Honest Question

She gave her experience as a non traditional student. You’re looking waaay too deep into it in an effort to be offended and drawing a false equivalence. I respect you as a board member so please don’t take this personally, but that quote is not disrespectful to UH. Telling a crowd that she commuted to school while married and working was an effort at finding common ground in student experience, not a comparison of the institutions.

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It is to many of us.

Being “non-traditional” at a doctoral granting university is NOTHING like going to a dang JUCO.

Nor, for that matter, would commuting as a married student, really.

The schools are too different for such a comparison to be worthwhile.

It’s insulting to UH to compare an experience at UH to that at a JUCO.

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Even the rest of her speech is semi-bogus; misleading at best. She lived in a Houston suburb at the time, and her then husband worked for IBM in Houston in a nice white collar job.

Affording UH, especially back in those days when tuition was only $50 a semester for a full time load (and, for the record, was comparable to many other state universities in TX at the time), would NOT have been hard for her, even accounting for the cost of books and fees.

She may have been married, but being born in 1949, and graduating UH in 1970, she really wasn’t all that non-traditional; she was more or less traditional college age, and her husband’s job made them financially secure.

Her experience was nothing like that of a typical JUCO student. Her attempts to compare the two are insulting to UH. It’s just a lame, bogus “pauperization” narrative.

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I can tell you’re really amped up by this topic. I’m not a Warren supporter by any means, my only interest in her success is that it could (not likely) bring UH a presidential library. I still cannot see how trying to relate her story to a group of students at a commencement event, comparing only her personal experience and not saying anything negative, is a slam against UH. I don’t doubt the speech was disingenuous coming from a politician, but trying to connect to the students is kind of what you do in those situations. I went to a Juco for two years before I spent five years at UH and there were commonalities in my student experience. Would I be disrespecting UH if I spoke about what those commonalities were?

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lol at this thread, some of u guys need to chill…on second thought, nah *grabs popcorn

I can tell you straight up that even if Warren were to become President, UH has ZERO chance of getting her library.

Why?

Because back when she was working as a law Professor at UH, she has alleged that she was sexually harassed by a guy on the hiring committee: Professor Eugene Smith.

Long time UH law professor and teaching legend John Mixon (I had him for three classes at UHLC), recently wrote a long memoir about his four decades plus at the Law Center.

In it, he describes a series of incidents that Warren reported to him about Professor Smith, (who, BTW, was married), making numerous sexual/sexist comments about her and making unwelcome sexual advances towards her; she claimed that he even lunged at her in a sexual way when she was in his office. She alleged that he then chased her around his office (the guy had polio related disabilities; so I’m not sure how accurate that description was, given that), before she escaped.

According to Mixon’s account, Warren came to him for advice on how to handle this. He claims that he told her that this guy was a powerful man that could potentially ruin her career, so at the time, she let it go.

Later however, when that guy died, he had reportedly asked Warren to come speak at his memorial service at the AD Bruce religion center. Warren then got her revenge by revealing his alleged misdeeds there on the podium in front of his widow and kids, totally shocking everyone and embarrassing them.

Now then, what do you think the odds are that Warren would give her library to UH, given that (assuming, of course, she ever became Prez, which I think is VERY far fetched)?

Probably pretty bad odds, eh?

So if you defend Warren’s running down of UH, and misleading statements about her past, under the theory that doing so might help her to become Prez and get UH a prez library, well, then I promise you…you are wasting your time.

I don’t see her giving UH any hypothetical prez library, given her experiences here.

You can read more about that here:

In any event, her running down of UH makes her unpopular to most of us, and she has long been know to make misleading or false statements/embellishments about her background. Defend those antics if you wish, but don’t expect the rest of us to simply look the other way.

As for your other question, the best answer that I could give you is to ask you this:

Would you be bothered if some ignorant fool out on the streets compared UH to a community college?

Most of us would be!

So don’t act surprised if we likewise get offended when Warren tries to compare her experiences at our then doctoral granting school as a more or less traditional 21 year old student living in a nice suburb with no kids and a middle class husband to a JUCO experience.

I realize that you may see commonalities in your experiences between the two but you need to realize that Warren is NOT doing us any favors with her “I went to a small commuter college” narrative, or her comparisons of her experiences at UH to those of a JUCO student.

Those are the very same narratives that the UTs and aTms of this world use to put us down. To hear a UH grad use the same narratives is ESPECIALLY off-putting.

Warren would do herself and the rest of us a favor by instead saying “I’m a proud graduate and former professor at a great urban public research university: the University of Houston…GO COOGS!!!” Sadly, that’s not what we usually hear her say.

Unfortunately, in an effort to pauperize herself and ingratiate herself to her progressive constituents, she often runs down UH with the the same narratives often used against us by a-hole aTm and UT grads, i.e., “little commuter college,” or comparing her experiences at UH to JUCO experience.

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Regardless of her opinion of us, we still would have been credited with producing a President of the United States of America.

A prestigious feat to go along with the mayors, politicians, CEO’s, notable business pioneers, etc. that we have produced. You can bet Renu would remind everyone of our accomplishment.

The University of Texas and Texas A&M have yet to produce a POTUS, so I’ll take the honor.

On UH in the 70s, my Dad used to say they jokingly referred to UH as…the University of Hanoi because the University accepted so many Vietnamese refugees that entered our city. Remember, we still have street signs in Vietnamese and the 3 major languages recognized by the City of Houston are English, Spanish, and Vietnamese.

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I guess that would be true, but if it came true, then I would at least hope that she accurately describes us in a manner similar to what I described, rather than as a “little commuter school,” or by comparing her UH experience to a JUCO experience.

Our prestige will increase if she does.

But describing UH the way that she often does is NOT helpful.

Anyway, producing a President ain’t that big a deal. Even Texas State has produced one (LBJ). That HARDLY made Texas State a prestigious academic school. Its academics are still inferior to ours…their having produced a President doesn’t change that.

It was a commuter school. That was a complaint on this board all the way up until about ten or fifteen years ago when the dorm building began in earnest. I lived on campus in the 90s. They pretty much rolled up the sidewalks at night.

And enrollment in 1970 was about 24,000. Not small, but not big, either. That includes part-times and night students. That stat came from here.

I’d bet the part-times and night students, of which there were many, probably only saw a fraction of the student body. So it seemed pretty small to them.

This is a dumb conversation. There’s no point in arguing with 97. He sees things nobody else can see and has to have the last word. Don’t waste your time.

In 1970, UH was a commuter college. There is nothing wrong or insulting about pointing that out.

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We were the SECOND LARGEST university in TX when Warren attended; larger than aTm at the time.

We were NOT “small” in Warren’s time.

We were a large, major doctoral granting university, NOT a little commuter college.

That’s Warren’s lame attempt at a pauperization narrative.

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Calling us a small commuter college was not and is not accurate.

We were not small, nor merely a college in Warren’s time.

Even in Warren’s time, we were a large, doctoral granting university.

She shouldn’t run us down by repeating the mantra that our enemies at UT and aTm like to use against us.

It’s NOT helpful, and as you can see, a good number of us have problems with it.

The idea that we should like her because it would get us a Prez that UT and aTm haven’t produced does nothing for me. That hasn’t helped Texas State at all. And people are on crack if they think she would give us her library after going through what she claims.

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To anyone who doubts my enrollment claims, TAKE THIS!!!

https://dars.tamu.edu/Data-and-Reports/Student/files/Overall_Enrollment_Historical.aspx

In 1970, aTm only had 14K students.

UH, with 24K, was a LARGE university in 1970, second largest in a large state.

Lawbert,

Do you care to take back what you said about UH not being large in the face of those FACTS to the contrary?

I now await your retraction Counselor.

It seems to me to be silly or poor semantics or maybe even stupid to claim that any school has ever “produced” a President of the United States.

Did Lincoln’s log cabin ever produce a President?

Did PT109 ever produce a President?

To say that Rice University or Harvard University “produced” some bright scholars is equally untrue and deceptive; however many bright scholars over the years did choose to “attend” Rice and Harvard.

And even assuming, just for argument’s sake, that a school does indeed “produce” a President, it ain’t that big a deal.

As I mentioned, Texas State has “produced” a president.

Guess what?

It has NOT helped them to become a prestigious academic institution.

Not sure you’re responding to me, WoodMark. I don’t care one way or the other.

Because I’m a glutton for punishment, I waded into the dumb, ancillary conversation.

Actually, you are calling it small. You are comparing it to a junior college.

She said “commuter college.” And it was. Your pissing and moaning won’t change that.

And I’m done with this. You can have the last word.

If course I would like to have both. Who in their right mind wouldn’t!

So she is just a Faux Socialist? I would have thought she would have been proud to be part of the proletariat.

Lawbert,

THAT TIME, yes. But on OTHER occasions, Warren has indeed said that she attended, a “small commuter school in Texas.” At one point, she even had that posted on her Presidential campaign website (it has since been taken down). We discussed this very thing a long time ago on this board. Sorry you missed it.

If you don’t believe me, then read the Chronicle.

Quote: Warren has used her experience at UH — which she referred to as a “small commuter school in Texas” when she attended

Other times she has said “a commuter college.” We were NOT a mere college, but rather, a doctoral granting full-scale university in Warren’s time. Of course, we were NOT “small.”

And if you think I’m the only one that is bothered by that inaccuracy, then you need to read The Daily Cougar.

If the Daily Cougar has problems with that, then I feel pretty confident in having the same or similar problems with it. I think you’ll find plenty of people here that agree, so don’t make it sound like I’m the only person that either sees this, or sees the problem with it.

And yes, UH WAS large in 1970. Why do you contend otherwise?

What do you consider large if not the SECOND largest university in one of the largest states? A school that was several thousand students larger than aTm at the time? Don’t assume that just because 24K isn’t super-big by 2020 standards, that it wasn’t LARGE by 1970 standards. UH WAS large in 1970. And of course, it’s a large university today as well!

And yes, as I posted above, she did indeed attempt to compare her college experience at UH to that of a JUCO student at the community college she was giving the speech at, and apparently, her speech had the intended effect, based on the response. If you don’t see that, then I’d like to know which article YOU read. That also is nonsense, of course; attending a large public university like UH is nothing like attending a community college, but believe whatever you will.

As for WoodMark, the only thing he posted that I responded to was the “produce” business. I don’t necessarily disagree with what he said, in fact, I’m inclined to agree with it. My only point is, even assuming, just for argument’s sake, that schools do indeed “produce” Presidents, that doesn’t mean anything. That hasn’t helped Texas State at all. It’s still considered a “party” school with mediocre academics, despite the fact that it produced a President (LBJ). If you disagree with that, then fine, fire away. I’d like to hear your argument as to why you think that “producing” a President would be a big deal, in the face of that obvious example to the contrary.

With that in mind, I give you a fair opportunity for rebuttal, counselor.