The State University of New York - Albany

Date: Feb 23 2014
Major: Communications (This Major's Salary over time)
There are some good, even great, members of the staff and faculty. There are some who design reasonably challenging and interesting courses who are responsive in and outside of class. I found the Interlibrary Loan services, Library Subject Specialists, and Interactive Media Center to be particularly helpful. The New York State Writers Institute brings some talented people to campus for lectures, seminars, readings, film showings.

However, there is a limitation to how helpful faculty and staff are; they seem to live in fear of being fired - or worse - for helping students who report academic dishonesty, faculty ethics violations, sexual harassment, sexual assault, and retaliation. Faculty are obligated to help students who report such things, but the administration at SUNY Albany is in favor of amoral and criminal acts. Consequently, professors and staff will not only fail to report such things but they will even actively discourage students from doing so - and may even assist in retaliating against students if the students go ahead and report academic dishonesty, faculty ethics violations, sexual harassment, sexual assault, and retaliation.

SUNY Albany had long had a reputation as a party school, and there's definitely truth in that. I'd seen students crossing campus with open beverages, unafraid of arrest. I was not interested in learning about keg parties, but it might be impossible there not to be informed of them anyway. Many SUNY Albany students are staggeringly ignorant and stupid; in courses where one gets to read other students' writing, it's apparent that many of them should have flunked out of elementary school. Cheating is talked about and committed quite openly and frequently by students, teaching assistants, and faculty.

SUNY Albany was home to the "Kegs and Eggs Riot"; the Louis Roberts plagiarism scandal; the mentally ill campus shooter Ralph Tortorici (students had to disarm him, one getting shot in the process; the police had done nothing to disarm him for hours); the hazing death of a football player by electrocution; two female students who disappeared and are presumed murdered whose bodies and killers have never been found; campus police with a reputation for corruption; faculty abuse of paid sabbaticals; a gang rape by football players that the ex-coach, ex-athlete football fan police "chief" didn't report to the County District Attorney's Office until the media did and thereby forced his hand; relatively few victims of rape who feel safe to press charges; a sexual offender registry the police hadn't properly maintained in years despite sexual offenders at Albany having included pedophiles, child porn collectors, child sex traffickers; a long history of Clery Act violations; exorbitant amounts of money spent on athletics; major violations in athletics recruiting; cuts to academic departments including the elimination of some; "Craigslist Killer" Philip Markoff had been a SUNY Albany student; etc. Complaints to the U.S. Department of Education's Office for Civil Rights or other agencies about crimes at SUNY Albany will most likely go nowhere or result in further retaliation from SUNY Albany.

DO NOT GO TO SUNY ALBANY. Do not take online courses there, do not even visit its campuses. It is not a safe place.