Shut down UWO?

The governor yesterday threatened to shut down the university system for Spring semester if the budget impasse is not resolved soon.

This is an interesting new attempt at brinksmanship. I have trouble believing that it would actually happen. More likely, however, is a round of course cancellations and cutbacks if the legislators don't get a budget passed. I have also heard talk of a new surcharge for students, starting in the spring.

Do you think we'll be shut down?

It would be an interesting political moment. I wonder if it would generate any outrage. Perhaps we'll find out. I guess I should start saving now, just in case. . .

Get Ready for New Cuts!

The Chancellor announced that, because of the impasse in Madison, we are preparing for a new round of cuts here at UWO.

It looks as though we may get the "growth agenda" money in the second year of the biennium, but will face base cuts at least as big.

All the optimism of the Spring seems to have been just that, and state legislators have decided that higher tuition and fewer classes are the best way to help the Wisconsin knowledge economy grow.

The anti-UW sentiment in Madison is still dominant, driven by those hard-core college haters on the Republican side of the aisle. Unbelievable!

NYTimes positive towards assessment

I'm behind on my reading and so I am linking to last week's NYTimes Sunday Magazine. (It is early in the semester, so I am only 1 week off) It was their annual college edition. This story, however, deals particularly with assessment. The author, James Traub, basically suggests that assessment is a good thing for colleges. He ends with these lines:

The self-accountability of our system of higher education is grounded in the optional nature of college attendance. But college isn’t really optional any longer. The economic value of higher education, on both the individual and the national levels, has given the public a stake in outcomes not so different from the stake it has in the public schools.

This, I think, underlines the thinking of all of the testing advocates. Do you agree? Are we now really only the concluding years of a k-16 system?

I find it a problematic assumption. Clearly, higher education is a public good and carries increasing importance in the current world in which we live. However, to decide that this means that our job is no different than that of an elementary school teacher undermines the principles upon which higher ed rests. More on this later, but I really have other things I should be doing. . . .

Will VSA chase away the feds?

One of Chancellor Wells arguments for the VSA is that it will keep the feds from regulating our business.

Here is an article from insidehighered.com from the spring that addresses this issue. Do you believe it? I think that the push for standardized testing at every level has lost much of its momentum, especially as NCLB is in jeopardy of renewal in congress.

Besides which, is pressure from those who know little about what we do the best way to make educational policy?

Chancellor to hold public session on VSA

The plot thickens! For those of us who want to find out more about how we will soon be tested to death, the Chancellor awaits. . . .

A web site designed to help facilitate early adoption of the Voluntary System of Accountability (VSA) College Portrait is now available



Chancellor Richard Wells is meeting with governance and administrative groups who have been asked to share these materials on VSA with their constituents. He will host an open forum on the VSA College Portrait on Monday, October 15 from 3:30-4:45 PM in Reeve Memorial Union room 227C.

Chancellor Well's New Acronym: VSA

Chancellor Well's has been presenting his latest project around campus the past few weeks. It is the Voluntary System of Accountability (VSA).

From what people have told me, it is first and foremost an attempt to ward off the intrusion of the federal government into university standard setting. Chancellor Wells has been deeply involved in the production of the project and wants us to be one of the pilot schools, posting our data within a few years.

In order to do this, the VSA will provide information about the universities involved on a website. There will be the NSSE data (National Study of Student Engagement), on which we have done quite badly. Most importantly, however, they want to have students take some sort of standardized test as an exit exam. They will then report that number on the site as well.

Choosing to highlight scores from some standardized test as an important measure of learning at our institution seems to be problematic. How in the world do you test what a student has learned in college? Does it strip it down to a set of "skills" that are similar to the ACTs? Are there subject tests based on content knowledge?

Chancellor Wells wants us to jump on board now. Are people who heard his pitch convinced? Will this really stave off federal intervention? Can this actually measure the quality of our institution?

Video games in dorms reduce grades

I came across this interesting paper today while I should have been working. Two economists attempt to study student study habits and grades. They found, not surprisingly, that student effort directly increases grades. They show that studying an extra 1 hour a day corresponds to a grade increase equivalent to 5 point increase in ACT scores.

Even more strikingly, the found that having a roommate with a video game lowers grades by the equivalent of a 4 point decrease in ACT scores.

Their argument is fairly simple. Student effort matters, and students are not trapped by the scores on their standardized tests.

While neither of these results is at all surprising, they do raise some interesting policy implications. How can we encourage students to tune out of pop culture and into their classwork? Should our NBC freshmen complex ban video games in rooms?

New Right-Wing Attacks on Academia

Driving in to school this morning, I heard Joy Cardin chatting with John Leo about his new website, mindingthecampus.com. I didn't hear much of the show, but it sounded like the standard right-wing rant.

However, John Leo was commenting on the corrosiveness of the politics of victimization, as practiced through identity politics. It struck me that it is exactly the same game that Leo and the right is playing. He is trying to create the mistreated "white male" who is deserving of the same kind of protection. If he really wanted to get above identity politics, wouldn't he spend less time ranting about how he is horribly traumatized by college campuses?

It might be new if he proposed something beside the tired rant of political correctness and liberals on campus. We already have Steve Nass, who is taking out his "victimhood" on the entire UW system. John Leo and his new website are just an afterthought.

Beer in Reeve

The Advance-Titan reported this week that the Underground in Reeve Union is now serving beer.

I know that this was a controversial idea last year, opposed by many groups who felt that there were already too many opportunities for drinking on campus. The article reports that not many students have taken advantage of it up to this point.

Now that it has been done, will it facilitate a more sane drinking climate on campus? Are you going to be taking your seniors out for a beer at the Union?

Goals of a 'Humane Education'

The Boston Globe ran a piece this weekend by a Yale law professor that argues that Universities have lost their way because they have lost sight of the big picture--the question of the meaning of life.

I'll quote my favorite part. Here he is defining what he calls the 'shared conception of a humane education:'

The first is that there is more than one good answer to the question of what living is for. A second is that the number of such answers is limited, making it possible to study them in an organized way. A third is that the answers are irreconcilably different, necessitating a choice among them. A fourth is that the best way to explore these answers is to study the great works of philosophy, literature, and art in which they are presented with lasting beauty and strength. And a fifth is that their study should introduce students to the great conversation in which these works are engaged - Augustine warily admiring Plato, Hobbes reworking Aristotle, Paine condemning Burke, Eliot recalling Dante, recalling Virgil, recalling Homer - and help students find their own authentic voice as participants in the conversation.

This is again a very traditionalist set of examples, but the conversation to which he is referring extends to a much broader list of thinkers.

I think that the discussion about a liberal education is one of the most important that we can have as a campus community. Can it become the vehicle for recovering the quality and reputation of our own institution?

Maybe there ARE more liberals in academia

This is a fun study, purporting to show that liberal brains are more flexible than conservative ones. They tolerate ambiguity and conflict better than conservative brains. It also notes that conservatives tend to block information that is contradictory to what they already believe.

Perhaps this is why liberals congregate in academia--more acceptance of ambiguity and increased willingness to think outside the box. One might argue that this is what academia is all about. Our jobs are by definition to be creaters of new knowledge. If you are not going to challenge the status quo, why go into a field where your success is defined by coming up with something new?

Thus, if a conservative is not comfortable with this ambiguities that academia demands, there are plenty of careers that offer the kind of intellectual stability that would be better.

Just something to think about. . . .

Our Misplaced Priorities

I know I shouldn't blog two times in the same day, but I am incensed by the football team. They have decided to miss 2 days this week for a trip to Alabama.

WTF!?? The coaches and provost have decided that they don't need to be around during the first classes of the semester? They don't need to know the requirements of their classes or whether the class will be a good fit for them??

Aren't we a division III school? Aren't athletics supposed to be a nice addition to the academic program of our students? Instead, teams take off whenever they want, have the provost force us to accommodate them, and generally treat classwork as if it is secondary to their games.

This is not the first time--I have had teams announce they are leaving early for spring break in the past(missing exams or other assignments)--why are our priorities so screwed up?? None of these students are likely to make it as professional athletes, but they will have to be able to read and write effectively. Yet, the administration put the sports first. How does this reflect on the quality of our degrees and our institution?

Opening Day

Welcome back everyone! We had our grand opening day convocation yesterday morning.

My impressions:

It looks like a hopeful year financially. Little doom and gloom, though there is still a chance Steve Nass will get his way in Madison.

It looks like a year of acronyms. LEAP was the main topic of the day. The chancellor and provost made the Liberal Education reform the center of their agenda, which may result in general education reform. I think that this could really be a boon for the university. The chancellor also mentioned some other acronym that has to do with a new sort of on-line college rating system that he will be proposing this fall.

Petra Roter and Art Rathjen decided to go with the comedy routines. Although they were amusing, I was left with the feeling that they didn't want to talk about real issues. Was Art hiding his own feeling that little money was raised behind his Wisconsin jokes? Someone suggested that Petra's own text message/abreviation schtick was both old (isn't this the 3rd time she has done this) and displayed her own belief that she knows the students better than the rest of us because she is hip to the code.

John Koker's comedy routine was more sedate and to the point, but he pushed the liberal education reform agenda too. He also tossed in his desire to do something about class size. We may be talking more about that as the year progresses.

The university continues to grow. Now we have over 12,500 FTE and we are getting a chance to rebuild some of our faculty numbers.

Just a few general comments this morning--if you have any of your own, I look forward to seeing them!

The Core of Our Problem

Americans are reading less and less. This article reports that only 43% of the population said they read a book last year (which surely means the percentage is much lower).

I watched my 13 year old nephew play with his psp the last time I saw him, I realized that he will probably be one of the non-reading majority. When I was his age, when I was hiding from relatives, I would be hidden away reading a book. He has too many other better things to do.

If he is not reading now for pleasure, will he when he is an adult? Will he when he is in college? It seems unlikely.

How many times has it become apparent that your students won't read the most interesting texts you can pick out for them? Even those that do, evince weak comprehension.

We need to break this cycle, but what can we do?

Dumb, dead kid earns parents $500,000

This is a crass headline, but I had to post this story that is all over the news. A Purdue University student electrocuted himself trying to sneak into a dormitory. He found an unlocked door that led to a pitch-black utility room, where he unknowingly touched a high-voltage line. It is a sad story, but the guy should have known better.

His parents then sued, I suppose for negligence, and the state of Indiana will have to fork over half a million bucks to his parents. Guess whose tuition, taxes, etc. will go to pay for this?

Are universities really responsible for essentially criminal behaviors of their students because of a mistakenly unlocked door? Are they to the tune of $500,000? It just seems like a sad commentary on our litigious culture.

Students block staff access to campus building

It was announced Friday that faculty and staff will be barred from using the new Wellness center without paying high fees. The fee is set at $360/year. (You can buy smaller increments at $30/month)

Apparently the students think that faculty and staff are waiting to overrun the facility, leaving no room for those who "paid" for it.

Actually, it is more of a slight by the people in Student Affairs, who see all of us as employees who are here only to serve the student customers. This attitude would bar us servants from using the facilities of the all-important customers.

To find that this campus building,open to all students, is closed to me because I didn't directly pay for it is annoying and divisive.

We are third tier in 2008!

U.S. News and World Rankings have come out. Princeton was number one. We have been placed in the category of Universities–Master's (Midwest), third tier.

I know that we are not really in competition with those rich private schools out east, but more troubling is that we did so badly among the UWs.

LaCrosse -- 22nd in the category
Eau Claire -- 26
Stevens Point -- 40
Whitewater -- 52
River Falls -- 60
Platteville -- 69

Unfortunately, I can't see all the details on the website, but obviously we do very badly in many of the categories. Does someone subscribe, so that we can see the numbers for UWO?

This, of course, is a perennial problem and will continue to damage our attempts to improve. Regardless of the methodological issues of the survey (you can read a few comments about that at insidehighered.com), it is really a continuing black eye for our campus.

Is Academic Freedom in Jeopardy?

We have discussed this before, but a new survey of social scientists finds that those surveyed are more pessimistic about academic freedom than those surveyed during the McCarthy era. (1/3 now versus 1/5 then)

The articles touches upon discussions of a disjunction between what we and the general public think academic freedom means, fights in middle-eastern studies, and even the recent supreme court ruling against part of McCain-Feingold.

There are many important truths to this, as you remember in our discussions of Kevin Barrett and last year, but it seems incorrect to equate today to the 1950s.

What do you think? Are we stifled and silenced? Should we be? (I should talk--I won't even give my real name!)

New Blogger on Campus

It looks as though a new anonymous blogger will be joining our cyber campus this year. "Douglas McCloud" brings a comment on what to expect in the next year and adds his comment on rental textbooks over at his blog, entitled Glib Replies.

From his first comments, I would say that he knows a lot more about what is going on around here than I do. In the comments, he warns us to watch out for big changes in Dempsey. On his blog, he chalks up resistance to rental textbooks to the need for bookstore profits to subsidize Reeve Union. These are details that I wouldn't have any idea about!

Welcome to a new compatriot!!

I'm Back!

Hello everyone!

I hope that you have had a refreshing and productive summer. I've had a quite successful summer of research, but now I am back in blogging mood.

Unfortunately, the dominant story I find is a bad one: The legislature is battling over UW funding. I thought that we were in good shape as Spring semester ended. Instead, Steve Nass intervened and convinced Republicans in the Senate to cut, cut, cut. . .

Today, the papers report that the Regents voted a 5.5% tuition increase, based on the budget that the governor has promised.

On a more positive note, Chancellor Wells is touting our reaccreditation (did anyone really think it wouldn't happen??). We aren't under any significant pressure to change our ways from the accreditors.

What will be the big issues for 2007-8?

Will another round of ugly financial crises arise?
What will happen to the Freshman experience project?
Will there really be general education reform?
Will the Chancellor head for greener pastures?

Let us speculate about the year ahead. . . .