Dr. Pohl

Daddy Dumpsalot · June 12, 2007

I found this article on Dr. Pohl's accomplishments and was amazed. It got me thinking about what sort of shoes Dr. Bataille is filling. If she can accomplish half as much while here then that will be great...but I hope she can do much much more. Dr. Pohl improved so many areas of NT, lets hope Dr.B can too.

Dr. Pohl Accomplishments

The only thing that bothered me is why do we let the students vote on what their fees will be?

Edited June 12, 2007 by Daddy Dumpsalot

meangreendork · June 12, 2007

Why do we let students vote on what fees they wanna pay? Who knows. There's that part of me that wouldn't want to pay for a service I don't use, but there's another part of me that understands why it's there.

Go_UTA · June 13, 2007

This is just looking from the outside, but, from everything I can see, Dr. Bataille is the complete package. She sure has the credentials and experience. Despite good things that happened before she arrived, I think we can all safely say that a large portion of the faculty was disaffected and too many were not as productive as they should have been. UNT wasn't living up to its potential. There were scandals and a complete lack of respect of important figures at the top. UNT was doing some good things, but it seemed random. The university, i.e. the faculty, the heart of the academy, was not pulling (more or less) in the same direction.

Dr. Bataille seems to be taking remedial and corrective action. I think in a couple of years she will have UNT pretty much running on all cylinders. She's doing things that other universities did years ago, such as selecting peer institutions for benchmarking, analyzing outdated policies and procedures, bringing in the team of experts for the peer review. She is trying to get a handle on what is going on and shift to best practices.

This will also involve making hard choices: prioritizing. This is just a hunch, but athletics may not fare quite so well as it has, except for whatever fund raising it can do. That is, athletics enjoyed a surge of capital project spending with the majority of it covered by the university while some key, important areas of the university core went wanting. So, I'm thinking the athletic dept will have to carry more of its own weight in terms of major initiatives. Already, the university is pumping in $4+ million a year for operations, not counting major capital project expenditures. Yes, there are definite benefits from this "investment," but it is also cash that is not available for teaching and research.

As I said, this last paragraph is more of a hunch I am making in context of the entire situation, which was not so great. It seems like now you have a first class president who gets the big picture.

yyz28 · June 13, 2007

...this is coming from someone who has had a personal relationship with Dr. Pohl, both as a student and an Alumni. I have the utmost respect for what he has done and the hurdles he got this school over. I AM a Pohl guy...

...that being said, though I was skeptical at first, our new President seems to be doing all the right things so far. I was afraid she was going to be a real acedemic and be blinded by the truth that a strong althetic program can do nothing but ENHANCE the acedemic standards of our University, as is true for any school. This fear, so far, has not been realized.

So far she has stepped up, supported the right decisions and appears to be someone who recognizes the positive impact an athletic program moving in the right direction can have on the University as a whole. She seems to be a President who will promote growth at the school and will work for acedemic excellence all the while.

I am cautiously excited about her tenure so far, but it is looking good by all accounts to date.

June 13, 2007

Dr. Bataille has openly stated that her mission is to put the University of North Texas on the national map. She wants our strengths known to the entire populace, not just the DFW area or even the state.

I was also concerned that she was just another academician that was brought in to appease the faculty and that athletics would take a back seat. I have been most pleasantly surprised that she realizes that athletics is a window to which many people view the worth of a university. At the very leaqst, it is an attention-getter.

It's hardly possible for anyone to ever match the accomplishments of Dr. Pohl. He came along at the right time in our history and I doubt that our short-term needs will ever be that great again.

I see Dr. Bataille as a publicist, peacemaker, fund-raiser and cheerleader. She'll make us all happy that we went there.

Go_UTA · June 13, 2007

I see Dr. Bataille as a publicist, peacemaker, fund-raiser and cheerleader. She'll make us all happy that we went there.

While yes to those things, at this point in time, I also see her biggest job as a fixer.... a strategic fixer to really get UNT moving and competitive with its peers.