The news story of the day is a report that show that spending on instruction has declined even as the student share of costs has risen.
On our own campus, we know that our salaries have not risen more than a hair, instructional staff numbers have increased, and new administrators seem to appear on a regular basis.
I wonder what the numbers are like on our own campus . . .
I haven't been posting in a while--I hadn't realized that it was so long.
Perhaps my enthusiasm is starting to wane, but I don't think I'm ready to give up.
So in that spirit, here is an article from the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinal about state colleges in trouble: http://www.jsonline.com/news/education/37546019.html
There is not much new news in the story, but it is a reminder about how precarious the finances are at private colleges. It also warns of the coming cuts state institutions are likely to see in the next budget.
The media has been filled with reports (see the Journal Sentinel, for example) about the decreasing affordability of a university education. I have been meaning to post a few observations about this, but instead, I came upon this blog entry by Juan Cole.
He points out that legislatures across the country have decided that imprisonment is more important than education. As he notes, prison populations have skyrocketed since 1980. By and large, the money to pay for this has come from support for universities. Now, Cole argues that the solution is to decriminalize marijuana and use the tax revenue for education. This, of course, is not very likely.
However, his post reminds us of the choices we have made as a society. Education has lost and continues to lose to punishment.
What politician will stand up and say that non-violent offenders should spend less time in jail so students can get a college degree? Being "soft on crime" is a death sentence for a politician in this age of nasty, negative campaigning. . .
A new study claims that 1 in 5 young American adults has a personality disorder that disrupts their lives and 1/3 abuse alcohol and drugs.
The study also goes on to claim that only 25% of those seek treatment.
I suppose this means the researchers think that an even larger percentage have disorders that don't yet affect their daily lives.
If our students are a disfunctional as the researchers claim, where does this leave us? Should we all be replaced by guidance councillors?
I feel bad for not posting, but the semester is dragging me down man . . .
Here is an interesting article about the way that academics follow links as they use the internet for research. One study argues that the internet has led to a narrowing of citation, presumably because scholars only cite papers they find on-line. Others dispute those claims.
The ease of internet searching certainly is enticing, making it easy to forget the vast world of printed information out there. For students, this certainly is true, as it is hard to get them into the library to experience the vast knowledge accumulated on the shelves. Too often it seems for them that if they can't google it, it doesn't exist. . . .
Chancellor Wells sent out a carefully worded, yet ominous memo yesterday. The planning is already underway for serious cuts here on campus. He seems to be hinting that new searches are going to be put off while the student body will continue to grow. He also may be preparing us for a claim that he can not reduce administrative costs. The brief discussion about the new Director of Sustainability on the COLS list suggests this is the case.
Unfortunately, this is probably what we all expected. We are expected to deal with more students. I wonder when our whopping raise will be postponed. How big will the tuition increase be?
From the note:
As many of you know, while the Higher Learning Commission evaluation team lauded UW Oshkosh, they raised a serious concern regarding our all-too-thin administrative support — something unheard of in such reports. We have also acknowledged our need to appoint more tenure-track faculty and we realize our classified staff has been hit hard by earlier budget cuts. Much needed Growth Agenda funding was provided this year to help offset millions of dollars of earlier state funding cuts and to serve the recent and projected increase of more than 1,400 students. While we may have to delay some of the Growth Agenda searches, we will do our best to protect our base funding. It is obvious that we will have to continue to make tough budgetary planning decisions during six to nine months of budget planning uncertainty.
Obama won a decisive victory yesterday and riding on his coattails came the Wisconsin Assembly!
This change in political leadership may have profound changes for us here at UWO.
As even David Brooks has pointed out, the Republicans have been running on an anti-intellectual platform for years. With a new Democratic administration in Washington, I hope for a new tone, less derisive towards academia and science in general!
P.S. Great Job WRST election night coverage! I spent much of the night with the sound of the TV off and the radio on. The students did an excellent job bringing our own experts to the airwaves!
The New York Times reported today that two new studies show that student's political views are not changed by their professors.
This is an argument that I and many others have made throughout the last several years of this right-wing attack on the academy. I like seeing a few studies to back it up. Whether or not the statistics are any good is, of course, a different question.
All this worry about professors and proselytising seems to be a lot of noise. I guess I should wear my political button tomorrow!
I have been meaning to post about this for awhile, but I have been obsession about the Presidential election.
Our own student association has put together a petition demanding that politicians put more resources toward higher education. It is a very nice idea, but I am not sure what they want to accomplish with the vague statements laid out here.
I've signed it, but I don't think it will make a bit of difference. Just like our LERT principles, when you make something this vague, it is hard to find anyone who disagrees. It also makes it difficult to see a course of action ahead. . . . .
Doyle announced yesterday that he expects there to be a 3 billion dollar hole in the budget for the next biennium.
Chancellor Wells informs us that he has been asked to reformulate the budget with a 10% reduction. He mentions that there is also a good possibility that our budget will be reduced for the final year of this budget cycle.
Even though we know well that universities play an especially valuable role for the state when the economy slows and citizens are looking for retraining, I don't think the legislators are going to give us much protection.
What do you think we will lose this time around?
1. Cancelling of current searches?
2. Losing our miniscule raises?
3. Increasing class size?
4. Cancel the new building? The My Two Cents blog at WOSH radio proposes that (he also posted nasty comments about the "rich, spoiled" students who attended the John Kerry rally yesterday).
Any other speculations?
Just when I thought I found an interesting story about academic freedom, I find out that it was already old news.
Illinois took it back last week.
The Chronicle also reports that several other state institutions have reversed themselves in trying to ban campaign advertisements. The University of Missouri at St. Louis and Texas-Austin both reversed themselves this week on the same question, involving both classrooms and students.
Maybe it is because Obama is surging in the polls -- it no longer looks less like political advocacy and more like preparation for the next presidency. . . .
Although I have plenty of more important things to do, I just came across the story about the Ethics office of the University of Illinois system that tells all employees that they are not allowed to display political buttons, bumper stickers, or anything else.
You can read Stanley Fish's take on it from the NYTimes. He argues that legally, the state can ban whatever it wants from the classroom, as long as they claim it is "political."
It is a complicated issue, but the state of Illinois absolutism (as well as Fish's) seem to be absurd. We all should try to make sure the core knowledge of our discipline is passed along, but analysis and advocacy are part of making students think about that knowledge.
We know that our system does not allow partisan political activity from state employees, but now Illinois is trying to ban even the expression of an opinion from campus?!
Will we soon see such draconian suppressions in our state? I guess I'll have to get out my scraper . . .
I know that for a school like ours, the U.S. News rankings aren't very relevant (3rd tier regional, if I remember correctly). However, it is interesting to see a report about how flawed the statistics are that create the rankings.
With statistical profiles like the VSA on the way, it is a good reminder that these numbers are easily gamed and essentially meaningless.
This letter ran in the Northwestern on Tuesday. The student complains that there are no Republican events on campus.
I don't know what is going out on the student email lists, but the biggest initiative on campus is the American Democracy Project, which is a non-partisan attempt to register students and get them engaged in the process. I have seen the posters around campus, so I imagine they are one of the tables in Reeve that the author is complaining about.
Ironically, when I look at this campus I see apathy across the spectrum. Compared to almost every other campus that I have been on, there is NO student activism. It would be great for the atmosphere around here if there were really were raucous rallies in support of candidates for president. To see students join in something with real passion and enthusiasm would make my day!
Instead, we see most of our students sort of shuffle through class with little emotion or engagement--too busy with jobs or sports or parties to pay much attention to the large, important issues we face.
This student should get involved with the Campus Republicans, organize some speakers, and make her voice heard on campus. If she had the energy to write the paper, why hasn't this turned into activism here??
The New York Times education section had a long article about teaching evaluations last Sunday. It starts with the story of an adjunct who did not have her contract renewed because she did not have over 85% good or exellent marked on her student evaluations.
It uses this to launch into an extended discussion about the worthiness of student evaluations.
The article dwells on the vast differences between student perceptions, especially in classes that challenge students assumptions about their world. It also includes an upper-class white male student bashing segment, accusing them as a group of ruining a professor's class on "whiteness."
In the end, there are no definitive studies that show that they tell us much of anything. We have had our own debates over evaluations over the years here, so this made for an interesting read.
I have never been much of a fan of student evaluations, because they don't really seem to tell us much. I occassionally look through the written comments, as those are the only things that hold potential interest for me. Student evaluations have something to tell us about the shape of a class, but perhaps more about the students than the professors.
The Advance-Titan ran this mocking editorial today about a professor that could not get youtube working in his classroom. For Dan Shafer, the fact that there was some sort of technological glitch demonstrates that Professors need to be more tech-savvy in order to properly teach students.
Interestingly enough, the chronicle had an article on a similar topic this week. In it, Mark Bauerlein argues that internet reading is shallow and less than reading on paper. Studies suggest that reading on the computer involves much skimming and skipping. He argues that we need to get technology out of the classroom and insist on the more careful reading that can be done with paper.
Is it obvious that I am sympathetic to the second view? Technology is something that can help, but in measured doses. It doesn't improve learning automatically and can very easily hamper what we are trying to do. Youtube may provide a nice demonstration of something, but hardly seems essential to the educational mission of our university.
The contemplative nature of learning and education is too often lost in the instant gratification of a google search. How can we truly reflect on what is important and come to our own understandings if we don't take time to think and understand for our selves?
If anything, a liberal education is about instilling that need for critical thinking and contemplation in our students. Technology can be a tool, but that is all it is. It is not the utopian solution to all the problems we face.
I was googling around this evening and came across this site, called The Torch. They have an article criticizing the new learning outcomes because it has sustainability listed there.
Apparently, sustainability is part of a secret attempt to repress freedom of speech at UWO. Who would have thunk it?? Those environmental studies types are taking over and we never even noticed. Wait until the Torch get wind of the fact the we are now a fair trade university. . .
Get ready, campus community, because soon we will be teaching to the test--one more cog in the giant testing industry.
Chancellor Wells announced today that we are beginning to "pilot" the CLA exams for graduating students. As many feared from the beginning, the VSA looks more and more like a backdoor entrance to standardized exit exams for UWO students.
I think it is almost a foregone conclusion that within 5 years, we will be hearing incessent reminders from the administration that we need to change our classes to improve the schools CLA scores.
For information, you can look at the CLA propaganda here. It seems that the CLA was developed by the RAND institute and will be computer graded. Lucky us!
Here is a critic of the whole VSA and CLA approach.
Finally, here is the Memo:
From: Chancellor Wells and Provost Hartman
To: Faculty and Instructional Academic Staff
As you may recall, UW Oshkosh joined the Voluntary System of Accountability (VSA) last fall, and we have since posted a link on our homepage to the College Portrait, which provides information on UW Oshkosh to prospective students and their families, public policy-makers, legislators, campus faculty and staff, and other key higher education stakeholders. Evidence of student learning outcomes, which is not scheduled to be posted on the VSA College Portrait for three years, is one of the data elements included in the College Portrait. The VSA has approved three instruments (CLA, MAPP and CAAP) to measure student gains in critical thinking, including analytic reasoning, and written communication.
Colleges and universities across the US are piloting various assessments in order to make a decision on which instrument best aligns with their learning outcomes. UW Oshkosh has already administered the MAPP and the CAAP assessments on a limited basis. We have been given an opportunity to join other UW system schools to pilot the CLA in 2008-09 to evaluate the test and to analyze any changes in the results. We will pilot the CLA by administering the test to one hundred freshmen students this fall and to one hundred senior students in the spring semester.
An important criterion for the selection of an assessment instrument is the alignment of that instrument with learning outcomes. The current version of the CLA aligns with major components of the LERT outcomes. The administration of the CLA at this time will provide us with additional data regarding student learning at this university. These data can be used to inform the process used to determine performance indicators for our learning outcomes. Such a process promotes continuous improvement practices on our campus.
The selection of the CLA as a pilot also allows us to participate in a large scale research project sponsored by a FIPSIE grant. This research focuses on the development of an assessment of learning outcomes such as ours that is both valid and reliable.
E. Alan Hartman
Interim Provost & Vice Chancellor
Richard H. Wells
Chancellor
Thomas Benton, a columnist for the Chronicle of Higher Education, suggests they are. I have students who exhibit all of these characteristics. What does it mean and who is responsible? He reviews a series of books that discuss this topic. His emphasis is on the customer service mentality that seems to dominate universities these days.
If you watched the Republican National Convention, you could also see the anti-intellectualism run rampant there.
Here is his core list of troubling attributes he finds in his college students:
