The following appeared as part of a recommendation from the financial planning office to the administration of Fern Valley University:
"In the past few years, Fern Valley University has suffered from a decline in both enrolments and admissions applications. The reason can be discovered from our students, who most often cite poor teaching and inadequate library resources as their chief sources of dissatisfaction with Fern Valley. Therefore, in order to increase the number of students attending our university, and hence to regain our position as the most prestigious university in the greater Fern Valley metropolitan area, it is necessary to initiate a fund-raising campaign among the alumni that will enable us to expand the range of subjects we teach and to increase the size of our library facilities."
Discuss how well reasoned you find this argument. In your discussion be sure to analyze the line of reasoning and the use of evidence in the argument. For example, you may need to consider what questionable assumptions underlie the thinking and what alternative explanations or counterexamples might weaken the conclusion. You can also discuss what sort of evidence would strengthen or refute the argument, what changes in the argument would make it more logically sound, and what, if anything, would help you better evaluate its conclusion.
In the above argument, author claims that the enrolments and admissions of applications at Fern Valley University have declined in the past few years because of poor teaching quality and inadequate library resources. This reason is based on survey of students. However, the information provided in this survey does not give the perfect cause.
To overcome the above problem and maintain the status of Fern Valley University, university requires fund. I agree that fund is one of the resources that can help to any university to upgrade its facility such as adequate availability of books in library, adequate availability of equipments in laboratory, good infrastructure, high quality of teachers etc, but the author has not looked into top level managements, they might be corrupted and are manhandling some of the funds. The scope of the problem at hand is limited; however, to maintain high quality of teaching, university should focus on recruitment process of faculty, and training and teaching methodologies. I believe quality of teaching plays major role in any educational institutions.
However, just blaming about poor quality of library resources and teaching quality, the author can rectify the problem after closely examining the actual cause. The problem could be something else. The process of admission or process of entrance could be improper so that more and more poorly qualified students are admitting; as a result of that the performance of student is not up to the mark even through University has good resources and hence it is affecting on placement of the university or future performance of alumni. This could have affected the interest of the students to study in Fern Valley University.
University should also think about extra curriculum activities such as entertainment, amenities, sports, gymkhana and yoga etc. They can build up world class theatre, beautiful sports ground and good gymkhana facility. These activities will also attract the students and also help into stress relieving which may have occurred because of study pressure. The argument made by author does not contain enough evidence to substantiate it.
Therefore, I would suggest that university should look for all possible cause and should focus on all possible improvements such as adequate funding, proper use of funds, good facility of library and laboratory, highly qualified teacher, process of entrance of students, extra curriculum activities etc. Concretizing with valid reasons and examples would have certainly made the conclusion more justified.
"In the past few years, Fern Valley University has suffered from a decline in both enrolments and admissions applications. The reason can be discovered from our students, who most often cite poor teaching and inadequate library resources as their chief sources of dissatisfaction with Fern Valley. Therefore, in order to increase the number of students attending our university, and hence to regain our position as the most prestigious university in the greater Fern Valley metropolitan area, it is necessary to initiate a fund-raising campaign among the alumni that will enable us to expand the range of subjects we teach and to increase the size of our library facilities."
Discuss how well reasoned you find this argument. In your discussion be sure to analyze the line of reasoning and the use of evidence in the argument. For example, you may need to consider what questionable assumptions underlie the thinking and what alternative explanations or counterexamples might weaken the conclusion. You can also discuss what sort of evidence would strengthen or refute the argument, what changes in the argument would make it more logically sound, and what, if anything, would help you better evaluate its conclusion.
In the above argument, author claims that the enrolments and admissions of applications at Fern Valley University have declined in the past few years because of poor teaching quality and inadequate library resources. This reason is based on survey of students. However, the information provided in this survey does not give the perfect cause.
To overcome the above problem and maintain the status of Fern Valley University, university requires fund. I agree that fund is one of the resources that can help to any university to upgrade its facility such as adequate availability of books in library, adequate availability of equipments in laboratory, good infrastructure, high quality of teachers etc, but the author has not looked into top level managements, they might be corrupted and are manhandling some of the funds. The scope of the problem at hand is limited; however, to maintain high quality of teaching, university should focus on recruitment process of faculty, and training and teaching methodologies. I believe quality of teaching plays major role in any educational institutions.
However, just blaming about poor quality of library resources and teaching quality, the author can rectify the problem after closely examining the actual cause. The problem could be something else. The process of admission or process of entrance could be improper so that more and more poorly qualified students are admitting; as a result of that the performance of student is not up to the mark even through University has good resources and hence it is affecting on placement of the university or future performance of alumni. This could have affected the interest of the students to study in Fern Valley University.
University should also think about extra curriculum activities such as entertainment, amenities, sports, gymkhana and yoga etc. They can build up world class theatre, beautiful sports ground and good gymkhana facility. These activities will also attract the students and also help into stress relieving which may have occurred because of study pressure. The argument made by author does not contain enough evidence to substantiate it.
Therefore, I would suggest that university should look for all possible cause and should focus on all possible improvements such as adequate funding, proper use of funds, good facility of library and laboratory, highly qualified teacher, process of entrance of students, extra curriculum activities etc. Concretizing with valid reasons and examples would have certainly made the conclusion more justified.
