet happened. Perhaps this is part of the reason. In my
opinion, there are enough students who confuse ``being a good member
of the Church'' and ``submitting wholeheartedly and unquestionably to
every decree of the BYU school administration'' that the critical mass
of students necessary to make this effective is very hard to gather.
While the general vision and direction of the school are undoubtedly
inspired, I have yet to find a single student who fully agrees with
all policies ever laid out by the middleman BYU administration. ;-)
On another note, BYU is in a very good position to fix prices, and
they do, extensively. They keep on-campus housing rents and tuition
below their true market value, and so they do the same with the
student wages. All this mucking around with the prices naturally
leads to market inefficiencies, but it makes things a bit easier for
qualified students who don't have a lot of money to begin with (just
expect to keep not having money while you work for BYU ;-).
Dr. Kearl also mentioned that the general wealth of the members of the
church combined with the insanely low tuition is part of what drives
the rents up and lets many BYU students afford jacuzzi's and expensive
cars. He said that he would readily support quadrupling the tuition
for the school, so that it pans out to the true market value, while
reducing dependency of Church subsidization. This would reduce the
demand to get into BYU (counting out qualified, but poor, students -
or at least forcing them to get into more debt), and it would probably
have the effect of a less draconian adminstration, once it must
compete a little more fairly on the free market. :-)
Just some possible explanations, for those who may be wondering why
things are the way they are.
Mike
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Michael Halcrow | [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Developer, IBM Linux Technology Center |
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What's another word for synonym? |
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