On the Lege video—Judith Zaffirini
This week we spoke to Senator Judith Zaffirini, D-Laredo, about Rick Perry’s proposed higher education reforms and the importance of research at Tier One universities.
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Sour Six Teen says:
Terrible.
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Walker Reply:
May 1st, 2011 at 8:56 pm
Why would we listen to anyone who wants to leave the Union, turn around and beg the Union for aid in dealing with the wildfires, then complain that President Obama is sending aid to the tornado victims immediately and not to Texas. How may people did we lose in the wildlfires? How many home and towns were destroyed? Give me a break, then man is a mental case and we are worse for re-electing him!
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Julie says:
I believe research and education should not be separated. But if some professors in research are spending no time or little time in actual classroom instruction, I believe that should be changed to require them to spend more time in actual instruction of students.
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turtle says:
Many of these research professors are paid directly from research funds, and NOT state funds. In other words, they’ve brought in funding to conduct their research.
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Ubercon says:
Research through private funding should continue. It is a component of the workings of the universities and is crucial to advancement, development, and learning for all. Perry needs to buzz off.
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donuthin says:
The Senator’s remarks are right on. But then it is difficult to argue with someone with the intellectual capacity of the Governor and his staff.
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Off the Mark says:
I’m sure many people agree that reforms are needed. However, what we saw happen at UT was an orchestrated attempt to force one, and only one, set of reforms on a system.
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Fiftycal says:
Shame you didn’t ask her about being PUNKED by Wentworth when he sought to amend SB5 with the campus carry bill. And you should have asked her if it was worth junking her “very important” to keep them EEEEEEVIL guns out of classrooms.
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Judith Zaffirini Reply:
May 1st, 2011 at 9:20 pm
Fiftycal:
I was stunned by Senator Wentworth when his amendment was distributed without his telling me in advance. As a member of the Senate Higher Ed Committee, he knew we left my bill pending for two weeks, that we had three committee substitutes before reaching a consensus, that the bill was recommended for the Local and Uncontested Calendar (but removed from consideration by Senator Ogden), that his other two amendments were acceptable, and that this is higher ed’s priority bill that will relieve universities from unfunded mandates and help them save millions of dollars.
He has the votes to amend a bill, but not to pass his own. If he amends my SB 5, I will kill it–unless his amendment is amended significantly and meaningfully.
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Fiftycal says:
Meant to say “her ‘very important’ bill”.
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South Texan says:
May the 9-1 ousting of the University of Nebraska from the American Association of Universities because of “lack of research” be a warning to Governor Rick Perry and to his recently selected like-minded regents at A&M and UT. Jeff Sandefer and his minions at the Texas Public Policy Foundation probably could care less, however.
Truly, even Perry would be embarrassed if either of our tier one public institutions were ousted during his watch. Don’t rule it out! AAU recently reprimanded A&M for implementing some of TPPF’s proposals, which are diametrically opposed to the reasons that it was granted membership in the exclusive AAU.
My prayer is that the Lord will inspire Perry to realize the error of his ways and to back-off from his ridiculous quest to dumb-down and degrade Texas’ greatest institutions of higher learning.
Thank God that Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst and Speaker Joe Straus exert their power and leadership to support and strengthen higher education, not to thwart and tarnish it.
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Law Dog says:
Can someone help me understand why it is so critical to keep research and teaching together?
As a computer scientist / engineer I did both in college. Yet, they where completely different and not really related.
In fact in my experience, I learned many more real world skills in programming real life applications for my classes with less prestigious professors than I did researching how we would create a parallel application to run on a large super computer in Minnesota that we never got access to. We burned months of time and dollars with little to no results.
That is probably not the case for everyone but it certainly was for me.
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