A quick break from sports, sorry folks but this “thing” from Arkansas Times needs to be addressed.
Look I’m a fan of the Arkansas Times, Little Rock has experienced a void under Hussman’s newspaper rule, a void that we can be glad isn’t like it would have been had Gannett won the war. The problem is the Times has a tendency to want to be a cool liberal paper at the cost of fairness. The truth suffers greatly when you get more worried about back slaps at whatever restaurant is popular in Hillcrest than in telling the full story… especially in a market where you can’t count on the so-called state-wide newspaper to cover the story at all.
The Times has published a bit on the four colleges created by the legislature in 1909.
Instead of an actual researched piece we get warmed over dreck. Some samples of “journalisitic feature story” from the paper saving us from the monopoly.
Nearly a fifth of the article is devoted to athletics at Arkansas State.
Part is focued on the vast drain on the university and displeasure of the faculty at ASU about the expense. Oddly enough, Arkansas Tech another 1909 school diverting an equal number of institutional dollars despite having a smaller enrollment seems to have an athletic department that causes no concern with the faculty despite higher per capita spending of institution dollars on athletics. Equal dollars at Tech despite lower enrollment is not a matter worthy of mention?
Southern Arkansas University another 1909 school diverts $30,000 less in institutional dollars to athletics according to the Department of Higher Education but has enrollment that is significantly lower than Arkansas Tech and Arkansas State, per capita SAU is the king of education dollars going to athletics but like Arkansas Tech, apparently the faculty doesn’t care, we now know Doug Smith of the Times doesn’t care.
Solid reporting there Arkansas Times, did you research or just dust off the same lame garbage you dust off every time you want to talk athletics and education? Finding faculty at a university concerned about the focus on athletics is easier than finding a birther who doesn’t want a foreigner running the country, funny it could only be pulled off by the Times at Arkansas State… except they didn’t. No one is quoted as upset though it would be easy to do with 10 minutes of work, we have to take Doug Smith’s word on that.
The we get regaled with the whole Arkansas vs. Arkansas State crap. Arkansas and Arkansas State may not be rivals per Doug Smith, I just know there are Hog fans who are drawn here like ducks heading south with the frost who feel compelled to share those same shallow insights. Just sad that Smith didn’t give us the big Hog pep talk about it being such a sorry program with such pathetic fans that they will all flock to Arkansas State bringing their favorite recruits killing the UA program. Old ground plowed too many times and let the poor man make glue out of the horse rather than beating it once more.
At least there is no snark in the Times “reporting”. Except of course the snide comments about Arkansas State being a system. Arkansas State has three campuses in addition to the Jonesboro campus, degree centers at three more sites plus three more sites used by Arkansas State to provide training and instruction. Half of every student receiving an education from Arkansas State University is enrolled some place other than Jonesboro. Why does that warrant the snark about being a “system”?
Come on Times, you are the cool mocking kid in class, how would you describe Arkansas State with its 9,000 plus students at places other than Jonesboro… hummm “system” seems to be the correct name.
Maybe you can write another piece claiming Arkansas State stole the name “Arkansas State” from UAPB and again I can point out that the usage UAPB used was “Arkansas State College for Negroes” and that usage was AFTER the legislature changed the name of the college in Jonesboro to Arkansas State College.
Please try to pretend to be fair because you didn’t even make a pretense of doing so.
Love this line. “Unsurprisingly, the leaders of the Act 100 institutions  those who would talk  believe strongly that Arkansas needs more college graduates.” (my emphasis)
Why point that out? Because there are four such schools and three talked to the Times, but Smith acts like there is some great effort to hide. Hats off to Arkansas Tech for not talking, the questions probably would have all been about censorship of a play or when are you going to chase your rival UCA to Division I rather than about 100 years of education.
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