Here's the video we viewed today, which led to questions about the future and relevance of higher education:
Michael Wesch later followed up with some comments about his video.
Here is a blog post in response to Wesch's video, from which I quoted today in class: "Higher Education--Dangerously Close to Becoming Irrelevant"
Despite my devil's advocacy in class today, as a college instructor, I obviously do believe in the inherent worth of a college education. The bachelor's degree may not guarantee a dream job right after graduation, and one may conduct research online, and one may find that information gathered beyond the confines of the classroom has more utility and personal value, but I would think that the degree facilitates the career search, information is easier to gather (even online) if one is affiliated with a university library that provides access to certain restricted (read: too expensive for individual subscription) databases and collections, and information learned in the classroom can have worth independent of its relevance to future vocation or even personal interest. What are your thoughts on these issues and others brought up in Wesch's video?
Thursday, February 26, 2009
More on Defending the Humanities
Apparently, in this fiscal crisis, the purpose of the humanities has become defending the purpose of the humanities:
Patricia Cohen, "In Tough Times, the Humanities Must Justify Their Worth" (New York Times)
Catherine Porter's "President's Column" in the Spring 2009 MLA Newsletter (Look for the "Association Matters" section of the .pdf file)
Patricia Cohen, "In Tough Times, the Humanities Must Justify Their Worth" (New York Times)
Catherine Porter's "President's Column" in the Spring 2009 MLA Newsletter (Look for the "Association Matters" section of the .pdf file)
The Idea of Prestige
In class on Tuesday, we talked about what makes a university prestigious. Possibilities mentioned in class were the age of a university, or its acceptance rate. Though these factors are often associated with universities that are undeniably prestigious, they are not what caused this prestige. These factors can only be explained as signs of prestige. A university that is unanimously recognized as being prestigious will undoubtedly be faced with a flood of applicants, of which they will only be able to accept a small percentage, thus leading to this low acceptance rate. With this huge applicant pool, and a successful history of teaching higher education, the university will have no problem staying in business for an extended period of time, leading to its age.
So then, what does make a university prestigious? Quite simply, a university gathers prestige when it is known for successfully educating its students. Though a university makes itself known in many different ways, it does so primarily when its students find success after they graduate. Employers quickly take notice when new employees from one institution are more productive than those of another. People take notice of what universities important political figures attended, which further increases (or sometimes decreases) the universities “prestige.”
Thelin’s A History of American Higher Education contains a list of universities that were part of the Association of American Universities in 1900 that contained such universities as Harvard, Johns Hopkins, Cornell, Stanford, Penn, Princeton and Yale (Thelin, 110). The Association of American Universities was the first effort to truly define institutions as universities (Thelin, 110). This list is frighteningly similar to a list one would make today of the seven most prestigious universities in the country, which would suggest that age gives a university prestige. History raises and is necessary for a university’s prestige, but only if it is a history of successes. Evidence of this is that many universities on Thelin’s list do not have a great deal of prestige today because they did not deliver the level of education that was needed to gather this kind of prestige.
Works Cited
Thelin, John R. A History of American Higher Education. New York: The Johns Hopkins UP, 2004.
Monday, February 23, 2009
State Congress Controlling College Curriculum?
Read this article, which is about how members of the Georgia Congress are attempting to oust professors who teach queer theory at Georgia State University.
Here are some quote highlights:
"This is not considered higher education," Byrd said. "If legislators are going to dole out the dollars, we should have a say-so in where they go."
Calvin Hill, another State Representative, took issue with the University of Georgia's graduate program on queer theory. "Our job is to educate our people in sciences, business, math," said Hill, a vice chairman of the budget-writing House Appropriations Committee.
In response to the last quotation, one wonders: does this mean that teaching subjects outside the purview of "sciences, business, [and] math"--entire academic fields like writing, literature, classics, modern languages, history, philosophy, art, sociology, and psychology, just to name a few--are not within the scope of higher education? That might be an unfair question, but one wonders if Calvin Hill would have campaigned against gender or race studies ten years ago.
But another question this raises: does this mean if lawmakers decide some of these subjects should not be taught, they will yank funding from state schools?
Dr. Claire Potter over at the blog Tenured Radical discusses some of the implications of this issue.
Here are some quote highlights:
"This is not considered higher education," Byrd said. "If legislators are going to dole out the dollars, we should have a say-so in where they go."
Calvin Hill, another State Representative, took issue with the University of Georgia's graduate program on queer theory. "Our job is to educate our people in sciences, business, math," said Hill, a vice chairman of the budget-writing House Appropriations Committee.
In response to the last quotation, one wonders: does this mean that teaching subjects outside the purview of "sciences, business, [and] math"--entire academic fields like writing, literature, classics, modern languages, history, philosophy, art, sociology, and psychology, just to name a few--are not within the scope of higher education? That might be an unfair question, but one wonders if Calvin Hill would have campaigned against gender or race studies ten years ago.
But another question this raises: does this mean if lawmakers decide some of these subjects should not be taught, they will yank funding from state schools?
Dr. Claire Potter over at the blog Tenured Radical discusses some of the implications of this issue.
Sunday, February 22, 2009
The Humanities Trap: Graduate School
I mentioned in class earlier this week that one of the reasons that I have been an adjunct for the past several years is that I have wanted to be a college professor of English since I was thirteen years old and I love teaching and research. For many of us, the less tangible rewards of academia can offset the lack of monetary or other compensation, at least for a while (for some, this lasts longer than it does for others, obviously): working with young, bright adults; watching that lightbulb go off above their heads; seeing their writing or other skills improve; gathering and sharing new knowledge; contributing to an ongoing academic discussion.
However, one of the other reasons so many people end up adjuncting for so little compensation for so many years has to do with the culture cultivated in many (most?) humanities graduate school programs, especially of the doctorate-granting variety, that the tenure track is the only profession worth pursuing--that to follow a different route (into, say, nonprofit organizations, teaching outside the academy, public policy, government, or even the corporation) constitutes failure, which is of course anathema to those many overachiever types who end up gaining admission to graduate programs and to those who have sacrificed the extensive time, energy, and money required to engage in graduate study. This assessment of failure is obviously unfair, and in the current financial crisis and with the recent unemployment figures, some have come to realize that getting any kind of job--academic or nonacademic with even the most minimal income--might just constitute "success"! But I cannot tell you how many colleagues I have known--talented teachers, gifted researchers--who have nearly lost themselves in bouts of severe depression when that all-important tenure-track job did not materialize because they ended up internalizing the crass myth that academia is a meritocracy: they believed, mistakenly, that it wasn't the system that was broken but rather their own qualifications that were lacking. I say "colleagues" as if I were not part of that group, but I would be lying if I did not--though I will refrain from recounting that process of grief and self-disparagement here. :)
To give another example of this weird academic mindset about what constitutes failure, several years ago, I hosted a workshop for current graduate students who were considering careers beyond the ivory tower. I invited alumni from my graduate department to speak about why and how they took up nonacademic career opportunities (in university development [money matters], publishing, etc.), and on the way up in the elevator, one of my speakers encountered a former professor of hers who asked why she was in the building. She explained about the workshop, and the professor's reply was, "I'd like to know who's attending that kind of event because I certainly wouldn't want to waste my time working with them." Many of these types of professors are unaware of--or indifferent to--the practical difficulties facing graduate students in the humanities. They often feel that it's the academic way or no way, so students and alumni of such programs should do whatever they have to do and for however long they have to do it in order to achieve that often-unreachable goal of the tenure-track job--even if that means teaching four or five courses per semester at various institutions for less than minimum wage and no health care or retirement benefits for ten or twenty years. These faculty exhibit a form of academic tunnel-vision: they often fail to see that some students pursue a graduate degree in the humanities for some of the same reasons that they pursue majors in the humanities as undergraduates: the love of learning, the desire to acquire critical thinking skills that may in fact be transferable to other types of job situations, the motivation to become a better writer and a more engaged reader, the opportunity to pursue an in-depth, independent research project under the auspices of mentors in the field, etc. (go liberal education! see Newman, Fish, Kronman). But given this pervasive attitude that not getting--or, even worse, not pursuing (gasp!)--a tenure-track academic career constitutes failure, it's not hard to understand why so many humanties graduate students and alumni end up feeling like there is no valuable, viable alternative to teaching and researching within the confines of the university--and they are often led to believe, either by this environment or by their own insecurities, that they are actually incapable of doing anything else. And so they fall into the trap of exploitative employment, unemployment, financial insecurity, and emotional turmoil that is often the aftermath of an "unsuccessful" job hunt in the academic humanities.
Of course, I sometimes wonder if some undergraduates majoring in the humanities are sometimes led to believe that graduate school is the inevitable trajectory after college . . .
I do not necessarily regret my own choice of pursuing a PhD because it has given me the chance to do what I've wanted to do for ten years, and I am grateful for the various experiences I would not have had the opportunity to enjoy if I had not gone to graduate school. But I will admit that I sometimes wonder: if I had known about the sometimes poisonous, unhealthy environment of graduate programs plus my current 80+ hour work week, low pay, and inability to afford seeing a doctor, would I have followed the same route? Or would my romanticism about the profession still have won out in the end?
Ultimately, I think students who are considering graduate study in the humanities need to be better prepared for (and thoroughly impressed with) what might be in store. These two articles by "Thomas H. Benton" (William Pannapacker) in The Chronicle have generated immense discussion on various message boards and listservs since their publication. These two articles certainly provide a realistic assessment of the situation, and the moral seems to be caveat studentor (OK, that's not real Latin, but the Latin word for "student" isn't quite as concise, so that's my lame way of being cute/clever):
"So You Want to Go to Grad School?"
"Graduate School in the Humanities: Just Don't Go"
However, one of the other reasons so many people end up adjuncting for so little compensation for so many years has to do with the culture cultivated in many (most?) humanities graduate school programs, especially of the doctorate-granting variety, that the tenure track is the only profession worth pursuing--that to follow a different route (into, say, nonprofit organizations, teaching outside the academy, public policy, government, or even the corporation) constitutes failure, which is of course anathema to those many overachiever types who end up gaining admission to graduate programs and to those who have sacrificed the extensive time, energy, and money required to engage in graduate study. This assessment of failure is obviously unfair, and in the current financial crisis and with the recent unemployment figures, some have come to realize that getting any kind of job--academic or nonacademic with even the most minimal income--might just constitute "success"! But I cannot tell you how many colleagues I have known--talented teachers, gifted researchers--who have nearly lost themselves in bouts of severe depression when that all-important tenure-track job did not materialize because they ended up internalizing the crass myth that academia is a meritocracy: they believed, mistakenly, that it wasn't the system that was broken but rather their own qualifications that were lacking. I say "colleagues" as if I were not part of that group, but I would be lying if I did not--though I will refrain from recounting that process of grief and self-disparagement here. :)
To give another example of this weird academic mindset about what constitutes failure, several years ago, I hosted a workshop for current graduate students who were considering careers beyond the ivory tower. I invited alumni from my graduate department to speak about why and how they took up nonacademic career opportunities (in university development [money matters], publishing, etc.), and on the way up in the elevator, one of my speakers encountered a former professor of hers who asked why she was in the building. She explained about the workshop, and the professor's reply was, "I'd like to know who's attending that kind of event because I certainly wouldn't want to waste my time working with them." Many of these types of professors are unaware of--or indifferent to--the practical difficulties facing graduate students in the humanities. They often feel that it's the academic way or no way, so students and alumni of such programs should do whatever they have to do and for however long they have to do it in order to achieve that often-unreachable goal of the tenure-track job--even if that means teaching four or five courses per semester at various institutions for less than minimum wage and no health care or retirement benefits for ten or twenty years. These faculty exhibit a form of academic tunnel-vision: they often fail to see that some students pursue a graduate degree in the humanities for some of the same reasons that they pursue majors in the humanities as undergraduates: the love of learning, the desire to acquire critical thinking skills that may in fact be transferable to other types of job situations, the motivation to become a better writer and a more engaged reader, the opportunity to pursue an in-depth, independent research project under the auspices of mentors in the field, etc. (go liberal education! see Newman, Fish, Kronman). But given this pervasive attitude that not getting--or, even worse, not pursuing (gasp!)--a tenure-track academic career constitutes failure, it's not hard to understand why so many humanties graduate students and alumni end up feeling like there is no valuable, viable alternative to teaching and researching within the confines of the university--and they are often led to believe, either by this environment or by their own insecurities, that they are actually incapable of doing anything else. And so they fall into the trap of exploitative employment, unemployment, financial insecurity, and emotional turmoil that is often the aftermath of an "unsuccessful" job hunt in the academic humanities.
Of course, I sometimes wonder if some undergraduates majoring in the humanities are sometimes led to believe that graduate school is the inevitable trajectory after college . . .
I do not necessarily regret my own choice of pursuing a PhD because it has given me the chance to do what I've wanted to do for ten years, and I am grateful for the various experiences I would not have had the opportunity to enjoy if I had not gone to graduate school. But I will admit that I sometimes wonder: if I had known about the sometimes poisonous, unhealthy environment of graduate programs plus my current 80+ hour work week, low pay, and inability to afford seeing a doctor, would I have followed the same route? Or would my romanticism about the profession still have won out in the end?
Ultimately, I think students who are considering graduate study in the humanities need to be better prepared for (and thoroughly impressed with) what might be in store. These two articles by "Thomas H. Benton" (William Pannapacker) in The Chronicle have generated immense discussion on various message boards and listservs since their publication. These two articles certainly provide a realistic assessment of the situation, and the moral seems to be caveat studentor (OK, that's not real Latin, but the Latin word for "student" isn't quite as concise, so that's my lame way of being cute/clever):
"So You Want to Go to Grad School?"
"Graduate School in the Humanities: Just Don't Go"
Friday, February 20, 2009
A Prospective University
The primary purposes of the university students is to learn a profession that will help them earn their living, make a career or have a good education that will help them achieve their goals in life. So, the university students organize their daily life programs, their funds, their study in accordance with these goals. Because of this fact, the maintainers of a university or college instituion should provide the students with the proper conditions and help them with opportunities to accomplish their aims in the future. They should not have other purposes besides this one, otherwise they will not keep up with the required level in the education that they offer.
Some people may be cynical about the fact that the university education offers are mostly based on financial purposes. As an economics major I am taught in the very beginning that one of economy's primary purposes id to find the way in which the personal interest helps the social common benefit. And in most of the cases, if there are no abuses, the personal interest does help the social common benefit because the consumers' benefit helps to encourage the producers to do their best in order to maximize their profit by meeting the consumers' requirements. So, the university maintainers are encouraged to satisfy the students' needs in order to make as much profit as possible. The university maintainers are encouraged to deal much more with the students' problems. They are "forced" to have the students' goals as their primary concerns. This prevents them from being biased and having other purposes that would damage the students' performance and future profession. Because of this I agree with the William's statement that history has told that "The idea of the university" is not proggessive but reggressive, not realistic but idealistic, not serving but commanding. The universities have to provide a education that will serve the students not the providers or the goverment.
The principle of "how to use the personal interest in order to help social benefit" however has some negative side effects. Like in the USA, the universities generally tend to have a high tuition in comparison with the general economic development. Because of this only the aristocrats have an opportunity to finish a university degree and even less (maybe only the rich) have a chance to finish a master or Ph.D. degree. On the other side, this helps students to study more and deal less with useless things by teaching a lesson for life in the very beginning. Unfortunately the universities who give full or partial scholarships are relatively rare and their requirements are generally high in comparison with the normal level of high schools. The SAT test is a further obstacle because it doesn't test the performance of students at high school and there are great possibilities of "being lucky". And strangely it has a high percentage in the admission process, even higher than the high school GPA.
So as a conclusion, in order to attract the students, the university maintainers are promoted to focus on the students' interests and concerns. Although there some inconviences, the principle of" the personal interest helps the social benefit" works precisely to provide a good education for the future citizens.
Some people may be cynical about the fact that the university education offers are mostly based on financial purposes. As an economics major I am taught in the very beginning that one of economy's primary purposes id to find the way in which the personal interest helps the social common benefit. And in most of the cases, if there are no abuses, the personal interest does help the social common benefit because the consumers' benefit helps to encourage the producers to do their best in order to maximize their profit by meeting the consumers' requirements. So, the university maintainers are encouraged to satisfy the students' needs in order to make as much profit as possible. The university maintainers are encouraged to deal much more with the students' problems. They are "forced" to have the students' goals as their primary concerns. This prevents them from being biased and having other purposes that would damage the students' performance and future profession. Because of this I agree with the William's statement that history has told that "The idea of the university" is not proggessive but reggressive, not realistic but idealistic, not serving but commanding. The universities have to provide a education that will serve the students not the providers or the goverment.
The principle of "how to use the personal interest in order to help social benefit" however has some negative side effects. Like in the USA, the universities generally tend to have a high tuition in comparison with the general economic development. Because of this only the aristocrats have an opportunity to finish a university degree and even less (maybe only the rich) have a chance to finish a master or Ph.D. degree. On the other side, this helps students to study more and deal less with useless things by teaching a lesson for life in the very beginning. Unfortunately the universities who give full or partial scholarships are relatively rare and their requirements are generally high in comparison with the normal level of high schools. The SAT test is a further obstacle because it doesn't test the performance of students at high school and there are great possibilities of "being lucky". And strangely it has a high percentage in the admission process, even higher than the high school GPA.
So as a conclusion, in order to attract the students, the university maintainers are promoted to focus on the students' interests and concerns. Although there some inconviences, the principle of" the personal interest helps the social benefit" works precisely to provide a good education for the future citizens.
Thursday, February 19, 2009
A Corporate University
We aren’t comfortable with the thought of a profit-seeking university. We don’t like to think that the organization that we trust to turn us into better people only exists to generate revenue. However, perhaps a university corporation is exactly what we need and would serve the good of all.
The greatest concern is where a business oriented university’s priorities would lie: the education and well being of its students should be the university’s top priority. A corporate university would consider this its top priority because in order to generate revenue, the university must successfully educate its students. Universities cannot fail to educate their students because employers would notice their employees can’t do the work that is required of them. This in turn would cause problems for the university, as it would no longer be held in high regard. A corporate university should be surrounded by other corporate universities that serve as competition. Even having slightly lower prestige would cause the business to lose clients (students) to its competitors, which would lead to decreased profits for the university.
Universities would remain as diverse as they are now: some would be small, others large. The disadvantage of a corporate university is that while some universities would remain very cheap, those that have gathered recognition would inevitably raise their tuition costs. Merit based scholarships would naturally be handled by the universities themselves, as it would be in their best interest to accept more intellectual students in order to raise their recognition. However, need-based scholarships would be rare in a business-oriented university. These scholarships could continue to be handled by government agencies as they are now. With less money spent by the government on public universities, there would be more money to spend on giving poorer families money to use at private universities.
We aren’t comfortable with the thought of a profit-seeking university, but then again nothing scares Americans more than the thought of socializing anything. A combination of for-profit universities and greater government-funded need-based scholarships would benefit people from all areas of the social spectrum and would enable them to get the education they require using the method they choose.
The greatest concern is where a business oriented university’s priorities would lie: the education and well being of its students should be the university’s top priority. A corporate university would consider this its top priority because in order to generate revenue, the university must successfully educate its students. Universities cannot fail to educate their students because employers would notice their employees can’t do the work that is required of them. This in turn would cause problems for the university, as it would no longer be held in high regard. A corporate university should be surrounded by other corporate universities that serve as competition. Even having slightly lower prestige would cause the business to lose clients (students) to its competitors, which would lead to decreased profits for the university.
Universities would remain as diverse as they are now: some would be small, others large. The disadvantage of a corporate university is that while some universities would remain very cheap, those that have gathered recognition would inevitably raise their tuition costs. Merit based scholarships would naturally be handled by the universities themselves, as it would be in their best interest to accept more intellectual students in order to raise their recognition. However, need-based scholarships would be rare in a business-oriented university. These scholarships could continue to be handled by government agencies as they are now. With less money spent by the government on public universities, there would be more money to spend on giving poorer families money to use at private universities.
We aren’t comfortable with the thought of a profit-seeking university, but then again nothing scares Americans more than the thought of socializing anything. A combination of for-profit universities and greater government-funded need-based scholarships would benefit people from all areas of the social spectrum and would enable them to get the education they require using the method they choose.
Monday, February 16, 2009
Should Higher Education Be Free?
As Jeffrey Williams points out in his essay "History as a Challenge to the Idea of the University," one of the consequences of the rise of the corporate university is the rapidly increasing cost of tuition and fees. Many activists and scholars who write about the university have argued that tuition at public institutions of higher education should be free (or nominal):
Adolph Reed, Jr., and Sharon Szymanski, "Free Higher Education"
Free Higher Ed: A Campaign for Free Tuition at all Public Colleges and Universities
What are your thoughts?
Adolph Reed, Jr., and Sharon Szymanski, "Free Higher Education"
Free Higher Ed: A Campaign for Free Tuition at all Public Colleges and Universities
What are your thoughts?
Thursday, February 12, 2009
Higher Education and the Stimulus Bill
For background on this issue, see Marc Bousquet's latest blog entry, which outlines the real actions we need to take to salvage the university system and thereby stimulate the economy, including converting part-time faculty lines to full-time, making tuition free or nominal, and reducing student labor.
The following is an email I received through an academic listserv from the president of the Professional Staff Congress, the faculty union at CUNY; the message urges people to contact their senators and congressman regarding the slashing of higher education funding from the federal stimulus bill:
Dear Colleague,
On Monday I asked you to contact your U.S. Senator about public higher education funding in the federal stimulus bill, and the response was tremendous. Thank you. The fight has now moved from the Senate to the joint House/Senate committees, and eventually to the White House. As I’m sure you’ve read, the Senate stripped higher education funding through the states from the stimulus bill it passed on Tuesday. But it is not too late. The House of Representatives version of the bill included $79 billion for state funding—some of which would go to higher education—and a further $6 billion for college and university construction. We must press the House to hold firm to their support for these funds as they reconcile their bill with the Senate’s. And we must call on President Obama to insist that higher education funding through the states be an integral part of any stimulus he will sign. Decisions on the bill are expected to be made quickly, possibly before Monday. We have only days to act. I ask you to do these three things right away:
1. Click here to send a letter to President Obama.
2. Click here to send a similar message to your Representative in the House. (The system will find your representative for you.)
3. Forward this message to all of your personal e-mail lists—colleagues, students and friends.
Through the AFT, I shared our letter to the Senate with higher education unions across the country. Unions from Illinois, Florida and beyond are borrowing from our letter and amplifying the message. Together, we may be able to turn this around. Please send your letters now. Thank you.
In solidarity,
Barbara Bowen President, PSC
P.S. Don’t forget to pass this on to your own networks. The letter is designed to be sent by anyone concerned about public higher education.
Granted, students at Trinity may not feel immediately impacted by these concerns since it is a private institution, but this controversial issue nevertheless demands attention, discussion, and action.
The following is an email I received through an academic listserv from the president of the Professional Staff Congress, the faculty union at CUNY; the message urges people to contact their senators and congressman regarding the slashing of higher education funding from the federal stimulus bill:
Dear Colleague,
On Monday I asked you to contact your U.S. Senator about public higher education funding in the federal stimulus bill, and the response was tremendous. Thank you. The fight has now moved from the Senate to the joint House/Senate committees, and eventually to the White House. As I’m sure you’ve read, the Senate stripped higher education funding through the states from the stimulus bill it passed on Tuesday. But it is not too late. The House of Representatives version of the bill included $79 billion for state funding—some of which would go to higher education—and a further $6 billion for college and university construction. We must press the House to hold firm to their support for these funds as they reconcile their bill with the Senate’s. And we must call on President Obama to insist that higher education funding through the states be an integral part of any stimulus he will sign. Decisions on the bill are expected to be made quickly, possibly before Monday. We have only days to act. I ask you to do these three things right away:
1. Click here to send a letter to President Obama.
2. Click here to send a similar message to your Representative in the House. (The system will find your representative for you.)
3. Forward this message to all of your personal e-mail lists—colleagues, students and friends.
Through the AFT, I shared our letter to the Senate with higher education unions across the country. Unions from Illinois, Florida and beyond are borrowing from our letter and amplifying the message. Together, we may be able to turn this around. Please send your letters now. Thank you.
In solidarity,
Barbara Bowen President, PSC
P.S. Don’t forget to pass this on to your own networks. The letter is designed to be sent by anyone concerned about public higher education.
Granted, students at Trinity may not feel immediately impacted by these concerns since it is a private institution, but this controversial issue nevertheless demands attention, discussion, and action.
Wednesday, February 11, 2009
Is Professionalization Killing Literary Studies?
Bruce Fleming argues in this article from the Chronicle of Higher Education that the professionalization of college-level English is actually driving students away from literary studies, which seems to counter what many were arguing in class about the importance of specialization and career training in universities. Is it perhaps professionalization only in specific disciplines (e.g., the sciences or social sciences) that students want? Would students prefer to discuss those "big questions" (e.g., the meaning of life, what it means to be human, how to live a good life) in the humanities, as Kronman suggests, without receiving training in the specific skills used by those who become humanities professors? Is professionalization not really the ideal of a university education after all, or is it perhaps that we seek some combination of approaches that allows both wide-ranging inquiry into cultural legacies and specialized vocational training? How might courses be designed to cater to both objectives? Is that what liberal arts universities do already by requiring common curriculum before or alongside requirements for a chosen major?
Tuesday, February 10, 2009
The Value of a College GPA
Louis Menand argues in "What Are Universities For?" that "professionalism has transformed the experience of college. . . . good grades are essential for getting over the hurdle to the next degree program[,] but the content is somehow less real, since most students now perceive that the education that matters to them will take place after college is finished" (262). So a student's university GPA may qualify or disqualify him/her from graduate study, but what about employment? Given the crisis in grade inflation and the difficulty in assessing how a biology major's 3.5 might measure up against an art history major's 3.5, many employers relegate GPA to a secondary (or lower) measure of a job candidate's skill level. Most HR managers also know that GPA becomes even less significant the more experience a person has gained in the field:
Matthew K. Tabor, "GPA Not Crucial to Employers; C Students Get Jobs Anyway"
Jon Morrow, "Twentysomething: Why I Regret Getting Straight As in College"
Saba Berhie, "What Do Employers Really Look For?"
Josh Smith, "Overrated: College GPA a Poor Predictor of Job Hunt Success"
David Koeppel, "Those Low Grades in College May Haunt Your Job Search" (this is an article using some of the same statistics but with a different slant; however, it, too, ends up stressing the point about how other factors compensate for lower GPAs)
I do not expect these statistics and anecdotes to prevent certain students from being concerned about grades--after all, they are often important to admissions committees at medical and law schools, and maintaining a specific GPA may be necessary for acquiring or keeping scholarships and grants, which is no small matter for some of us who could not attend college without them.
But perhaps keeping the overall significance of one's GPA in proper perspective can help reduce anxiety as well as its desperate (and, let's face it, frustrating) extension into what many term "grade-grubbing." Instructors often will say that while we teach because we love the material and sharing it with students, we grade because we're paid to; however, one of the most difficult aspects of the student-faculty relationship is this phenomenon of grade-grubbing. Granted, some of this is the fault of faculty who fail to clearly state their expectations for the class in a syllabus that offers the course grade's strict percentage breakdown and an explicit grading rubric, as Alicia Shepard documents in her 2005 article "As for Everyone!" Students will quickly learn to confront instructors who have little valid rationale for grades they have given, and perhaps this is one of the reasons that Alexa and Daniel voiced their opinions in class today that grades were mainly subjective. But as Christian pointed out, certain aspects of grading are objective (e.g., multiple-choice or true/false tests), and I would argue that maintaining meticulous records of student performance (e.g., participation) and articulating precise assessment standards can keep instructors honest as they evaluate what marks students earn and calculate their final averages.
But as psychologists Ellen Greenberger et al. (2008) have shown, the more frivolous grade challenges also often result from a sense of academic entitlement, defined as students' "expectations of high marks for modest effort and demanding attitudes toward teachers." One of the fallacies underlying this attitude is that grades can somehow evaluate effort, but how could they? Grades can assess only the final product, which is again why precise standards of assessment must be published. But as McGill professor of history Gil Troy has argued, this entitlement can also be blamed on the perception of the university as a supermarket in which students are the customers who are always right as well as "the self-esteem movement that ties evaluation of work with personal judgment" (see Proudfoot for an informative article on these issues). What students--and, apparently, some instructors--can have difficulty understanding is that grades should not take into account a professor's like or dislike of a student. As Wolff states, "Politically motivated favoritism or reprisal is considered a particularly serious violation of professional norms in academic circles" (23), and one would hope any form of favoritism does not play into assessment. This does not mean that behaving disruptively in the classroom, sleeping in class, or acting in a discourteous manner should not be accounted for, especially since these are often violations of course policy and therefore can contribute to not only the personal annoyance for the professor and fellow students but also legitimately lower marks. Conversely, if a student does the work well and at least pretends to have a positive, open-minded (not sycophantic!) attitude toward the course (here are some other suggestions), the student will more than likely receive a decent grade and, coincidentally, the professor's respect. We may dispute whether universities should be the seat of professional training, but at the very least, perhaps what we need is more professional behavior on both sides of the grading divide?
And finally, as implied by Menand in the excerpt I quoted at the beginning of this overly long, convoluted entry, what so many of these challenges seem to boil down to is a fundamental disagreement about what students and teachers expect higher education to be. Alexa stated today that she, like "most students," cares only about good grades and not about learning--is this kind of approach to college a byproduct of seeing the university purely as a professional training camp/launching pad? Is there anyone still left out there who believes in Newman's idea(l) of the university as a sanctuary of knowledge, a place where one might pursue learning for its own sake and, in the process, learn to love learning itself? In what ways might the greater access to higher education and the devaluation of the college degree (see next entry) affect one's ability to preserve what we might think of as this romantic view of the university?
Matthew K. Tabor, "GPA Not Crucial to Employers; C Students Get Jobs Anyway"
Jon Morrow, "Twentysomething: Why I Regret Getting Straight As in College"
Saba Berhie, "What Do Employers Really Look For?"
Josh Smith, "Overrated: College GPA a Poor Predictor of Job Hunt Success"
David Koeppel, "Those Low Grades in College May Haunt Your Job Search" (this is an article using some of the same statistics but with a different slant; however, it, too, ends up stressing the point about how other factors compensate for lower GPAs)
I do not expect these statistics and anecdotes to prevent certain students from being concerned about grades--after all, they are often important to admissions committees at medical and law schools, and maintaining a specific GPA may be necessary for acquiring or keeping scholarships and grants, which is no small matter for some of us who could not attend college without them.
But perhaps keeping the overall significance of one's GPA in proper perspective can help reduce anxiety as well as its desperate (and, let's face it, frustrating) extension into what many term "grade-grubbing." Instructors often will say that while we teach because we love the material and sharing it with students, we grade because we're paid to; however, one of the most difficult aspects of the student-faculty relationship is this phenomenon of grade-grubbing. Granted, some of this is the fault of faculty who fail to clearly state their expectations for the class in a syllabus that offers the course grade's strict percentage breakdown and an explicit grading rubric, as Alicia Shepard documents in her 2005 article "As for Everyone!" Students will quickly learn to confront instructors who have little valid rationale for grades they have given, and perhaps this is one of the reasons that Alexa and Daniel voiced their opinions in class today that grades were mainly subjective. But as Christian pointed out, certain aspects of grading are objective (e.g., multiple-choice or true/false tests), and I would argue that maintaining meticulous records of student performance (e.g., participation) and articulating precise assessment standards can keep instructors honest as they evaluate what marks students earn and calculate their final averages.
But as psychologists Ellen Greenberger et al. (2008) have shown, the more frivolous grade challenges also often result from a sense of academic entitlement, defined as students' "expectations of high marks for modest effort and demanding attitudes toward teachers." One of the fallacies underlying this attitude is that grades can somehow evaluate effort, but how could they? Grades can assess only the final product, which is again why precise standards of assessment must be published. But as McGill professor of history Gil Troy has argued, this entitlement can also be blamed on the perception of the university as a supermarket in which students are the customers who are always right as well as "the self-esteem movement that ties evaluation of work with personal judgment" (see Proudfoot for an informative article on these issues). What students--and, apparently, some instructors--can have difficulty understanding is that grades should not take into account a professor's like or dislike of a student. As Wolff states, "Politically motivated favoritism or reprisal is considered a particularly serious violation of professional norms in academic circles" (23), and one would hope any form of favoritism does not play into assessment. This does not mean that behaving disruptively in the classroom, sleeping in class, or acting in a discourteous manner should not be accounted for, especially since these are often violations of course policy and therefore can contribute to not only the personal annoyance for the professor and fellow students but also legitimately lower marks. Conversely, if a student does the work well and at least pretends to have a positive, open-minded (not sycophantic!) attitude toward the course (here are some other suggestions), the student will more than likely receive a decent grade and, coincidentally, the professor's respect. We may dispute whether universities should be the seat of professional training, but at the very least, perhaps what we need is more professional behavior on both sides of the grading divide?
And finally, as implied by Menand in the excerpt I quoted at the beginning of this overly long, convoluted entry, what so many of these challenges seem to boil down to is a fundamental disagreement about what students and teachers expect higher education to be. Alexa stated today that she, like "most students," cares only about good grades and not about learning--is this kind of approach to college a byproduct of seeing the university purely as a professional training camp/launching pad? Is there anyone still left out there who believes in Newman's idea(l) of the university as a sanctuary of knowledge, a place where one might pursue learning for its own sake and, in the process, learn to love learning itself? In what ways might the greater access to higher education and the devaluation of the college degree (see next entry) affect one's ability to preserve what we might think of as this romantic view of the university?
Does Where You Attend College Affect Job Prospects and Salary?
There was some debate in class today about whether the name of the school you attend makes a difference in your ability to get a job. As Melissa suggested, certainly students who attend, say, Ivy League schools are also going to have connections (though they may have had those connections through family ties prior to attending college), which may factor into a job candidate's chances of placement. Some of you also mentioned that the relative strength of the school's alumni network should also be considered. But as some quick Internet research shows, the answer is that it depends: Sara Lipka's article "Does It Matter Where You Go to College?" argues, based on the 2008 National Survey of Student Engagement, that differences in student performance depends more on individuals than on the schools themselves. Paul Graham, a programmer and author, demonstrates that experience and personal qualities like confidence, self-discipline, and motivation trump an alma mater's "brand name" (i.e., what you do with your education matters more than where you get it). Parsing Graham's discussion, Matthew K. Tabor argues that yes and no, it does/not matter where you choose to receive your college education (and, hearkening back to Newman and our own conversations, Tabor believes that the liberal arts provide students with "transferable skills" that prepare one for almost any kind of profession).
The Collegiate Employment Research Institute Web site includes annual reports (beginning in 2001) on trends in recruiting college graduates. The numbers aren't the only interesting aspect of these reports; so are the surveys of employers who shared their comparative perspectives on their recent college grad employees:
We cannot do the wealth of information in these comments justice in the space allocated here. Employers described the student of today in these terms as compared to a student 8 to 10 years ago. Today’s students are:
Well traveled
Technically adept
Team player
Ambitious
Better educated
Learns on own (as dictated by technology)
Holds high expectations for themselves
Relaxed, casual
Seeks quality of life – balance
Freedom to make choices (has a lot)
Highly confident
Their comparisons do not end here. In the same breath, they continue their description with a seemingly opposite set of characteristics. You would find it hard to believe that they were describing the same student when characterized as:
Unmotivated
Lacks focus (no long term goals)
Feels entitled, often arrogant
Communicates poorly
Self-centered/self-absorbed
Acts immaturely (poor social skills)
Short attention span
Reacts passively
Avoids risks (won’t accept challenges)
Fears failure
Lacks a sense of responsibility
Depends on others
Shows little work ethic
This article from the Wall Street Journal concludes that students who attend Ivy League schools tend to make over 30% more in salary than those who attend liberal arts colleges. The article includes links to tables for the median salaries earned by graduates of different types of schools (e.g., Ivy League vs. Liberal Arts vs. Public State). The tables do not account for issues like disparities in earnings based on sex, class, region (i.e., cost of living and wages in one state or part of the country may be higher than those in another) or the pursuit of graduate degrees (e.g., medicine, law, business, humanities, or sciences), so they are not comprehensive statistics. But these tables nevertheless give you a sense of how different versions of higher education may influence one's earnings--sometimes the starting salaries reveal marked differences that even out after several years, and sometimes the starting salaries are comparable while disparities emerge later in graduates' careers. This 1998 study by Stacy Berg Dale (Andrew W. Mellon Foundation) and Alan B. Krueger (Princeton) concludes the following:
[S]tudents who attended colleges with higher average SAT scores do not earn more than other students who were accepted and rejected by comparable schools but attended a college with a lower average SAT score. However, the Barron's rating of school selectivity and the tuition charged by the school are significantly related to the students' subsequent earnings. Indeed, we find a substantial internal rate of return from attending a more costly college. Lastly, the payoff to attending an elite college appears to be greater for students from more disadvantaged family backgrounds.
I draw no conclusions here, but the debate is certainly wide-ranging and certainly should factor into pre-college students' decisions about what institution will best suit their needs and goals. Did it factor into yours?
The Collegiate Employment Research Institute Web site includes annual reports (beginning in 2001) on trends in recruiting college graduates. The numbers aren't the only interesting aspect of these reports; so are the surveys of employers who shared their comparative perspectives on their recent college grad employees:
We cannot do the wealth of information in these comments justice in the space allocated here. Employers described the student of today in these terms as compared to a student 8 to 10 years ago. Today’s students are:
Well traveled
Technically adept
Team player
Ambitious
Better educated
Learns on own (as dictated by technology)
Holds high expectations for themselves
Relaxed, casual
Seeks quality of life – balance
Freedom to make choices (has a lot)
Highly confident
Their comparisons do not end here. In the same breath, they continue their description with a seemingly opposite set of characteristics. You would find it hard to believe that they were describing the same student when characterized as:
Unmotivated
Lacks focus (no long term goals)
Feels entitled, often arrogant
Communicates poorly
Self-centered/self-absorbed
Acts immaturely (poor social skills)
Short attention span
Reacts passively
Avoids risks (won’t accept challenges)
Fears failure
Lacks a sense of responsibility
Depends on others
Shows little work ethic
This article from the Wall Street Journal concludes that students who attend Ivy League schools tend to make over 30% more in salary than those who attend liberal arts colleges. The article includes links to tables for the median salaries earned by graduates of different types of schools (e.g., Ivy League vs. Liberal Arts vs. Public State). The tables do not account for issues like disparities in earnings based on sex, class, region (i.e., cost of living and wages in one state or part of the country may be higher than those in another) or the pursuit of graduate degrees (e.g., medicine, law, business, humanities, or sciences), so they are not comprehensive statistics. But these tables nevertheless give you a sense of how different versions of higher education may influence one's earnings--sometimes the starting salaries reveal marked differences that even out after several years, and sometimes the starting salaries are comparable while disparities emerge later in graduates' careers. This 1998 study by Stacy Berg Dale (Andrew W. Mellon Foundation) and Alan B. Krueger (Princeton) concludes the following:
[S]tudents who attended colleges with higher average SAT scores do not earn more than other students who were accepted and rejected by comparable schools but attended a college with a lower average SAT score. However, the Barron's rating of school selectivity and the tuition charged by the school are significantly related to the students' subsequent earnings. Indeed, we find a substantial internal rate of return from attending a more costly college. Lastly, the payoff to attending an elite college appears to be greater for students from more disadvantaged family backgrounds.
I draw no conclusions here, but the debate is certainly wide-ranging and certainly should factor into pre-college students' decisions about what institution will best suit their needs and goals. Did it factor into yours?
Friday, February 6, 2009
The Role of Humanities and Specialization
In several of this week’s articles, Kronman’s “Why Are We Here” and Fish’s “The Uses of the Humanities”, the uses of the humanities were discussed at great lengths. Also, in class, we discussed the uses of the humanities. Most of us agreed that the humanities have no economic value, but are valuable to us as a culture. I agree that they are valuable for becoming a cultured person. These humanities classes, like philosophy, history, and literature, help to teach the students the meaning of life and how to live a successful life. The answer to these questions should be pursued under the watchful eye of an expert. Knowing the answers to these questions help to make a more intellectual and cheerful person. This is very important for a college student who is trying to figure out what they want to do with their life.
Also there is the issue of specialization. No student should be allowed to immediately specialize. While it is important to specialize for a career, they should have to experience as many fields as possible. As Wolff said, the university should be a place to have new experiences and to grow up. It should be a place that a student can come to so that they might learn about themselves in a safe and controlled environment. Do you have any thoughts about specialization or the role of humanities?
Also there is the issue of specialization. No student should be allowed to immediately specialize. While it is important to specialize for a career, they should have to experience as many fields as possible. As Wolff said, the university should be a place to have new experiences and to grow up. It should be a place that a student can come to so that they might learn about themselves in a safe and controlled environment. Do you have any thoughts about specialization or the role of humanities?
What happens when we don't have humanities
Many argue that the humanities are useless, that they don’t have real practical value. As a humanist himself, Fish states “[w]hat then do they do? They don’t do anything, if by “do” is meant bring about effects in the world. And if they don’t bring about effects in the world they cannot be justified except in relation to the pleasure they give to those who enjoy them”. Should scholars study humanities? While studying humanities doesn’t have much practical value, it is still a necessary field of study. Studying the human experience from different perspectives, allows humans to understand the entire scope of what it means to be human. Of course, there is no single answer and probably no answer. Instead there are a series of ideas that try to generate some insight into the human experience. People interested in the humanities do know that if they do major in a field in the humanities their career opportunities will be limited. Although supposedly the “liberal arts” education allows one to adapt to any field, many employers do not see it that way. Employers looking for skills related to economics won’t search for English or philosophy majors. While in theory, the liberal arts can allow someone adapt to any field they will be somewhat more reluctant to hire an English major than an economics major, simply because the economics major has had direct training in economics. So most people majoring in the humanities and not looking to get into law school know that their career opportunities are somewhat limited. Some of them know that they will have to go to grad school and get a teaching position at a university in order to pursue their passion in the humanities. They are not doing it for the money but rather for the thirst of knowledge and passion for the subject. After all satisfaction does not only come in monetary terms.
So while studying the humanities does not “do anything” for Fish, at least they create culture and knowledge even if it is simply for the sake of knowledge. Otherwise the study of the human experience would be extremely limited.
El Salvador
https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/geos/es.html
Save the University: Sell the Museum?
Apropos of our discussion about the valuing of the humanities and arts, the trustees at Brandeis summarily decided to disband the university museum so that they could auction off its collection to raise funds for the school. The Board also failed to consult with the Department of Fine Arts before making their decision. The fractured economy has certainly taken its toll, but it seems that this sort of action could set a dangerous precedent.
Thursday, February 5, 2009
A Post Including (but not limited to) Humanities
In Anthony Kronman's September 2007 article called Why Are We Here?, Kronman explores the idea of the study of what is called a "good life" in today's university. Today's university refers to what Kronman is talking about as the humanities. The humanities commonly consist of four courses: literature, philosophy, music, and art. The humanities are designed to broaden the student's understanding of these subjects and perhaps apply them to real life. Kronman's plead in the case of the humanities goes along with the idea of the university experience that Alexander Meiklejohn was so wild about.
In class today, Dr. Bridges made us all temporary enemies in an effort for a genuine argument about the somewhat liberal idea of humanities. It was convenient that I was supposed to defend humanities as a part of the university in class today, because the more I read Kronman's article, the more I agreed with his ideas about the pursuit of an "independent spirit" through the learning and appreciation of the aforementioned courses. Even though these courses are, lets face it, somewhat frowned upon by the career and job field, the importance of the knowledge that these classes offer are in every way irreplaceable. Where else in your life will you be able to hear the already researched ideas of great writers and philosophers that are so readily available? The in-class discussion and understanding of some of the great works, whether they be in history, philosophy, art, music, or literature, are extremely valuable and should be taken advantage of. In humanities, universities are offering more than just an education which leads to a career. They offer the potential for the appreciation of knowledge. There is no doubt in my mind that these classes are some of the most important courses that universities offer. Sometimes, these classes are taken for granted and not given enough attention by both the administration and the students. Is my logic severely skewed when I say that humanities are necessary for the appreciation of higher education?
One Reason to Attend College
The authors we have read thus far in class have not mentioned this reason for attending college, but apparently higher education may help stave off Alzheimer's! Here's a quotation to snag your interest (one that relates to our discussions about how the university fosters inquiry and critical thinking): "people with more education were found to have better memory and thinking skills than those with lesser education."
Given our debate today, I wonder what the results would be if these studies also took into account not just level of education but also differences in chosen disciplines (e.g., humanities versus natural sciences versus social sciences) . . .
Given our debate today, I wonder what the results would be if these studies also took into account not just level of education but also differences in chosen disciplines (e.g., humanities versus natural sciences versus social sciences) . . .
Wednesday, February 4, 2009
Selling Ads on Exams
Given the economy and the status of faculty (and especially part-time faculty) compensation, one wonders how long it will be before we begin seeing this in university classrooms.
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