[bfrink]

Agree on the sensitivity wrt traditional (East Coast) media. Imagine what it takes for the president (and provost, and general counsel, and chief communications officer, and ...) of Caltech to send out an email at 8:30pm on a Sunday night. This article (finally) rattled something at the Institute. However, they are still defending this program, in court, and in the press, as a wonderful thing Caltech is proud to put its name on. 4.6 out of 5 stars! (How many NSF and NIH grants get funded if they are rated 4.6/5 by reviewers? Hint: zero)

You've got faculty calling it a major embarrassment[0] and alumni aligned 100% against this grift. One has to ask, if faculty and alumni (and I presume current students) don't want this program, then who is advocating for it? One can only assume the worst.

[0] https://x.com/CFCamerer/status/1840545142006288667

[pclmulqdq]

My belief is that this is one of Tirrell's (the provost) programs given the timeline of when it happened. Bhattacharya may have also had a hand in this - I think he's the current vice provost covering teaching, which tends to also include some outreach-related stuff.

When I was a student, that outreach was mostly citizen science (a very caltech-appropriate form of outreach).

[bfrink]

Interesting - I have a contact in the CTLO (the real teaching-oriented group) and they have said they have no contact with the CTME and are discouraged from interacting with them.

While the provost may have approved it, this whole thing is another example of administrators running roughshod over faculty (who are, admittedly, disinterested in this sort of thing). I do (hazily) recall that back when I was a frosh, there was some sort of professional program that focused on engineering management and was a joint effort with places like Hughes and The Aerospace Corporation. Given Caltech's long history with the Southern California aerospace industry, this is at least plausible. This was done through the Industrial Relations Center (page 21 here: https://campuspubs.library.caltech.edu/121/1/1992-1993.pdf)

I agree wrt outreach. It should be Watson lectures and setting up telescopes, etc. This isn't outreach, is an obvious money grab.

[selimthegrim]

I remember IRC bring mentioned in older Techs from the 60s, it had been around a while.

[pclmulqdq]

Yeah, the CTLO is not involved with the CTME, but the vice provost of teaching has much more than just the CTLO in their purview - that is a relatively small group. They are also not involved with a lot of other forms of outreach, like the Watson lectures and much of the other science communication Caltech does, as well as a lot of the citizen science done by the institute departments (at the time).

People at Caltech don't realize how much influence JPL has on how the school runs, but it is 3/4 of the annual budget of the organization.

[selimthegrim]

When I had to deal with Tirrell as a undergrad academic rep for curriculum he was sort of an asshole so it tracks.