Higher Education

Before the main topic, I heard these two on the radio this week.  One was an ad for one of those new drugs on the market.  It concluded with a warning about "possible side effects."  And it added, "If you experience death or severe pain immediately call......"  I'm waiting to hear that commercial again to see if I heard it right.

On a local radio show, a guest was berating the governor for his role in the Flint water crisis.  The host, a toady for the governor, tried to defend him.  Boy, the guest just then ripped the host to shreds, using the governor's own admissions for ammunition.  It was great to hear!

A couple of weeks ago I read an article that said the lifetime income gap between workers with high school diplomas and college degrees is the widest it's ever been.  I'm somewhat surprised.  The article came at about the same time I was finished a book on higher education, which the book claims is "academically adrift."

I've wondered, but have no concrete proof, that a college education of today is the equivalent of a high school education--and the diplomas and degrees associated with each--of four or five decades ago.  I suspect that it is..

I really don't think my classes are burdensome with the quantity of work.  The reading isn't particularly heavy.  I give no term-paper length assignments.  In my 15 week courses, I usually assign 9 or 10 papers, one every week and a half or so (accounting for the first and last weeks).  Some aren't very difficult, e.g., the maps.  I know I probably shouldn't assign maps, but I am concerned about how little students know about places, where they are, how their geographical relationships are relevant and causative, and so on.  Most of the assignments are about three-quarters of a page to a page in length.  So I make no claims of burden when it comes to the amount of work.  I do think, though, that I demand quite a bit of quality.  In my usual classes of 30 to 37, rarely are there more than a handful, 3 or 4, of As.  Usually, my individual class GPAs are a few ticks under 2.0/C.  I demand proper spelling, the use of complete sentences and correct punctuation, etc. and grade for those, although they do not carry the most weight; content does.  With all of that in mind......

For the most part, today, I don't think most colleges demand much of students; that is, they don't have to work very hard to get good grades.  I'd guess most students don't prioritize their academic effort.  Studying, at least hard and a lot, is not the primary focus of students.  Oh, I make no "back when I was a kid" claims here.  I, no doubt, was the same.  Other things, at least to me, be they my athletics or social life, were more important than my studies.  The difference, I think, was that my professors made me give the effort I wasn't likely to give on my own.  They pushed me.  The results might not have shown up at Amherst for me, but they certainly did later on at the three graduate universities I attended.

Many (most?) institutions confer degrees based upon credentials that do not reflect substantive scholarly or, at least, academic achievement.  That is, they award "fake degrees."

In that light, this book holds that fewer and fewer professors are devoted to teaching.  They don't see their primary job as teaching.  Research and publication are often more in focus.  And schools, which profess to emphasize teaching (and, therefore, learning), speak out of both sides of their mouths as they pressure professors to do research, to "publish or perish."  They emphasize those to gain tenure, to move up the teaching ladders (from lecturer to assistant professor to associate professor to full professor).  More and better teaching is not often rewarded; success or failure in other areas of academia is met with significant rewards or penalties.

At a certain point all teachers are compensated equally--except for what is published or comes from research.  Hmmm......  Good teaching and bad teaching is rewarded the same.  The lazy teacher gets the same pay as the one who, well, is still revising and reorganizing classes after 46 years.  I know, I know.  How do we identify "good" from "bad?"  Sometimes it's easy, very easy.  Other times it's quite difficult.

There are some professors who are quoted in this book.  One said, "I have learned that people who call the shots," administrators, "do not value teaching."  Should these people, then, be the ones to determine "good" from "bad" teachers, hence, pay?  Another added, citing "messages...about being a teacher?  It's really settling for a lesser thing."  It is college, which I suspect is true for many others, What is the saying, "Those who can do; those who can't teach."  (No, I don't believe it.  I'm just citing an old adage.)  "Learning is peripheral."  Yet the degrees are still awarded.

For years I have enjoyed this, "Is love of learning no longer enough?"  Of course it isn't.  And I don't presume students, like me once, will buy into that--at least not yet.  The goal, I think, is for professors to emphasize that, over and over, in their courses, in their assignments, etc., so that some day this will "click." Students, long past their student days, will finally "get it."

It is disturbing to read that some universities at least partially base tenure and other upward movement on student satisfaction surveys.  At some schools, those are the primary measure.  It doesn't take much imagination to see where this would inevitably lead:  entertainment vs. actual teaching (although they are not necessarily mutually exclusive, not necessarily), lighter work loads, and better grades.  What better ways to make students happy?  And, of course, this is a way to determine "good" and "bad" teachers, hence more or less compensation.  Another major problem with that is that it sometimes takes a while, years in fact, for education "to click," for students "to get it."  I know it did for me, about 5 or 6 years.  I suspect I am not alone or unique in that.

Much of that stems from the fact that universities, no matter their public claims, view students as, well, consumers or clients.  If the consumers aren't happy......

As to the commitment of colleges and universities to teaching and, therefore, learning, this book notes that in the year 2000, almost half (47%) were not faculty, that is, not involved in direct teaching.  And according to many studies the number of administrators at colleges has increased by about one-third and other "support personnel" by half.  I see that frequently, with announcements of the creation of a new this administrator or that administrator.  And, let it be known, it's not just the colleges and universities that are doing this.  It has permeated all of education.

To be continued......maybe.