GUWonder

I doubt his replacement will be any worse or better than him, but I won't miss Pistole if he drops off the radar completely.

The ignoble individual Pistole has been completely fine with young minors -- even minor US citizens -- being blacklisted for no reason other than that the young minors are the child or other relative of some "suspect" adult.

What kind of person is comfortable with young children being harassed or treated as guilty by association for an "association" beyond the child's control -- an association that may not even be a continuing, non-biological physical "association"? It's these kind of unethical government activities which do encourage those in positions of (or with) governmental privilege to become whistleblowers and engage in extraordinary measures to keep their names out of the public eye when whistleblowing. [Hopefully, the privileged aren't foolish enough to trust the likes of the bigger US or UK corporate media names, media houses which routinely help the government bury whistleblowers wanting to whisteblow. ]

N830MH

Yeah, say goodbye to him! John Pistole is an idiots. See ya later, Alligator!

RatherBeOnATrain

Pistole's post-TSA plan is to run Anderson University in Indiana:

Indystar:
TSA head to take helm at Anderson University
December 17, 2014

A short quote:

The school offers "Batchelor of Criminal Justice" and "Batchelor of Emergency Management Services - Homeland Security Operations & Administration" degrees. These are neither Batchelor of Arts nor Science degrees; instead, they are listed under the "Additional Degrees" section of the Anderson University Degrees page.

Anderson University also offers a Bachelor of Science Degree in "Pre-Engineering", which strikes me as very strange -- why bother getting a B.S. degree in order to enter another B.S. (undegrad) degree? [Oops -- that's the wrong Anderson University!!!]

Mad_Max_Esq

ABET accreditation is a lot of work to obtain for real schools; I can't imagine some place like this meeting the qualifications.

jkhuggins

I agree, though I wouldn't want to imply that Anderson University wasn't a "real" school. It's a school with a particular mission.

As an academic, I'm starting to see more attempts to market "blended" programs. A student begins at an institution without an engineering program --- say, a liberal arts institution like Williams College, or a religious-oriented institution like Anderson University --- and completes their general education requirements and science prerequisite courses there. The student then transfers to another institution and takes 2-3 years to complete their engineering education.

Some students will emerge with two bachelor's degrees, one from each institution. Others will emerge with a joint degree from both schools.

It's not a common educational mode, but it's not unheard of, either.

FliesWay2Much

I hope the link to the catalog works. I looked up the requirements for "pre-engineering." You take your first three years at Pissy-U and then transfer to Clemson for your fourth year and anything else you need to do to get caught up. According to the catalog, it is a dual-degree program.

Having gone through engineering school in the 70s, I don't know why anyone would bother doing this. I remember beginning to specialize in my major (aero) in my second year. I don't see any specialized engineering courses at all during the three years

If I were advising an 18-year old, I would tell them to start out at a good 2-year community college and finish up the last two years at a good technical university if they didn't have the grades or financial resources necessary to get into a four-year degree program. An associates degree at a two-year school is a lot more useful than a three-year "BS in "Pre-engineering." It will cost you a lot less money and you won't take a lot of courses irrelevant to an engineering degree. They are nice, I suppose, from the "whole person" perspective, but, one's goal is to get the degree you desire while minimizing the debt you will take into your career.

I dug a little deeper. Most of the math courses were high school-level calculus (OK, maybe advanced placement HS calculus). There is only one differential equations course that you take at the end of your second year. It's the only DiffEq course offered. The physics courses didn't get to the freshman level until the third year. I didn't see any chemistry or materials sciences courses. I was well on my way in thermo and fluid mechanics in my third year, but there's none of that here. The rest of your three years is filled up with social sciences, biology (I think), and lots of electives.

RatherBeOnATrain

That's strangely interesting -- I was aware of dual-degree programs, but those involved schools that were near one another. (A good friend has a degree in engineering from Messiah College, which just south of Harrisburg, PA -- she spent a few semesters at Temple University in Philadelphia.)

I am surprised that Anderson University's program (in Indiana) requires transferring to Clemson in South Carolina. I wonder why Anderson isn't partnering with one of the 14 ABET-accredited schools in Indiana?

jkhuggins

A partnership takes two willing parties. It's entirely possible that the other 14 Indiana schools aren't interested in a joint degree program --- they may prefer to simply recruit those students to spend their whole 4-5 years there rather than starting at Anderson.

GUWonder

I've seen dual-degree programs that involved interstate or international relocation.

Speaking of pre-engineering, doesn't this kind of thing seems to come up most often for universities that have lots of students wishing to transfer out to a better university to have a better name on their resume, or perhaps for those studying engineering basics at colleges/universities that are thin on engineering profs?

jkhuggins

Just because a university has an engineering program doesn't inherently make it better --- it just makes it a university with a different mission.

The University of Georgia, for example, didn't have a College of Engineering from 1931-2012. All public universities in Georgia are overseen by a common governing board; in 1931, due to the US Great Depression, the governing board decided to consolidate all of the state's engineering programs at Georgia Tech. Certainly no-one would suggest that the University of Georgia was somehow an inferior university until two years ago.

In the general case, though ... ABET accredited engineering programs are awfully expensive to run --- and there's no point in not having an engineering program that isn't accredited by ABET. No university has unlimited funds to spend; some universities choose to spend those funds in different ways.

Again, I return to a statement I made above. Some folks might like to go to a school with a pre-engineering degree program (of whatever size) for a variety of reasons: location (closer to home, perhaps), family traditions, smaller class sizes, different university mission (e.g. a religious college or a HBCU). Doing so allows them to have that coveted experience for a few years before transferring to another institution for the degree of their choice.

Full disclosure: I'm a professor at a college with a large number of ABET-accredited engineering programs --- indeed, most of our degree programs are in STEM fields. We have a unique mission; other universities who aren't like us are simply different --- no better, no worse.

FliesWay2Much

It's actually Anderson University in South Carolina.

RatherBeOnATrain

It turns out that there are two Anderson Universities:

Anderson University (Anderson, Indiana) is affiliated with the Church of God.
while
Anderson University (Anderson, South Carolina) is affiliated with the South Carolina Baptist Conference.

Pistole is headed to the one in Indiana. Upthread, I mistakenly linked to the one in South Carolina.

FliesWay2Much

The Anderson in SC is the one with pre-engineering and the degree in Homeland Security. Now, I'm confused as well. I'm visiting family and can't dig into it right now.

FliesWay2Much

Yep -- you're right. I had a chance to re-read some of the articles and it's Indiana.

'Guess Pissy won't be allowing any twerking:

petaluma1

He's going to be in his glory, being able to control both thoughts and actions, in this new position. Something tells me that the trustees of Anderson, by appointing Pissy president, were looking more for a way to raise money than improve their academic standards which are pretty poor according to Forbes:

http://www.forbes.com/colleges/anderson-university/