A very fair amount of the faculty and staff do not have the kind of educational backgrounds one would expect at all.  The lady who runs the Student Disability Services has a BA in DRAMA!  And good luck obtaining any kind of help from her.  And I know of at least one Literature professor who has absolutely no educational background at all in Literature. 

Because there is, sadly and downright sinfully, a lot of self imposed institutionalised racism in Memphis- you will not really learn a lot as an undergrad if you have a humanities based major.  I had countless Instructors tell the class that they are going to explain “X” concept as though the class was comprised of third graders.  And, I have had countless Instructors read from the teachers manual of the textbook and dictate what will be on a test by reading from the test itself.  The Instructors do this because there is a very low rate of literacy in Memphis and most of the Memphis High School grads have the equivalent of an eighth grade education. 

There has been a lot of cheating going on in the public schools here, which has been reported by the local paper, where teachers have tried to cover up poor “No Student Left Behind” test scores in order to force students out of high schools with very bad academic skills.

This is a city which is collapsing in on itself because it is bankrupt and I really do not recommend coming here at all.  You will learn things most folks learn at high school and be prepared to sit in classrooms made for thirty people which have up to forty five or fifty people crammed in them.  The University of Memphis used to be called Memphis State and please do not let the name change fool you, it is still a PUBLIC university. 

For financial reasons, the President of this University is obsessed with sports at the full expense of academics and everyone is paying a price for that.  There is a Fed Ex Institute of Technology building which is a white elephant which cost all of us students a great deal because a lot of academic programs were cut so this building could exist for no real gainful reason.  I think that this University needs a total overhaul from the President on down because it is apparently just a University for sports players to go to for free and for people who can barely read. 

If you are a parent, please do not send your child here.  It is too dangerous and you will be very behind when you go to grad school, trust me on this.  Also prepared to have really weird charges pop up towards the end of the school year with no explanation.  This school is too far gone and please go to CBU, Rhodes, or anywhere else but here please.