Conservatives have wrong mind-set for Academia

The Chronicle of Higher Education has the story of a conservative public policy professor who argues that conservative values are the reason there are fewer people on the right in academia.  

He and his wife surveyed undergraduates and came to this conclusion.  Here is my favorite paragraph:

For example, liberal students reported valuing intellectual freedom, creativity, and the chance to write original work and make a theoretical contribution to science. They outnumbered conservative students two to one in the humanities and social sciences — which are among the fields most likely to produce interest in doctoral study. Conservative students, however, put more value on personal achievement and orderliness, and on practical professions, like accounting and computer science, that could earn them lots of money.

This is an interesting argument and generally makes sense to me.   What do you think?

Dumbing Down America

Susan Jacoby writes this article in the Sunday Washington Post.  In it, she argues there is a crisis of anti-intellectualism in America.  On top of the fact that Americans don't know much, she argues there is a growing belief that you don't need to know much.

I found this a thought-provoking piece and I wonder if we face this dillema more acutely than most.  Our students already believe that college is mostly about getting a piece of paper so that they can get a job.  Are they also becoming increasingly resistant to learning?

Budget Crisis Looming: Lets Raise Administrators' Pay!!

The Journal-Sentinal reports that the Regents have decided to raise the pay range of UW system chancellors.  The largest raise is a whopping 66% increase for UW Madison, but all the others' new range is at least 10% higher.

We recieved the notice from the Chancellor about watching our spending because of a slowing Wisconsin economy.  Now, we have the tone-deaf regents getting ready to raise the pay of administrators as the rest of the state prepares for cuts.

Why do administrators think they deserve so much money anyway?  Apparently the current crop are doing an awful job at their pay level and we need to encourage better applicants.  At least that is the excuse. . . .  Maybe we can cut a few more faculty lines to pay for the fat raises!

New Movie Policy Coming?

Someone actually posted something to the COLS discussion list this morning. It seems as of late, there has been almost no list activity. In this case, it is a bit of old business. Three historians are announcing that there will be a change in campus-wide movie policy.

The new policy will allow clubs to show movies, with certain restrictions--you can read about it below. I am glad to see that student groups will again be able to show movies on campus without having to pay big licensing fees!

Still, it seems inexplicable that the Reeve Union theater can not be used for such activities. Apparently, Petra Roter and students do not believe that any education takes place there. Isn't that why they built it in the first place?!?

For a little context, you can look at the blogposts from the spring of 2006:

Film Nazi's Invade Campus

Fair Use Debate Rages All Day

Revised Movie Policy Appears on Discussion List

Anyway, here is the letter:

Dear Colleagues:

Karl Loewenstein, Michelle Kuhl and I are happy to announce that there will soon be a new set of guidelines for screening films and documentaries on our campus.

We initially engaged the university community in a discussion on this topic, you may recall, in April 2006. That discussion was triggered by several history students’ concern over the impact new guidelines were having on student groups’ ability to screen films on campus. (In that month the Student Allocations Committee froze the funding of the International Film Series and threatened the leadership of the History Club with legal action and punitive fines if they showed historical films without purchasing public performance rights—rights obtained at approximately $300 per film.)

Over the past twenty months we have been working with Dr. Petra Roter, Reeve Director Randy Hedge and UW System Legal to forge a commonsense campus-wide film policy based on guidelines set forth in Section 110 (1) of the 1976 Copyright Act. In a conference call with an UW System attorney, we reached an agreement on the feasibility of showing films and documentaries in campus “educational spaces” devoted to instruction.

In subsequent months, we failed to convince the Reeve Advisory Council, the Oshkosh Student Association, Petra Roter and Reeve Union staff that the Reeve Union Theater qualifies as an educational space—a “similar place devoted to instruction” as outlined in the provisions of the 1976 Copyright Act. Most recently they have ratified their position by citing the fact that Reeve Union is funded by student segregated fees and is therefore not technically an academic building.

The revised guidelines have been submitted to the OSA and SAC and will soon be incorporated into the Student Handbook. While several details need to be ironed out, the revised guidelines make it clear that student groups may legally show films in academic buildings without paying for public performance rights as long as the films are shown primarily for educational purposes. In order to substantiate the educational purpose, the guidelines suggest that the showing should be in an academic building and under the supervision of an instructor teaching a class related to the film.

Those of us who recall with fondness the vibrant film cultures which thrived on the campuses we once attended and who now assign films in their classrooms (and who, in the process, are continually heartened by students’ confessions that they “blown away” by films [black-and-white, foreign language and documentary] that they would never have dreamed of viewing on their own) may still be disappointed that access to the premiere venue on campus for film—the Reeve Union—is restricted. But we are glad that a set of new and revised guidelines have addressed previous misperceptions and will ultimately create an environment that will add to the educational experience of our students.

Sincerely,

Stephen Kercher, Karl Loewenstein and Michelle Kuhl
Department of History

Robert Bacon's Response to no Sloshkosh

Robert Bacon, infamous producer of sloshkosh t-shirts, sent me an email in response to my posting about UWO's attempt to suppress his t-shirt business.   He emphasizes that he sees his site as something fun.

I thought I would part of his comments about the free speech issue with you:

• On the note of the shirts. After some research I am absolutely sure that if I fought this trademark that the University made, that I would win. You can't trademark a commonly used term and I would only have to prove that Sloshkosh and UW-Zero were commonly used terms before the trademark. Why didn't I fight? It's simple, I don't have the time nor the money to do such a thing, even if I could find a lawyer to help me out. I don't want my studies to be affected by something so silly as some t-shirts. I don't make much money off my shirts because I only charge $1 above cost. My goal with UW College Life is not to make money but to express myself and other UW students in a real light.
  

Thanks for your response, Robert!  I am glad to hear how you view the whole sloshkosh phenomenon.

Do You Know "Helicopter Parents?"

The Journal Sentinal is running a story about intrusive parents who try to manage their college student's lives.   I have heard of such people, calling professors, deans, or others to try to solve problems that their kids face.  Clearly, kids and parents are more connected than they have been in the past, thanks to cell phones, so it is not completely unexpected.

Personally, I haven't had that happen yet.  I imagine that this might be more of a problem at smaller colleges where they encourage the idea that professors are particularly accessible.   With over 11,000 students, faculty are generally seen as less available than smaller institutions, so it may mitigate this issue.

How about you?  Any "helicopter parents" pressuring you to take care of their kid?  

Northwestern Editorial Rant against Academia

I have to post the editorial from the Northwestern this morning. Mary Hiles, ex-lecturer in the UWO English department, recycles the tired, old charges from David Horowitz and the right-wing American Council of Trustees and Alumni about professors' political views in the classroom (many of which have been disbunked).

Her entry into this is Bill McConkey. He was in the paper a few months ago as the lead plaintiff in a law suit against the anti-civil union amendment to the Wisconsin constitution. Oddly, she gives us detail about a professor in New Jersey about whom people on ratemyprofessor.com say bad things.

I am not even sure McConkey is currently teaching here (or ever even mentioned the constitutional amendment in a class), but Hiles decides to use it as proof that "liberal" professors force their views on students in their classrooms.

Besides being a gratuitous, hollow attack on UWO, it demonstrates once again the failure of 'community columnists' to produce editorials that don't waste your time.

Happy New Year and Women in College

Welcome back everyone! Interim is underway and activity is beginning to pick up on campus. I hope everyone had a good relaxing month since I last posted!

Today, I am posting this story from the Journal-Sentinel about women in college. Enrollment and graduation rates for women are much higher than that for men in Wisconsin, as it is on our own campus. I don't remember the exact figures, but there is clearly a spread between men and women here.

It is part of a theme that has stretched back since the beginning of the blog.

Here I am in 2005, referencing U.S. Today.

Here is the NYTimes in 2006.

Here is a post from 2007.

(Wow, I have been at this for a while!!)

Nothing is really being done about the stagnation of male participation rates in college, although we have been aware of the gap for years. I am still not convinced that it is a problem, but perhaps we should intervene before it does become one. But how?!?

No Sloshkosh T-shirts for Christmas?!

The university publicity machine has sent cease and desist e-mails to a UWO student who was selling Sloshkosh and UW-Zero t-shirts on the web.

As much as I have been a proponent of cleaning up the image of our fair institution, this seems like a heavy-handed tactic to me. Does anyone seriously believe that fewer t-shirts with funny slogans on them will make UWO a better place?

Trademarking the two terms and then threatening someone who is already using them with a lawsuits smacks of the worst use of copyright/trademark law by UWO. Obviously, the student doesn't have the resources to stand up to threats from a state institution. Unless he is particularly ambitious, it is not likely he is going to find someone with the knowledge and resources to push back.

Besides which, wouldn't using the two terms be protected by his right to free speech? At worst, they are parodies of the official slogan/logo of the university. How can the university claim ownership of them? I understand trademark rules are about business usage, but how can this be?

I am hoping Tony Palmeri will clear this up for me. He is our resident free-speech guru.

University asks students for money for Sports Complex

I noticed this article on the University home page this morning. The Foundation has gone to the students for an additional $700,000 for the Oshkosh Sports Complex.

I wonder if this doesn't smack of desperation. I have heard Art complain about the problems of raising money for the OSC before. Is he turning to the students because the community seems to be tapped out for this project? There is a big gift from the Convention Bureau, so do we think there will be little more money to be given to finish the project?

Does the fact that students are going to have to pay for part of the sports complex bode well for the much larger amounts we have to raise for new building? Let's hope not!

Invasion of pick-a-prof.com

Rumor has it that pick-a-prof.com has expressed an interest in filing a request for SOS student evaluations and grade distributions for their website.

The OSA is considering whether to partner with the site in getting more data about professors and courses on-line.

The site itself looks a lot better than the snarky ratemyprofessor. I would be interested to see some of the information that pick-a-prof promises.

It sounds, however, like there is great fear among the professoriate that having this kind of information available will cause trouble. Various groups have been discussing ways to make it difficult for the website to get the information.

Personally, I am not particularly upset by the idea of having more information about our courses on the web. I suppose it might be bad to allow someone else make a profit from all the data that we collect and collate. Wouldn't it benefit students to know more about each of us before they enter the classroom?

Another Article Documents Decline of Tenure

In the midst of an incredibly hectic week, I am sneaking in a post. Here is an article from the New York Times. Although there doesn't seem to be anything in particular driving its appearance, it notes that the shift from tenure-track appointments to limited-term ones continues apace.

My favorite bit from the article is this:

Dr. Ehrenberg and a colleague analyzed 15 years of national data and found that graduation rates declined when public universities hired large numbers of contingent faculty.

Several studies of individual universities have determined that freshmen taught by many part-timers were more likely to drop out.

These two statistics should be more prominently displayed. There is a real impact on students--not just the institution or the teachers--when the type of teacher changes!

The greater problem: nobody reads!

The New York Times ran this article yesterday about the connection between declining test scores and declining reading rates. Reading for fun is on the decline.

Perhaps this should be part of the liberal education initiative--Reading 101: Lets read for fun--find someway to engage first year students in the pleasure of reading without the pressure of testing.

So many of our goals revolve around students reading well. If they don't read well or at all, we are in bigger trouble that we would like to admit!

If you want to see the NEA report, here is the link (a PDF).

Is it a real letter?

I read this letter to the editor in the Northwestern this morning. It was so unbelievable, that I felt like it must be a parody.

A student writes the newspaper and says all they do all weekend is drink. Why doesn't the University and city appreciate them for that?

Besides the strange writing (what exactly is an "alcoholic event"??), this student really demonstrates what was wrong about the Goat Pack event. He also makes it clear why UWO has a bad reputation in Oshkosh.

Shouldn't a student be proud of his study habits, grades, and community engagement? Instead he is proud of his drunkenness.

"Tests" to measure UW schools

Just as we knew would happen, VSA has hit the media and is being presented primarily as a resource based on those standardized tests. The story tosses in the caveats about testing, even with a quote from our illustrious chancellor.

Although it mentions the rest of the profile, it is clear that the test numbers will be the only thing in the public sphere. How long before legislators decided to make funding decisions based on our performance on those tests?

Goats run away

In a flash of good sense, students organizers canceled the "Run with the Goats" drinking bash this weekend.

It is amazing how much bad press this generated for UWO--it seemed to be on the 10PM news every night this week and, of course, made the Northwestern on a regular basis.

As the organizers rightly pointed out, a Saturday night of drunken revelry is not unusual for our students, but having 600 drunk students crawling through downtown just can't be a good thing.

I wonder what the administration threatened the Goat Pack with to bring this scheme to an end. They sounded pretty chastened when they were interviewed last night.

Personally, I am not sure that this is any worse than normal behavior for college students on the weekends. It might even be nice to funnel some of the wasted money towards charity, but it sure was a blight on our image.

VSA officially approved

As the university community knows, Chancellor Wells announced that all of the governance groups signed off on the VSA program. We are now going to move forward with posting more data about our university on the web.

The one caveat remained: everyone expressed concern over evaluation methods--so we will be seeing what standardized tests will be chosen to "demonstrate" that students have learned something in college. I am still struck by the irony that many colleges are moving away from using SAT/ACT to determine whether high school students are prepared for college, but we are now going to test them with a similar product to determine if they gained skills in college.

My fear remains that the final standardized test number will become an operative goal of the university and we will all be required to tailor our courses to improve student performance on a problematic standardized test. . . .Not now, but be prepared!

10 year academic staff let go

I caught wind of a rumor today that there are 2 academic staff people who have been teaching here in a science department that are not having their contracts renewed. It sounded as though they did not want to go.

Has anyone heard about this?

$2.5 million for growth agenda

Just because I am interested, I looked up the report on the budget this afternoon. It looks like we got about half of what was originally proposed in March 2006 (there is a link to the original proposal). Here it is:

(6) UW-Oshkosh [$1,619,600 GPR and $910,600 PR]. The funding would be the first part of a three biennia plan with the goal of increasing the number of Wisconsin residents with bachelor's degrees; by the end of the three biennia, UW-Oshkosh plans to increase undergraduate headcount enrollment by 1,440. UW-Oshkosh would accomplish this increase in headcount enrollment by increasing access to programs and majors and by increasing retention and graduation rates. Under the plan, UW-Oshkosh would expand existing programs,
including: (a) biology and microbiology; (b) medical technology; (c) psychology; (d) nursing; (e) criminal justice; and (f) teacher education. In addition, new programs relating to business, applied science, and fire and emergency response management would be offered.

Here is the link to the budget report from the state.

The next question is how do we do all of this with half the money??

Budget deal -- Universities come out ahead!

The news this weekend was good.

The legislators down in Madison apparently hammered out a budget agreement on Friday. In it, the UW system is supposed to receive $159 million more than in the last biennium. This represents a reduction to the system of only $6 from what was in the governors proposal. It is also a tripling of the amount put forth in the Republican budget plan.

I'm sure we will find new details over the next couple of days, but it looks like we are in good shape for the next two years. It seems likely that we will be embarking on our "growth agenda" in the near future.