Archive
In Selecting Peers for Comparison’s Sake, Colleges Look Upward
By Andrea Fuller
When colleges look to compare themselves with others, they’re not much different from high-school students chasing popularity: Everyone wants to be friends with the Ivy League, but the Ivy League is really picky about whom it hangs out with.
Each year colleges submit “comparison groups” to the U.S. Department of Education to get feedback on how their institution stacks up in terms of finances, enrollment, and other measures tabulated in the Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System. The groups sometimes represent a college’s actual peers but more often reveal their aspirations.
Visit: http://chronicle.com/article/In-Selecting-Peers-for/134228/
The Precarious Profession of University President
By Gary C. Fethke and Andrew J. Policano
The time in office for public-university presidents is shrinking rapidly, notwithstanding the recent reinstatement of the University of Virginia’s president, Teresa A. Sullivan. The high turnover, while alarming, should not be surprising. Average inflation-adjusted state appropriations per student for higher education fell 24 percent from 1986 to 2011, just as public universities have been asked to enroll increasing numbers of often less prepared students while maintaining quality.
Such financial challenges call for bold changes, which is precisely what universities are least accustomed to doing. Presidents find themselves sandwiched between state legislatures and governing boards demanding significant shifts in how the university operates, and faculty senates defending an academic culture that is both resilient and excruciatingly resistant to change. Think of the dilemma for a university president who faces the threat of dismissal by the governing board for failing to react quickly, and the ire of a hostile faculty if real change is begun. No wonder the reward for most university presidents who do little other than seek consensus is a short tenure in office.
Visit: http://chronicle.com/article/The-Precarious-Profession-of/132987/
Top US universities put their reputations online
By Sean Coughlan
This autumn more than a million students are going to take part in an experiment that could re-invent the landscape of higher education.
Some of the biggest powerhouses in US higher education are offering online courses – testing how their expertise and scholarship can be brought to a global audience.
Harvard and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology have formed a $60m (£38m) alliance to launch edX, a platform to deliver courses online – with the modest ambition of “revolutionising education around the world”.
Sounding like a piece of secret military hardware, edX will provide online interactive courses which can be studied by anyone, anywhere, with no admission requirements and, at least at present, without charge.
With roots in Silicon Valley, Stanford academics have set up another online platform, Coursera, which will provide courses from Stanford and Princeton and other leading US institutions.
The University and the Myth of Decline
By Ross Laird
Myths are the most truthful stories we tell. They reach beyond fact and argument to the essence and authentic nature of who we are. Myths are the collected repositories of human wisdom. And every world mythology includes a myth of decline. This myth and its corollary — the myth of redemptive and recaptured glory — are twin narratives in every culture. They match and mirror the trajectories of hope and loss, of empowerment and erasure. They are object lessons in hubris and folly: Atlantis, The Galactic Republic, The Roman Empire, Gilead, The British Empire, Rivendale. The myth of decline describes how these places, how the moods and spirits of a given age, fall away and are lost.
Within the cultures of the University we are now living through the myth of decline. Its signs and stages could not be more clear: old ways abandoned, ancient traditions spurned, shrines of the ancestors neglected and forgotten. Now much scrambling ensues, and debates about the future, and a vigorous campaign to stem the tide. But that tide rises inexorably, and we stand upon a crumbling shore, and we feel the creeping demise of a vast and once-great enterprise. The centre cannot hold.
Visit: http://rosslaird.com/blog/the-university-and-the-myth-of-decline/#comment-567105155
The Degree: A Standard or An Asset?
By Burck Smith
With the rise of free and low-cost non-accredited online course providers, college and university officials will be tempted to favor their own online courses over less costly ones offered by others….
Colleges and universities have a private-sector business model combined with a public-sector mandate. As competition from low-cost and even free online courses proliferates, the tension between many schools’ private interests and their public mandate will become more and more pronounced.
This may be tricky to explain, but let’s start by thinking about graduation ceremonies. The long robes, silly hats, multi-colored sashes, and the solemnity of the occasion create a sense of continuity, extending all the way back to the Middle Ages. In this model, where one group welcomes a new member, the granting of a credential is a “private” asset.
Visit: http://ceo.straighterline.com/2012/06/21/a-standard-or-an-asset/
Has Higher Education Become an Engine of Inequality?
From the Chronicle of Higher Education
Inequality is growing in the United States, and social mobility is slowing. A study by the Pew Charitable Trusts found that 62 percent of Americans raised in the top one-fifth of the income scale stay in the top two-fifths; 65 percent born in the bottom fifth stay in the bottom two-fifths.
Education, long praised as the great equalizer, no longer seems to be performing as advertised. A study by Stanford University shows that the gap in standardized-test scores between low-income and high-income students has widened about 40 percent since the 1960s—now double that between black and white students. A study from the University of Michigan found that the disparity in college-completion rates between rich and poor students has grown by about 50 percent since the 1980s.
What role has higher education played in society’s stratification? Are colleges and universities contributing to economic inequality and the decline of social mobility?
Visit: http://chronicle.com/article/Has-Higher-Education-Become-an/132619/
Globalization: Words and Actions
By Elise Young
There’s hardly a college worth its salt today that doesn’t claim to be “global.” But a report released Tuesday by the American Council on Education finds that when it comes to internationalization, some institutions’ words might speak louder than their actions.
Part of the council’s Mapping Internationalization on U.S. Campuses initiative, the report assessed institutions’ internationalization efforts from 2001, 2006 and 2011 based on six criteria: strategic plans and mission statements, administrative structure and staffing, curriculum and learning outcomes, faculty policies, study abroad programs and international student support, and international collaboration and partnerships.
Download the Report: http://www.acenet.edu/AM/Template.cfm?Section=Programs_and_Services&ContentID=42525
Carnegie Corporation Calls for Renewed Commitment in Higher Education
From PRNewswire via COMTEX — New Poll Data: 3 out of 4 Americans Feel Higher Education Should Be a Right
On the 150th anniversary of the signing of the Morrill Act, Carnegie Corporation of New York released a new national poll which indicates the majority of Americans believe that access to higher education is a right. The poll was conducted in conjunction with a major gathering of leaders in education and science to commemorate the groundbreaking legislation that provided funding for land-grant colleges and universities.
“This is an occasion for a renewal of America’s commitment to higher education,” said Carnegie President Vartan Gregorian.
According to the Carnegie poll of 1,000 Americans, three out of four Americans (76 percent) believe access to higher education should be a right with nearly half (46 percent) of Americans responding that they feel this way strongly.
The Worrisome Ascendance of Business in Higher Education
By William W. Keep
To be sure, higher education faces unprecedented challenges: growing competition for new populations of students at home and abroad; the opportunities, costs, and uncertainties of new technology; declining state support for public institutions; rising tuition; increasing student debt. All demand a careful look at budgets. Stagnant or declining incomes and uncertain employment prospects sharpen pressure to demonstrate what a college degree offers.
In response, some critics have called for a more businesslike approach to higher education. Why? Because colleges face the same fundamental challenges of any business: securing steady revenue streams, covering expenses, using resources well, and planning for an uncertain future.
Over recent decades, we have heard about students as customers, learned to “manage” enrollments, shared and decentralized budgets with the goal of increasing accountability, identified per-student costs per major, and generally dissected the “service” of higher education. We have learned that programs in art and music are not cost effective. Engineering and equipment-intensive courses are expensive. Even as students and parents in the United States rail against the lack of low-cost public education, those in other countries that have such systems face unprecedented tuition increases.
Visit: http://chronicle.com/article/The-Worrisome-Ascendance-of/132501/
Conflicted: Faculty and Online Education, 2012
By Steve Kolowich
Faculty members are far less excited by, and more fearful of, the recent growth of online education than are academic technology administrators, according to a new study by Inside Higher Ed and the Babson Survey Research Group.
But professors are hardly the luddites many still assume them to be. Nearly half of the 4,564 faculty members surveyed, three-quarters of whom are full-time professors, said the rise of online education excites them more than it frightens them. And while more than two-thirds of instructors said they believe that students currently learn less in online courses than they do in the classroom, other findings suggest that their estimation of online education quality stands to rise as the technology improves and more professors get firsthand experience with the medium.
For example, 60 percent of professors at institutions that offer online courses have recommended one to a student or advisee — a proportion that holds true even among tenured and long-serving faculty members.
Visit: http://www.insidehighered.com/news/survey/conflicted-faculty-and-online-education-2012#ixzz1yU6Z8XGu
Download the Report: http://www.insidehighered.com/sites/default/server_files/survey/conflicted.html
Webinar: 7/10/12 – See “Events” in this blog
Focus on Adult Learning . . . Innovation through Inquiry 