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' [...]
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 [...]
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 [...]
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 [...]
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 [...]
The New York Times ran a story criticizing US College graduation rates. They note that the national average at public universities is abysmal.
This isn't particularly new, as our own 6-year graduation rate is just over 50%. However, the article notes that many good students are not going to the' [...]
Get ready for a new year! Opening day ceremonies have wrapped up and we are starting tomorrow!
A few observations: number of the day: 13.6 million cut from our operating budget over the next two years. Pretty traumatic, but seemingly manageable.
Wonderfully short speeches from the administration today. Art Rathjen didn't' [...]
This is too good of a story to pass up. A student who hasn't found a job three months after graduation is suing.
It seems like a nice case of litigation out of control, but at least no real lawyer took the case.
I haven't been posting much this summer, but [...]
When we talk about student parties and drinking on campus, I often fall back on the idea that I was a fairly big partier in college myself. I think I survived and have done alright.
However, a new study suggests that problems have actually gotten worse in the last [...]
The Journal-Sentinal has an article today about how confusing the Governor's furlough program is for universities.
It outlines the complications that come from trying to furlough those of us who do not punch a time clock, are paid only 9 months out of the year, and deal with the pay' [...]
Just in case you haven't been paying attention, the legislators have officially rescinded our promised pay increase and voted to increase our health insurance premiums.
Although the media seems to be reporting it as a pay freeze, it is really a cut.
As our last paycheck for the academic year' [...]
The Joint Finance Committee decided today to take $7 million more back from UW auxiliary funds. They already had taken $16 million, so the new total is $23 million.
Unfortunately, I don't have the budget figures that were circulated last month in front of me, but this will surely mean' [...]
The NY Times loves these stories, and so do I. They report on the websites that are now specializing in class notes and tests.
I haven't checked to see if I am up there, but it is an interesting new electronic twist on the fraternity test bank.
' [...]As the semester winds to an end, I am taking a break from grading to mention one of the interesting sagas of the last few weeks.
Only if you live in a hole could you have failed to notice the media reports of the man in Georgia who apparently [...]
Gov. Doyle just announced big new cuts to the state budget, including over 3 work weeks (16 days) of furloughs over the next 2 years.
It is sort of a joke to call it a furlough, since it really is a temporary 3% pay cut. I wonder if it [...]
I was looking at the Northwestern this morning to see if any schools had closed because of swine flu, and noticed that the Faculty Advocacy Committee has created a blog on that website.
So far, it contains interviews with Merlain Angwall and B. S. Sridhar. They are, of course, [...]
I read this op-ed piece in the NYTimes yesterday. A religion professor from Columbia proposes completely rethinking the university. Although much of his focus is on graduate education, he proposes sweeping changes:
1. Change curriculum to make it like the web, cross-disciplinary and cross-cultural
2. Abolish permanent departments.
3. Stop [...]
This article appeared in the Journal-Sentinel yesterday. The Stevens Point chancellor, Linda Bunnell resigned, primarily because she was involved in an accident in a state car. She didn't report it and had been drinking at a private club before it occurred.
She had apparently already made plenty of enemies, so' [...]
The Journal-Sentinel is on an education kick and published an article today about how we are all paid much less than the national average.
A nice chart accompanies the article and you can see that UWO's average is about 90% of the national average. We are, however, in the' [...]
The Journal-Sentinel ran an story examining the grades given at UWM from 2006-2008. They filed an open-records request and present the data.
The average grade at UWM is apparently a B. The lowest grades given were in math classes, the highest in education.
The paper also gives also sorts of [...]
The lead story in the Northwestern this morning reported on the Chancellor's meetings about the budget cuts we face. Jeff Bollier writes, "it became clear each established and entrenched segment of the university population is looking to others to bear the brunt of cuts."
This, of course, implies, that' [...]
In honor of TechFest going on over in Reeve this afternoon, lets talk the most ubiquitous technology in the classrooms: student laptops.
I spotted this story a few days ago: Students do worse with laptops. A prof. at UC Boulder did her own study and found that students with laptops [...]
The Chronicle of Higher Ed has an interesting article about the international market for college papers.
In it, we learn that a company in the Philipines is having great success writing student essays for Americans. The students here pay $20-30 a page to have writers somewhere else to their homework [...]
It is a schiztophrenic day in the news today, in that President Obama called yesterday for colleges to increase completion rates for students. The article tells us that he will " focus more than he has to date on the administration's intent to hold states and colleges more accountable'" [...]
The chancellor is asking for feedback from the university on his budget priorities.
The survey asks if we think that his list is appropriate and what we would select as the highest priorities.
It also asks for suggestions about ways to deal with the ensuing cuts.
I think that we [...]
A mini-controversy has appeared in our town & gown relations over the past week. A few days ago, the Northwestern editorialized that the newly hired Director of Sustainability was an unnecessary luxury in these sour economic times.
They suggest that sustainability is just a buzz-word and is too fuzzy to [...]
This article from the New York Times raises the question of student's feelings of entitlements towards grades. It starts with a survey of students that found that almost 50% expected a B just for showing up. The author also interviews students who expect that effort alone should raise' [...]
Governor Doyle announced his budget proposal tonight and it contained good news for us. He proposed that the university budget remain flat for the next two years. The problem is, of course, that it doesn't contain $120 million we need to cover "costs to continue" -- ie heat, light, health' [...]
Pretty scary thought! As if our pay [...]
The newest addition to the chancellor's annual search for a new job has Dr. Wells in the running for the leader of SUNY-Albany. The Northwestern reported this story on Saturday.
Here is the story from the Albany newspaper, which lists the other candidates. Apparently this search was supposed to' [...]
Here is an important story for all of our students: The internet may contain mistakes!
Factual Error Found on the Internet
I couldn't resist--enjoy!
' [...]“There is an important difference between learning which is concerned with the degree of understanding necessary to practice a skill, and learning which is expressly focused upon an enterprise of understanding and explaining.” -- Michael Oakeshott
The university is, of course, supposed to be devoted to the second, not the first, [...]
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 [...]
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: [www.jsonline.com]
There is not much [...]
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 [...]
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 [...]
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 [...]
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.
With democratic majorities in both houses here in Wisconsin, faculty will soon be deciding if we want to unionize.When it is time for [...]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' [...]
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 [...]
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 [...]
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' [...]
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' [...]
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' [...]
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 [...]
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 [...]
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 [...]
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 [...]
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 [...]
UWO issued a report yesterday about the continuing student growth of UWO. It made the Northwestern this morning and more details can be found in the university's press release.
The report emphasizes that we have grown by almost 1000 students since 2000. They also note that the incoming [...]
I came upon this technology news link this afternoon that pointed me to a new website that allows you to download textbooks using bittorrent. I also saw an article in the New York Times about this several weeks ago.
Clearly this is a violation of copyright law, [...]
The Chancellor announced that Alan Hartman, Dean of COB, is going to be the interim provost next year.
I don't know anything about him. Has he done a good job for business, from a faculty perspective? Should we look forward to any big shakeups next year?
[...]I was browsing the web this afternoon, and came upon this article about students who hire Indian programmers to complete their computer programming assignments.
The article claims that it is not uncommon for British students to do this--it probably is already occuring here too.
Does Turnitin.com check computer programs??
[...]Once again, the legislature and governor decided to make faculty pay for the budget shortfalls in Madison.
We had our promised 2% pay increase reduced to 1%. We are the only group of state employees who can have their salaries unilaterally changed by the legislature and the governor. Thus, it is [...]
I have been too busy to blog the last few weeks as the semester wound to a close, but today I'll post the new learning outcomes that seem to be official. These are supposedly going to serve as the new basis for what we do here on campus.
These categories are [...]
I spotted this story over at InsideHigherEd.com: the percentage of tuition spent on direct instruction has dropped over the years. The national average for institutions like ours is about 44%.
As this has been declining relative to other spending over the years, the additional spending tends toward things like academic [...]
I want to highlight the work Bill Wresch did for us last week in the comments. He found statistics from the National Center for Education Statistics (this link goes to a chart) that show that liberal arts majors are actually increasing:
Here are some changes since 1985 -
Total [...]
Chancellor Wells announced this afternoon that he is no longer a candidate to head the Pennsylvania State System. He writes that the position was not a good fit for him.
Wow! I am surprised! The comments here reminded me about what a big promotion this would be for him.
For the campus, [...]
The A-T ran this article last Thursday--I just spotted it on-line this morning. The bold headline, "Publishers: Professors drive up book prices," leads us to a story about the publisher's attempt to blame someone besides themselves for textbook prices.
There was a forum somewhere on campus last week that discussed [...]
Chancellor Wells announced today that he is a finalist for chancellor of the Pennsylvania State System Chancellor.
Sounds like a big promotion--moving to be the equivalent of President Reilly [EDIT: I called him Wiley in the first version] of our own system.
The chancellor does like to keep his hat in [...]
The New York Times editorializes today that we should all think about using on-line textbooks, to cut back on costs for students.
This is based on a study that claims that students to no worse using them than using regular printed books. The cynic in me says its because they [...]
As if the US Dept. of Ed. wasn't bad enough, now the OECD is thinking of developing standardized tests.
Luckily, the crowd in Washington doesn't like the idea of international organizations having input into education more than they do in any other area.
But if you are going to argue [...]
In copyright-holder's never ending quest to crush fair-use, we find a new chapter. Publishers are suing Georgia State for their e-Reserve. Here is the story from the NYTimes.
The publishers claim that some material available on campus electronically contains too large of a percentage of copyrighted material. I am sure [...]
The vote is in. Faculty strongly voted in favor of changing the grading system. 65% of those who voted said yes to a 12-point scale.
Interestingly, there is a big split between colleges.
COLS and Nursing were overwhelmingly for the change, while the College of Business was strongly against it (the email [...]
The New York Times reports this week that the number of philosophy majors at Rutgers is up. The article implies that this is part of a broader trend towards resurgence of the importance of the liberal arts. (The NYT does like to report anomalies as if they are part [...]
A biology professor argues that wikipedia has won. We should accept this and become one with the borg (forgive the Star Trek analogy).
Editing content in our area of expertise would make wikipedia worthwhile. I am not sure I buy it. Wikipedia can have good information on it, but both [...]
Are professors taking stimulants to get ahead? The NYTimes wants to know. . .
Some anecdotal evidence suggests that professors are taking adderall and other stimulants, so that they can stay focused and work twice as hard. Do you think there is a lot of brain-doping among the faculty [...]
The faculty senate wants to change the grade scale here at Oshkosh. They are holding a referendum on the question in a few weeks.
The referendum asks whether we should abandon the current scale and move to a more traditional +/- scale. Now we have an 8-point scale, if we change, [...]
It is all over the news this week: UW system is trying to change campus rules to be able to punish students for off-campus behavior. New rules have been distributed for comment that seem to radically change the nature of the relationship between students and the universities.
You can read the [...]
A Washington Post blog reports that the House of Representatives has passed legislation that requires divulging the price of textbooks to teachers and restricts bundling of books with other items. The language is not in the Senate version of the bill, so it is probably just noise.
However, as we [...]
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 [...]
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 [...]
