Cuyahoga Community College
Tri-C Don't go near Tri-C despite low costs & certificate programs - any class problems & emails will be collected & filed in Cleveland Municipal Court for criminal charges - campus problems not handled in

Tri-C courses are not for all; there are many complications with CHEAP credit hour costs.
Tri-C desperately needs an OMBUDSPERSON to adjudicate inter-student problems, faculty conflicts, and course controversies including grade dispute advising (and how to avoid). Does anyone ever win a grade dispute at Tri-C, or do the faculty just lie in groups of three (G-3s)? One recent grade dispute had the faculty panel concurring that a lab practical task of moving a 300 lb Cleveland Clinic OR bed was 'fair, ' in a health technology program, when the weight limit 'scope of practice' was to lift only 25 lbs (not crash-and-burn with 300). One wonders what drugs were involved? None of that panel could have moved that bed, in any amount of time by themselves, but so what? You have to be WONDER WOMAN at Tri-C, a triathelete, a master of mediation and negotiation.

Students, and parents, are cautioned not to sign up for ANY courses, certificate or other programs, at any Tri-C campus, before investigating other area colleges & universities FIRST. Before investigating Tri-C policies about resolution of student problems - and we are not talking alcohol, drugs, or sex -because there are problems in spades that deal solely with academics and the failure of Tri-C to be about anything educational. Education does not equal certified mail, threats, and screaming at someone for hours about prejudice.

Prospective students & parents should question the Tri-C staff about what happens when there are problems with the course; the professor being 'gone, ' the session being too short for the material (every summer math course), the professor being past 70 and just too tired to remember things, or the professor not being fair to non-diversity students. It's a funny concept to imagine that if you were black, or transgender, things would suddenly be facilitated for you at Tri-C.

How are problems solved at Tri-C for the non-diversity student: will you have to hire a lawyer to finish the program, or get through to Dean Karen Miller or President Jerry Sue Thornton - who's too busy collecting honors for herself to speak with any student about program issues or trouble with a faculty person shes just not available. Will you have to write usacomplaints.com? Will your life become case 39?

Deans at Tri-C are three-times removed from reality most of the time; solving problems with threats, exaggerated responses, and certified mailings. And it's never been proved that a certified letter got things done any better than regular US mail - it's just more emotionally damaging its a threat. The money spent could be used to improve course curriculums, or hire a better instructor, pay for Shari Rako to be a real ombudsperson in the Student Affair's office, or hire another Summer Session Math Instructor to cover vacation, move, and elective surgery absences its all done during the sessions rather than in-between.

Deans at Tri-C have no ability to be intuitive, reasonable, have a controlled response, or distinguish truth from lies - they practice deception. They OVER-REACT buckets of mailings, accusations, and emails that should never be needed. Who wants to be told that they are disruptive when theyve done nothing but tutor the black students that asked, and give out copies of review notes did Dean Miller want blood or a pound of skin? No one can make someone else be disruptive. Its an individual choice.

What are the RULES at Tri-C? Question at least 5-10 past students by asking who took the course last; grade distribution, i.E. How many F's? And it not even the Fs that are the problem, its why and what else was going on.

Spend a day to sit-in on classes at the beginning of a semester. One course of 8 students had 2 unnecessary F's given only to the white students who couldn't get the lab practice time; the black woman instructor couldn't CONNECT and she didn't TRY. Two Fs, 25% F rate, is too much. Then when bad things happen, the interrogations in Dean's offices are brutal, mind-boggling, and cruel stuff out of horror flicks - and it usually isn't the student's fault that the professor didn't care or didn't take an interest. When you leave the room, you don't know what happened but you are 'had.' Debriefing is not the answer, having the practice test available for the Review Session is.

The forwarding of STUDENT emails to Cleveland Municipal Court should be embarrassing - please ask how many Tri-C students were complained about in this way, students just trying to get through the course with impossible odds - otherwise 'A' students getting screwed to promote Dean Karen Miller's agenda?

ASK the questions of the Dean's office before you sign up for Summer Session, the answer to the number of cases filed against students is not zero, and those students did nothing but try - very hard. How many students complained about that Professor last summer session - and what was the debriefing in Dean May's office like for hours? How many security guards were on escort? It's all a show of force, when none is needed, if some teaching is done for the money.

Last summer, one math class had the students begging the distant-detached calculus professor for some help, and past students were begged to offer advice on how to understand this guy. Good ability to teach, lousy interpersonal-interaction skills, blow-up in the making, and trouble to avoid at all costs. Lower price per credit hour does not mean better quality it means more trouble.

Despite the low costs, and buildings to dream for, compared to other colleges & universities - there is no faculty maturity, or real interest in education and the goals of students. Just pay the money and take the insults. There are tsunami-grade class & program problems - where the ability to drop, W-out, or even take an Incomplete has never been worked out - everyone is too busy reading student emails - that includes Dean Karen Miller who has yet to make a list of the class offerings where cancelling out is a major issue. Handouts and textbooks have critical errors - the Celsius to Fahrenheit conversion in one currently used text. No one improves the handouts or the CD instructional movies - they are from decades ago; donations apparently. All the money was spent on certified mail.

One class, where there was a lot of trouble recently, had no Incomplete option - it was just never worked out. And no one takes courses to cause themselves trouble or mayhem; no one wants to argue with Karen Miller or be punished for existing. Is there a working INCOMPLETE option for the course - it means that the course has been thought about for a minute at least.

Programs where there are older students, who have worked in the job market, need a different grading 'track' for the returning students vs. The first time. That alone would solve a lot of class 'bad dynamics.' Let the older student have a different grading paradigm, different projects, and more relevant issues in a parallel track course. Then the first time students wouldn't complain about the adult students altering the 'curve;' the curve has to be different for different types of students.

Education needs to be relevant, interactive, and get finished. Students starting programs should be helped to finish them; not made examples of. No one has money to throw away these days; every course means that money was spent and that the investment needs to be recouped. No student wants anything but to finish well, and to earn the respect of a professor if that respect can be earned.

At Tri-C if you TRY to drop a black professor's class, you will first be accused of 'prejudice' - when not all professors work for all students - put on probation for 'prejudice.' You won't get around to dropping the course, and Shari Rako wonders why the Student Affairs office couldn't get you to ADD-DROP sooner with all the probations. It's called SHOCK.

It's not a RACE thing Dean Karen Miller. Race isn't the major problem with professor-student interactions; it's the respect that the instructor/professor shows each student. No one cares about 'color' if that person is helping you out - teaching you something - showing some interest - not talking ebonics. The best advertisement is a satisfied student - and you don't have to have gotten an 'A' to be happy at any college. Heaven is just to have learned something, achieved a goal, and not have been trashed, beaten up, or given an unnecessary 'F' or dismissal for having to disagree a few times. No one wants to protest, just to survive.

'Situations' dealing with faculty fairness, diversity issues, and bullying of particular students are ending up in Cleveland Municipal Court where the student just emailed about the problems - the instructors that weren't being fair or needed teaching assistants - the favoritism shown to some diversity students, the derogatory comments & name-calling, and the bullying for grades.

In some classes if the other students see the 92-95, as the papers are passed back, you will be jacked up and screamed at that you 'deserve a zero.' It's all in the hot air. The mean-spiritedness is that intense, the cheating is anything you can get away with, and the ability to adjudicate or straighten out a mess is non-existent.

Student emails about Tri-C campus problems do not belong in Cleveland Municipal Court; one would think that Tri-C might be embarrassed that the 'b-tch' stuff went on for 30-45 minutes non-stop without anyone realizing that it was wrong or inappropriate. Campus Security is always on break. Is anyone thinking that courts are not for campus academic & course issues - they are for civil affairs. Emails do not make a student a criminal - there's that First Amendment... There's no criminal INTENT in writing an email about a course issue.

Other colleges have to cough up for an ombudsperson and President Jerry Sue Thornton has tens of thousands to offer friends for consulting jobs or marketing. Someone ought to explain to President Scoop that a good college sells itself - that a student is the best & cheapest marketing gimmick the McDonalds Happy Meal. One student's ruined semester, or summer session, discourages ten or more - the bad experience compounds.

No student wants to complain about class problems, favoritism, insults, and just bad decisions - there are better things to do with one's life and time. No student wants to spend an hour speaking to Karen Miller threatening, or another Program Director taking you out for hours about your being 'prejudiced' that you want fairness.

Accountability, responsibility, fairness, and the ability to listen without arrogance & nastiness are needed in Dean Karen Miller's office - a more unsuited Dean of Student Affairs couldn't be found on the planet, i.E. No intuition, no insight, no ability to decipher the lies from the truth - just the Karen Miller agenda whatever that is hurt someone.

OMBUDSPERSON on campus: ombudsman or ombudswoman: somebody responsible for investigating or resolving complaints from students or other members of the college community.

Parents & students are warned to stay far away from Tri-C, or to at least ask the questions and get some answers. Any money saved will be used to bail out the student from conflicts and catastrophes caused by professors not doing their jobs or not wanting to, and Deans doing anything but academics.

Dean Karen Miller will interrogate, and send certified mailings, until you don't know what happened who you emailed, called or faxed - then she'll say call or fax without the numbers - who? There are problems that are part of any college faculty job - it goes with the job description.

Problem solving are one of the things that are supposed to be demonstrated by the staff & Deans. It's how Deans are measured everywhere else but Tri-C. It's not the problem, it is how it was handled that matters, how the complaint was turned around, how the F became an A, how things were saved. Emails, after you've spent HOURS trying to discuss the problems, are not crimes - just hopes for improvements.

Company: Cuyahoga Community College
Country: USA
State: Ohio
City: Tri-c. edu
Address: 2900 Community College Ave
Phone: 8009548742

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