UW system's new growth agenda hits the press

You can read about it in the Journal-Sentinel; the latest plan promises increase in graduates by 30%.   

Do you think it stands any chance of getting real support in Madison?  I doubt it!

Should we ban laptops?

The reaction against laptops in the classroom has hit the Washington Post.  It lists professors banning laptops at George Washington U, American, William and Mary, and Virginia.

I tend to agree--too often it is clear that students are simply surfing the web or doing something else.  The bigger question is whether typing is as good for memory as writing.

I find writing notes is the best way to remember what I have read or heard.  I don't think typing does as well.

Do You Think They'll Mention She's a Professor?

The feeding frenzy over the biologist at University of Alabama -- Huntsville has been as exaggerated as we could have expected.

She even made the front page of the New York Times today.  

It is a horribly tragic event, but much of the focus is driven by the fact that she was a professor.  It is not an uncommon occurrence when something like this happens.  Should we be flattered that her profession matters so much in a case like this?

Maybe the Northwestern can refer to us all as Amy Bishops instead of Jeffrey Dahmers!

LERT evaluation process flawed?

A commenter wrote this:

How about the necessity of defining what we try to do in each class as part of the ongoing LERT reform? Since we are restricted to only three choices, I was very disappointed to have to say that I DON'T teach writing in my class, and that I DON'T teach critical analysis of concepts, etc., etc. The process seems ridiculously reductionist.

These are good questions--we looked at the descriptions as a department last month.  People were disturbed by the language that told us all that we do not teach writing in our classes.  It looked like the English department convinced LERT that only they could teach writing!

New Social Order on Campus?

The New York Times Style section has a story about the changing nature of gender relations on campus.  In it, the author describes how partying has changed because of the decreasing percentage of men on campus.

The NY Times seems to run these kinds of breathless stories about shocking changes on a fairly regular basis. The author (Seems like a man, but I can't be sure since the name is Alex) seems to be imagining how great it must be to hook up without dating.

Welcome back -- with another report of poor student preparation

Welcome back everyone.  I have been slow at posting as of late.  I haven't found a good campus issue to sink my teeth into.

Instead, I have a complaint out of Canada about decline grammar skills among freshman.  This is not a surprising phenomenon, but it is always fun to see it in the news.

Perhaps this semester, we will see the beginnings of the move toward unionization.  That should be a nice way to get the blog moving again.  Anything else?

National Textbook Rental Coming?

Barnes and Noble getting into the textbook rental business.  Read the story here.

The rental fee will be 42.5% of the new cost.  This seems worse than the used book market, but if there is a new edition, I suppose it might work.

How is our own local rental business doing?  Is it still here? 

Colleges need more accountability

The left-wing journal Democracy Now calls for more accountability in higher education.   The author argues that IT can provide the information needed to improve college performance.  

The article claims that NSSE and the CLA are going to be saviors for higher ed.  I guess the assessment gurus got to him.  Oh, wait, he is a think tank director in DC.  . . I'm sure they have.

We know all problems can be solved if only we have a rubrik!

 

Sad Statistic: Youth less educated than their parents

In the US, younger generation is less educated than their parents. A Washington Monthly Blogger highlights this information. Apparently, Germany is the only other country in the world where this is happening.

It doesn't seem to bode well for the future. . .

How's this for a bad idea?

Cash-strapped communities talk of "student tax."  Several cities in Pennsylvania look at taxing student tuition as a way to raise additional revenue.  It appears as yet unclear if it is actually legal.

I hesitate to post it, because I can imagine some of our local officials who dislike the university might find this to be a good idea. . . 

Debate over how to handle the big cuts.

The New York Times hosts an interesting forum today about the future of higher education, on the heels of the massive tuition increases in the California Universities.

The panel seems to be almost unanimous that it doesn't matter.  They seem to all think that tuition was too low in CA anyway. . . 

Are too many students going to college?

The Chronicle of Higher Education posts this discussion.

It seem particularly relevant for us, with our highest enrollment ever and a failure rate of first year students approaching 20%.

With the growing burden of college costs, is there any surprise that students are struggling?  How many students are forced down the college path without ever confronting the reality of debt and failure?

Obscene Pay for University Presidents

You may have seen this story, as it seems to be showing up everywhere today. 23 college and university presidents make over $1 MILLION dollars a year.

It is phenomenal that this continues to get worse. These institutions take their students' money and throw it at their administrators. If the president makes this kind of money, how much do the lower ranking bureaucrats make?

This will, of course, trickle down to public institutions, as the consultants all claim that we have to be "competitive" with such a ridiculous waste of money.

I bet they didn't have to take any "furlough" pay-cuts!

Are student loans like indentured servitude?

I found this interesting article in Dissent.  Jeffery Williams argues that the nature of student debt binds students for years afterward.    He argues that the debt reinforces class discrimination, and counteracts the notion that the U.S. can be a meritocracy.

Although Dissent is very left-wing venue, I think that Williams raises some very interesting points.

If Rupert is against it, it must be a good idea!

The Wall Street Journal weighs in on the unionization of the faculty here in Wisconsin. Can you guess what they think?

It is a discussion that we should be having on campus, but this is not really the place to start. You can read about how unions have destroyed higher education in the United States--oh wait, that hasn't happened even though a quite substantial percentage of faculty is already unionized!

It is worth a weekend read.

America shouldn't be firing teachers

Paul Krugman writes about the cuts to education that are coming because of the economic decline we currently face. 143,000 teachers have been fired in the last 5 months. He argues that these kinds of cuts foreshadow big trouble in the future, because education is what used to set us apart from the rest of the world.

It is a sad story for Friday afternoon, but worth pondering. . .

New Nutty Northwestern Criticism of Academia

Yesterday, the Northwestern ran an editorial that is a tongue-in-cheek criticism of a UWMadison business professor who bought DVDs to show in his class.

The jocular nature of the commentary--ha-ha Seinfeld would be better--covers another slam of our profession.

They have no idea about what the prof. teaches, but only see fit to cast aspersions. As you can see from the few comments here is that you get outrage that professors waste "our" money like this.

It is a far cry from equating professors to Jeffrey Dahmer, but it continues their theme of anti-intellectualism.

Edit: Link is now fixed! Thanks to the commenter who noticed!

Another Problem with Standardized Tests

I loved this article. Todd Farley writes about the grading of standardized tests in an op-ed piece in the New York Times yesterday.

He points out the arbitrary nature of how writing samples are graded for standardized tests.

When I was a graduate student, I spent a couple of months grading MCAT essays. It was a horrible experience. (I imagine I signed a non-disclosure agreement. I hope it has expired!) What I discovered was just what Farley is talking about--scoring was, it seemed to me, completely arbitrary. I spent my summer trying to guess what score (1-6) the bosses would give the essays I was reading.

I could never discern exactly how to interpret their criteria. I usually could get close, but much of my summer was taken up by conferences trying to figure out why my scores were so far out of whack with others. I wonder if my students today would say that about my classes?

I suppose you could chalk it up to me being a 22 year old graduate student who didn't know what good writing was. You could also blame it on poor training by my supervisors. I don't know why I couldn't understand the rules, but I stuck it out because it paid pretty well.

It also gave me an immense amount of skepticism when it comes to looking at test scores. It made doubt their ability to tell us much about a person's competence.

$99 a month to replace us

Washington Monthly runs a piece hyping a new internet startup company that promises a college education for $99 a month.

I've seen this company hyped in a few other places recently. The argument is that education is just another commodity that can be traded on the internet. He argues that we are caught in a "debt fueled tuition spiral" and that we only traffic in information.

It hardly seems worthwhile to refute the ridiculous assumptions that underlie these claims. Whoever the PR people for straighterline.com are, they are doing a good job getting their message out.

We have always known that there is room for on-line courses in higher education. To imagine that there will be only on-line courses is a vision of education that promises a truly uneducated world.

We need a little content!

I have been meaning to post more often, but as usual, these first few weeks are always hectic.  

For example, I really wanted to sit down and write something about the COLS strategic initiative.  Koker talked about it on opening day.  I discovered that 65 people went on the retreat this summer to discuss it.  65?  I want to know how 65 people can get anything done, especially a room full of academics with agendas of their own!

I suppose we will hear more about it at the upcoming COLS meeting.

Anyway, I logged in to post this article from the Boston Globe.  It is an education professor complaining that knowledge has again gotten lost as the latest "skills" movement takes hold.  How can you "critically think" if there is nothing to think about?  

I feel this way myself -- students love to discuss, as long as it doesn't involve any preparation or careful analysis.  If you ask them to critically analyze an article, they balk.  If you want to talk about something without data, they are good at that.