Black and white Mississippi State students don’t get along very well and campus Greeks run the school. At least that’s what a new feature on a national test preparation company’s Web site says.
The statements are included in a new section of The Princeton Review’s information on colleges called “Students Say.”
The Princeton Review, which is based in Princeton, N.J., collected the comments via an online survey in 2004. Associate Provost Jerome Gilbert sent a mass e-mail to MSU students last semester, notifying them of the survey.
Comments appear in topic-specific paragraphs without identifying the students who made them.
The Princeton Review’s Harriet Brand, director of public relations, said the quotes were chosen based on their anecdotal value. “We interview 110,000 students and some of them put down anecdotal material and some of them don’t,” she said.
In one section of “Students Say,” The Review describes MSU, where about one out of every five students is black and most of the remaining students are white, as an institution where students observe “Deep South racial tension.”
Freshman Danielle Callegari, who is white, disagreed. “I think everyone gets along pretty well here,” she said.
Junior Courtney Williams, a black student, said that while races usually stay separate at MSU, he does not think that people are really being racist. “I think there’s still the uncomfortableness of being around each other,” he said.
Senior Jondrea Smith, also a black student and a member of the Omega Psi Phi fraternity, agreed but added, “As long as you have this split there, the system is that one idiot in either direction can screw it up for everybody.” He cited an incident at Auburn several years ago during which members of a white fraternity dressed as members of a black fraternity.
The Review proceeds to quote a student who “has friends of all racial and ethnic backgrounds.”
The Princeton Review also says that “although only approximately 13 percent of the students go Greek, they reportedly ‘run the campus.'”
SA President Adam Telle, who is not involved in any Greek organizations, said that only half of his cabinet is Greek. “Greeks do their thing and they’re involved and they’re great people, but they don’t run the show.”
He said he thinks the only correlation between involvement in Greek organizations and involvement in leadership positions is a desire to get involved.
Another section of The Review says that “recent budget cuts on top of ‘out-of-control’ enrollment makes it ‘very difficult to get into classes.'”
Registrar Butch Stokes said he believes most problems with registration occur because students wait until the last minute to register, leaving departments no time to redistribute resources. “It’s not uncommon to register 3,000 or 4,000 students in a very short time just before the semester starts,” he said.
Stokes also said that he does not believe enrollment at MSU is out of control because enrollment has decreased over the past few years. “We’re not just flat, we’re kind of decreasing a little bit, so we’re not out of control by any stretch of the imagination,” he said.
In fact, he said, enrollment has decreased from 16,886 students in 2000 to 15,934 in 2004, a decrease of almost 1,000 students. At the same time, he said, seats in high-demand freshman-level courses have increased from 21,264 to 21,518.
The Princeton Review also calls MSU “a ‘definite research university,’ which sometimes ‘leaves the undergrads a bit wanting.'”
Gilbert said he disagreed with this evaluation. He said there are definite advantages for undergraduates attending a research university, such as professors who are active in their field and bring new knowledge into the classroom. “Students are the No.1 reason why we have the university,” he said.
College of Arts and Sciences Dean Philip Oldham also said that undergraduates get a better education because MSU is a research university. “You’re learning from someone who does the discipline and doesn’t just read about it in the book,” he said.
Oldham also said that MSU has an appropriate number and level of courses. “I think if you look at grade distributions in some courses like calculus and organic chemistry or advanced physics, you’d find that those courses are not at all easy.”
Gilbert said that people who read The Princeton Review need to take into account that some of the things in the “Students Say” section are true and others are not true. “It appears to me that they have selected comments in general from students and not done any monitoring or anything on where they get that from,” he said.
Telle said things like the “Students Say” section of The Princeton Review do not give MSU a fair chance. “What The Princeton Review is doing here is in no way scientific,” he said, adding, “It’s ridiculous because they’re seen as experts when actually they have the least information,” he said.
Brand also said The Review does not research the information given by students in the surveys because they are students’ opinions. “You can’t check on people’s opinions,” she said.
However, Olson said that the write-ups about each institution are submitted to administrators before being printed. “If they think something is unrepresentative or unfair or doesn’t represent the student experience at their school, we give them a chance to comment,” he said.
The Princeton Review praises the strong sense of community among MSU’s “great alumni base,” the personal relationships between students and professors and Southern hospitality.
The Princeton Review’s comments about MSU can be found by searching for Mississippi State University at http://www.princetonreview.com.