Additionally, young children who naturalize in the United States along with their parents didn’t take the Oath of Allegiance — even though their parents did — and can technically still hold on to their previous citizenship.
People who have held dual citizenship since birth or childhood — or who became citizens of another country after becoming a US citizen and were not asked to renounce their previous citizenship — can remain dual citizens in the United States.
Truth.
This is an age-old issue. I remember this debate in the 50s, so it has been around a long time. When my son was in high school during his senior year he was looking at major tier one universities. He had not decided whether or not he was going to continue to play football in college, but at least he was talking to recruiters. So he sends out applications to several major universities, including Rice, Tulane, Wash U. (in St. Louis), Duke, and Yale (whose rep was encouraging him to attend and play football). He was in all AP classes and all his friends sent apps to pretty much the same schools. We all sweated out the waiting period until the acceptance (or rejection) letters came in. Sure enough several acceptance letters arrived in the “big envelopes”. One was from Rice.
The next day all the students were sharing their experiences of acceptance and rejection. All had been accepted to one excellent school or another. But there was this group of students, mostly Hindu, who were crushed that they had not been accepted by Rice as was my son. They had about the same grade point average. These kids had given up a lot to spend every spare moment studying, pushing for that extra tenth of a point on their grade point average. They were dumbfounded that my son was accepted at Rice while they were not and they quizzed him at length trying to figure out what they had overlooked in the admissions process. He listened patiently. (I had a teacher who was in the room relay all this to me). Finally he looked sincerely at them and said simply, “You should have played football.” End of story.
I talked about it on TOS before but I picked up a good book that looks at these arguments of athletics (football) being a drain on the university and such. It mostly shoots down those ideas and makes some very good points. For one, the Athletic Department does pay the University tuition on all those scholarships, another is that the attention gathered from the football program when winning is much more than the cost of a similar type of marketing campaign. I might be simplifying it but I read the book back in January - bought it on my Peach Bowl trip to the College Football Hall of Fame.
The book is Saturday Millionaires: How Winning Football Builds Winning Colleges by Kristi Dosh. I recommend it to all of you, maybe someone will buy and send a copy to Professor Zaretsky.
Zaretsky’s back writing for the Chron again:
UH lost its bet on football. Now can we cut our losses?
A radical proposal: Let’s spend those millions on education
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Instead, students come to UH for an education. Khator has overseen a building boom on campus—the number of dormitory rooms has more than doubled under her presidency—and she has offered plum posts to nationally recognized researchers. Yet this is not reason to uncork champagne and toss confetti.
While the university’s retention rate has improved, this is in part because we had been down for so long that everything looks up. Only 46 percent of UH students graduate within six years. For UT-Austin, the number is 79 percent.
The average pay of our adjuncts—who teach nearly a third of all courses at UH, many of which are remedial or core courses—flitters at $20,000. No less flittering are the lights and A/C in many of their classrooms, often windowless and furnished with ramshackle desks and chairs.
What a crock!
What a royally bitter self-centered douchebag. Sorry. Some of you call this guy out as a great teacher but simply misguided. I disagree.
He needs to be thankful he has a job at one of the up and coming universities… one that is in that situation thanks to the leadership of President Khator. As of September, 2015, this guy made almost $98,000. I would venture to guess he has a 6 figure salary now… doing what?! Teaching French History!!! My God!!! Get a grip on yourself, man! The football program provides an enormous amount of intrinsic benefit back to the school. What exactly does teaching French History do? I am a product of the UH Honors Program myself so providing me some lame reasoning about teaching students more advanced levels of critical thinking or enhancing students mentally ain’t gonna fly.
This guy simply refuses to understand the “pay to play” concept. In today’s landscape you can’t hide the fact that athletics, particularly football, drives the success of the school, sense of community, and is an overall necessity to driving things like increased student applications and funding for the university. Without things like adequate facilities and an overall focus on athletics, the rest of the university will suffer as a result. Again you gotta pay to play. Don’t hate the player. Hate the game. He also calls out Tillman Fertitta in his article… one of the most successful Coogs of all time. He needs to be thankful for Tillman who is a model Coog that sets an example we should all follow. Without his contributions to our athletics program and school as a whole the overall university wouldn’t be where we are today.
And finally, he says we have bet and lost?! The guy once again proves that he doesn’t get it. Take a look at our upward trajectory over the last 10 years. We are a program… NOT a single coach! If you still think we’ve lost then I’m sorry but you are beyond help and will still never get it.
Here’s my e-mail to Dr. Zaretsky, copied to Dr. Khator and Tilman:
Dr. Zaretsky,
Allow me to grade several assertions you made in Friday’s article “UH Lost its Bet on Football: Now Can We Cut Our Losses?”
“Only 46% of students graduate within six years”
Grade: F
Two reasons. First, a simple search for UH Common Data Sets shows that 51% of the most recent cohort (Fall 2010 freshmen) graduated in six years. As well as 51% of the Fall 2009 freshmen. 48% of the 2008 freshmen graduated in six years. 48% of the 2007 freshmen graduated in six years.
You have to go back to the 2006 freshmen to find a class that graduated at a 46% clip.
It’s shocking enough that a tenured professor would publicly slam his school’s graduation rate in the local newspaper. But to do it with: 1) data that is five years out of date 2) that makes your argument look better to unsuspecting readers? You should be ashamed.
Second, your “set in stone” sounding statement ignores the trend. Graduation rates rose from 2006 to 2010 because better students (with better SAT scores and better HS records) enrolled. Guess what? Better students enrolled in 2016 compared to 2010. Throw in Dr. Khator’s “UHin4” plan which started in 2014, and well more than 60% of the 2016 freshmen are projected to graduate in six years.
Whether or not they attend games, students will fund the $128M football stadium with a $45/semester fee “for generations to come”
Grade: F
Two reasons. First, your statement makes it sound like the student fee will last in perpetuity. Last I checked, a generation spanned 20 years. The student fee lasts 25 years. And it started in 2012. So it will last “one generation to come.”
Second, you make it sound like the stadium fee was forced down the students’ throat. They voted for it. In the largest referendum turnout in school history, the measure passed in a landslide. 73% of nearly 10,000 students approved the fee.
If you have such a problem with the $128M football stadium, take it up with the students. They had the chance to vote it down.
The rest of the stadium was funded through revenue bonds, “gambling on the revenue generated by a successful football program”
Grade: F
Your statement is just wrong. Under the $120M stadium financing plan, alumni donations (including funds from the Moores Endowment) totaling $53.1M served as the largest source of funding for the stadium. Bonds secured by the student fee were second ($49.8M). Other sources included state funds ($5M HEAF) and revenue bonds ($12M).
So Houston did float revenue bonds for roughly 10% of the cost of the stadium ($12M). I believe those to be secured by the TDECU naming rights agreement ($1.5M/year for 10 years), not football revenue. Even if they are tied to football revenue, 10% is not onerous, quite conservative compared to other recent college stadiums and certainly NOT “the rest of the stadium.”
By the way, at any time Dr. Zaretsky, please feel free to raise $53M from the alumni for a building dedicated to French history. We’re waiting. Seriously.
UH Lost its Bet on Football
Grade: F
Last I checked, Houston was ranked among the Top 25 teams in America by the College Football Playoff Committee. We beat two Top 5 teams this season. We set a single-game stadium attendance record, and averaged more fans per game than any season since 1978.
Over 16 million people across the nation watched Houston football games on TV. That’s more than every school in the Big 12 not named Texas or Oklahoma. That’s more than all but three Pac 12 schools More than all but three ACC schools.
If that’s losing, sign me up to be a loser every year.
I’m sorry that the football program gets more publicity than the French history department, Dr. Zaretsky. But you’re starting to repeat yourself. How many times have you written the same article now? And now all these mistakes?
I guess it’s tough getting old and bitter. I hope you find peace and serenity.
Signed,
Me
Thank you! I love the facts. At some point, it is a challenge to use $10 million plus out of operating funds (?) to cover the athletic deficit but not a U on the cusp of a P5 conference. Perhaps CUSA schools.
Q: Dr. Zaretsky, you are so concerned about comparing our graduation rates and education to uta?
A. What about redirecting your ill will toward the PUF or maybe apply for a job at uta!!!
Q: You complain about frivolous spending toward the sports department?
A: Let’s do an audit on how your entire department spends its funds.
By the way, I am sure we can find another French Professor…uhrrrrrrr Doctor that does like sports.
I am all for free speech but he is clearly speaking out of his derriere.
We haven’t lost anything. We are actually winning.
In fact, the winning is just getting started and if you don’t like it, please move to another university (and don’t
let the door hit you on your way out).
He’s got tenure. He isn’t leaving.
You should send that to the Chron as well. If they don’t give your rebuttal the same placement as his article then we will know they are trying to hurt our program.
100% agree. This is not a coincidence that the chron keeps spreading his venom.
It likely wont change his mind but he should read this book: http://www.kristidosh.com/in-print/saturday-millionaires/ Maybe someone will buy it for him as a Christmas Gift.
I picked it up at the College Football Hall of Fame during my Peach Bowl trip. It really turns the argument on its head.
I totally missed this piece. Where and when did it appear? -Lost in Houston.
This was one of the more pompous UH Honors College professors I had at UH so not surprised he keeps beating this drum.
@CougarRed - You should add the $Ms that donors and the university have pumped into the UH Honors College over the last decade to your argument as he apparently doesn’t want to mention that part of UH’s priorities.
Dr. Zaretsky responded to me:
For the sake of your clients, I hope you do a better job on their portfolios than you did with my claims. First, you cite the five percent difference between the two sets of statistics, but you also ignore the fact that our graduation rate is beggared UT and A&M outpace UH by more than 30%. I acknowledged UH has made progress, but I also observed that a few million from the 100 million we have poured into our athletic program would have given a dramatic boost to this trend. Perhaps only a portfolio manager defending the mediocre performance of his stocks, all the while ignoring how well other stocks have performed, would make such an argument. You should be ashamed.
Second, you’re right: I should have written “incoming classes” rather than “generations.” But here is what you get wrong. First, for a numbers person, you somehow miss the fact that the original price tag of the stadium has since ballooned more than 20 million dollars; even now our administration will not tell us what the final price tag will be. We have also not received any guarantees that monies meant for academic programs will not continued to be plundered to foot this bill. Second, scarcely 20% of the student body voted for the stadium. Those students—galvanized by teams of canvassers sent out by the athletics program, armed with trinkets and t-shirts—were not my students, most of whom are commuters who hold down one or two jobs, support families and were taken by surprise by the speed of the vote. We can debate the mechanics of democracy from now till doomsday, but all of this smacked of a massive PR operation aimed at the minority of students who live on campus.
Third, as for national rankings, you need to check again: neither the Coaches Poll nor AP poll includes your alma mater in the top 25.
Finally, I don’t mind that more people watch our football team than my lectures. But I do mind your apparent belief that the pursuit of a national television audience justifies the starving of academic programs at my university. Getting older isn’t nearly as tough, Mr. Binion, as reading letters like yours. As for peace and serenity, I’ve no need for your hopes: I’ve long had both.
Robert Zaretsky
My reply:
Dr. Zaretsky,
Surely even a French history professor understands that 6-year graduation rates move at the speed of a glacier, no?
The 79% number you cite as the UT graduation rate was also five years old. Their most recent graduation rate? 80%. Texas Tech’s graduation rate dropped from 62% to 60% from the 2006 cohort to the 2009 cohort. A&M’s dropped from 80% to 79%. Texas State dropped from 54% to 53%.
Very few schools in the country saw a gain of 5% in their six-year graduation rate from 2006 to 2009 like UH did. This is something to be proud of, Doctor. Not something at which to scoff.
And 2009 was only Dr. Khator’s second freshmen class. Her classes starting in 2011 recorded the highest SAT scores in school history. They are the first classes in school history where more than 30% of the freshman graduated Top 10% in High School. See the Five Year Profile. _
As you note, retention rates are improving. 75% of the 2013 freshmen returned for their third year, compared to 67% of the 2010 class (in which 51% graduated in six years). 64% of the 2012 freshmen returned for their fourth year, compared to 60% of the 2010 class. The improvement in retention is ASTOUNDING and alone will result in six year graduation rates in the mid 50s for the 2012 and 2013 classes.
And these classes enrolled before Dr. Khator introduced UHin4. 70% of the 2016 freshmen signed up for that program. Nearly all of them are expected to graduate in six years.
Finally, more students are taking full courseloads than ever before. This will have a huge impact on grad rates. As Dr. Khator mentioned in her 2016 Fall Address:
“If nothing else changed . . . even if retention rates did not increase . . .and they are increasing steadily, the predictive model tells us that the fast accumulation of credit hours along will push the graduation rate to 62% by 2020 (2014 cohort - first year of UHin4), above state and national averages.”
Dr. Zaretsky, that means we’ll cut the grad rate gap with UT from the 2006 cohort (79 to 46) by half in just 9 short years!
UH is improving rapidly right under your nose, Doctor, and will continue to improve for years. Yet you are too obsessed with the football program to see it, much less celebrate it. Instead, you choose to condemn UH publicly. That’s sad.
Finally, aren’t you aware of Dr. Khator’s new initiative to renovate Roy Cullen (where you office) and the other legacy buildings on campus (SERC, Agnes Arnold, Science, McElhinney, S&R1)? It’s part of the Centennial Court initiative approved by the Board of Regents in May.
The science building renovation has already been put out for bid. Seems to me your concerns about “flickering lights” have been heard, and steps are being taken to address them. Funny - I haven’t seen you mention that in any of your articles . . .
Signed,
Me
Well done… Professor Denial certainly sounds a bit… okay a lot… butt hurt by the truth. Go Coogs!!!
The animosity Dr Zaretsky has for the administration and anyone who supports the football program is appalling.
Seems that he’s someone that is stuck working in a place that he doesn’t want to be, but is too afraid to leave. Sad that he is a member of our faculty.
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