Tag Archives: higher education

College Tuition Inflation

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“Dear Parents” started the letter that arrived today from Eighteen’s college president. “To assist you in your planning, I am writing to provide you with information about fees for the coming year.”

Thanks.

A few short paragraphs in the prez pats himself on the back. “The comprehensive fee increase for the coming year (3.97%) is the second-lowest in a decade.” That makes me feel a lot better, except inflation, in 2010 in the U.S., was 2.3%. Why not just write, “We’ve hosed families worse than this in eight of the previous ten years.”

“In the months ahead,” he added, “we will continue to explore routes to reduce operational expenses while preserving the academic excellence for which Exorbitantly Priced College is justly known.” A promising sentence that deserves another like this, “I will write again during the summer to update you on the outcome of those discussions and exactly how we are going to reduce operational expenses while preserving academic excellence.”

Continue to explore. Classic higher ed speak.

One wonders, when it comes to comprehensive fees at private liberal arts colleges, is there a tipping point?

The Ultimate Power Hobby

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Who knew? Apparently, college teaching is the ultimate power hobby for deep pocketed bankers, attorneys, and business executives.

Make me laugh. Cohen isn’t teaching, he’s presenting. Big difference.

I present sometimes. Fly in, fly out. Lecture hit and run. When you have one at bat, it’s relatively easy to hit a double or triple. Cohen takes the train from New York City to Philly and a club car back home four-five hours later. Half a day a week. Nothing wrong with presenting, just don’t conflate it with teaching which is far more challenging.

Presenting is to hook up as teaching is to marriage.

Mike, my ace colleague, conferenced one-on-one with about half of his writing seminar students in his office one day earlier this week. I couldn’t help but overhear the specific, caring, insightful feedback he provided each person. He listened as each explained “what they meant” and he skillfully lightened things based upon the hearty laughing emanating from his open office. Taught his ass off.

I taught all last Sunday (sorry God, help me not procrastinate). Read twelve first year students papers, made numerous comments on each and then followed up with concluding paragraphs in which I explained each person’s clearest strengths and most important next steps.

When Mike and I work together each year to figure out how best to tweak our teacher education courses based upon Washington State’s continually shifting standards, we’re teaching. When we revise our courses based upon student evaluations, we’re teaching. When we serve on university committees, we’re taking responsibility for faculty governance, and contributing to the institution’s greater good. When we advise students, and administer programs, and write accreditation reports, we’re in essence teaching. We continually swap teaching stories and ideas about how to strengthen our craft.

If you were to visit our classrooms you’d witness just one of many different teaching activities that we engage in day in and day out, semester after semester, year after year, decade after decade.

Sorry Counselor if I can’t welcome you into the community of teachers who work tirelessly, selflessly, and up close with students on their behalf. But by all means, enjoy your presenting gig.

Teaching Writing

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I’m in the middle of reading my sixteen writing students’ final papers for this semester. In general, I think the predominant 20th century model of higher education—students gathering in one location at a designated time to listen to a lecture—is hopelessly obsolete. When I was an undergrad I had the good fortune of having several professors who inspired me to read, think, write, and in the end learn more than I ever would have on my own. Despite that admission, I did my most important studying and learning in the Powell or Undergraduate library stacks. Head buried in book, analyzing others’ ideas, noting patterns, grappling with abstract concepts, mulling over papers I’d later write on a typewriter.

My first class, on the first Monday in October 1980, was memorable. Dude, I said to myself since I didn’t know anyone, that’s Kenny Fields (Milwaukee Bucks). And Don Rogers (Cleveland Browns before he overdosed) and Kevin Nelson (USFL). The best first year bball player and two of the best football players in my small writing seminar, what are the odds? Coolest full-length mink coats I’d ever seen. Wait a minute, did she say “Remedial Composition?”

I had been a mediocre high school student and I figured someone in admissions had made a mistake by accepting me, but damn, “Remedial Composition?”

Long story short, I had a great teacher, a no-nonsense, hands-on editor who taught me to write succinctly. Through hard work and a healthy fear of failure, I made genuine strides in just ten weeks. I wrote lots of papers throughout my first year since I was in a three-course Western Civ sequence. I was catching up to my peers pretty quickly. Early in my second year, in a 150-200 student Latin American History class the prof, who was pretty famous for getting under Ronald Reagan’s skin on the U.S.’s Latin American policy, read my name aloud for writing one of the most outstanding papers during one unit. In terms of my confidence, that was more significant than anyone could have realized.

But I digress. The class size at my university for writing seminars is about fifteen students too large. Teaching writing requires intensive one-on-one work. In their last paper, the students were asked to summarize what they learned about the course theme (Teaching’s Challenges and Rewards) and to describe the ways in which their writing did or didn’t improve. Most improved a lot and became more confident. I was disappointed when one admitted to me he was less confident. When I probed why he said because he had never had anyone read his work as closely as I had, and as a result, he learned he had a lot more work to do than he had previously realized. I can live with that.

Unfortunately, I learned too late in another students’ final paper that, despite always concluding with three strengths and three next steps, my careful reading and extensive commenting overwhelmed her and left her discouraged. I feel as if I failed her. She earned her best grade on that paper because it was an authentic, courageous, semi-subtle skewering of her professor.

We need more hybrid higher education models where students spend some of time interacting and learning on-line and some interacting and working on group projects in person. Writing is a process that will prove exceptionally difficult to teach on-line at virtual universities. It requires a student and what the Brits refer to as a tutor sitting shoulder to shoulder, reading, editing, talking, revising, and repeating, over and over.

Balance

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Imagine writing eighteen single-spaced pages about your job performance? I’ve spent the better part of the last three weeks writing a 10,732 word self-assessment for promotion to Professor.

The very lucky 17% of higher education faculty in tenured track positions typically begin as Assistants, become Associates at tenure, and then eventually when their hair is mostly gray and their vision is shot, become Professors. Most faculty spend about seven years at each level. Unless you’re the rare all-star that gets recruited by another institution, promotion is the only way to improve your salary.

“Like a lawyer” I had to “make an argument” for myself in light of the University’s criteria for promotion. I embedded the criteria in the first two sentences.

“Through this self-assessment, the letters of colleagues and former students, and the accompanying artifacts, I aim to demonstrate that I am deserving of promotion to Professor. This is due to my record and reputation as an excellent teacher, continual growth in scholarship, and distinct academic influence and leadership.”

I’ll spare you the remaining 10,700 words. I should note though that after reading all 10,732 words my wonderful mother said if she could she’d award me promotion in a “New York Minute”.

Reminds of a classic moment in modern American film. Carl Spackler in Caddyshack, “So we finish the eighteenth and the Dalai Lama’s gonna stiff me. And I say, ‘Hey, Lama, hey, how about a little something, you know, for the effort, you know.’ And he says, ‘Oh, uh, there won’t be any money, but when you die, on your deathbed, you will receive total consciousness.’ So I got that goin’ for me, which is nice.”

So I got that goin’ for me, my mom in my corner, which is real, real nice.

Since no one is perfect, I would have preferred writing about what I’ve done well and what I haven’t done as well. But that’s not what the Rank & Tenure Committee expects.

So after three weeks of writing almost exclusively about what I do well, it’s time to restore some balance in my life and the cosmos by coming clean about my myriad shortcomings to a proxy for the Rank & Tenure Community. . . you.

1. I can be an impatient listener.

2. On more than one occasion, I’ve been wearing a towel when my daughter’s friends come to the house. My “man skirt” or “utility kilt” embarrasses her unnecessarily.

3. I sometimes mistake the family dinner table for a lockerroom.

4. I am indescribably inept at Christmas lights, home repair, laundry, and pruning.

5. I sometimes don’t act immediately on emails, necessitating multiple readings.

6. I regularly cut through the Denny’s parking lot on Pacific and Hwy 512.

7. When it comes to food and drink, I can be too disciplined. My own beloved mother recently said to me, “Sometimes you have to live a little.”

8. My frugality can take completely irrational forms.

9. I received cable for free for a long time and didn’t report myself.

10. When in “writing at home” mode, I can wear the same pair of pants and t-shirt for a long time (purposely vague).

That’s a Lettermanesque start. I feel better. Thanks for listening.

Please don’t forward this link to anyone on the Rank & Tenure Committee.

Choosing a College 2

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In hindsight my “Choosing a College 1” post was among the more ridiculous I’ve written this year.  

Here’s the comment I kept expecting someone to write, “What planet are you living on Byrnes? Do you really think ANY 17-19 year old in the country will choose their college based on the thoughtfulness of the general education program? That’s not even as important as the school’s colors, whether the cafeteria serves frozen yogurt, and whether the dorms get high speed internet and cable television.” 

Thank you for being so apathetic. 

Thanks to that apathy, I’m going to make another maybe even more ridiculous suggestion for choosing a college: choose one you can afford.

I’m going to go even farther and suggest the student and their family start thinking about how they’re going to afford to send their future children/grandchildren to college.

From today’s newspaper the headline reads “Rising Tuition, Credit Crunch Threaten Affordability of Higher Education”. Here are the first two sentences: A new study on American higher education gave all but one state a failing grade on affordability, and warned that college could soon be out of reach for most Americans. The biennial study by the nonprofit National Center for Public Policy and Higher Education gave 49 states an F for affordability, up from 43 two years ago. California passed with a C because of its community college system.

The author went on to say if current trends continue, in 25 years, college will be out of reach for most families.

When it comes to college decision making, people seemingly assume you get what you pay for. Sometimes that’s true, but not always. I received an excellent education (some may dispute that) at a large public institution that was one-third the price of most small private ones. 

I work at an expensive, smallish private institution that likes to tell anyone that will listen that we provide a much better education than the larger, less expensive publics. The argument is go to the large public school if you like being thought of as a number in large classes taught by overextended graduate teaching assistants.

Most of my classes were taught by exceptional scholars. I learned early on to take initiative and knock on their doors during office hours. By doing so I made the humungous college much smaller. They’d stop typing (yeah I’m old) their next book and we’d talk about the course content or the paper I was working on. Interestingly, few of my students come to office hours. 

I had some brilliant graduate teaching assistants who were inspiring beginning teachers. I remember one who got pissed at us for not being prepared for a discussion. After ripping us in ways we deserved, he walked out. We were stunned and way more prepared for the next discussion.  The TA’s taught “discussion sections” of 25 students. Yes, the lecture was 400, but there were also 16 sections that met weekly. 

I learned as much outside of class as in because our student body was incredibly diverse and our campus drew a steady stream of fascinating speakers including national and world leaders. Every night, somewhere on campus, there was an interesting documentary or lecture. Then there were the world class libraries where most of my learning took place.

In another recent newspaper article on college affordability, a family said they were going to take out loans to pay their child’s $41,000 college tuition. I’d like to ask them why. I’d suspect they’d say because it’s an investment in his/her future. 

There are at least three problems with this line of thinking.

1) As I’ve tried to illustrate, tuition and the quality of the educational opportunities provided aren’t perfectly correlated.

2) Stretching financially inevitably leads to unnecessary stress.  College expenses are similar to home construction expenses, there are always unanticipated hidden costs. For example, once I assigned an extra book mid-semester. It was available on Amazon.com for $10, but a few students said they couldn’t afford it. I like to think of myself as compassionate, but I had a hard time processing those objections in the context of our $30,000 tuition/room/board.  

3) The principle of compound interest makes building wealth relatively easy if young people start saving early. But increasingly, young people are graduating from their expensive colleges in serious debt, thus sacrificing the compound interest window.

I don’t understand why more people don’t strategize on how to get through college debt free.

I know, I know that’s not the American way, with our negative savings rate. Live in the present, spend freely. Don’t worry about future debt.

In the end, maybe someone will bail you out.

General Education Curriculum Redesign

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My “Choosing a College 1” post caught the attention of some higher ed faculty so I thought a follow up was in order. That post could have been titled better since it dealt with differing perspectives on higher education and general education more than how to choose a college. 

Some background. I have studied curriculum development and assessment since beginning my doctoral coursework in “Curriculum Leadership” at the University of Denver in 1990.  In the mid-1990’s, at Guilford College, I was one of four Curriculum Committee members charged with redesigning Guilford’s general education program.  I refer to that challenging work as my “second doctorate” in curriculum.  At PLU, I have continued learning about curriculum and assessment through my work with the Wang Center, my facilitating a Wild Hope seminar, my service on the Chinese Studies Program Committee, the International Core Committee, the 2010 Academic Distinction sub group, the Rank & Tenure Committee, and the Faculty Affairs Committee.

I’ve reflected on each of those experiences and could write in great detail about what I’ve learned from them.  I would summarize some of the insights this way:

• Each faculty member has had their life enriched by their discipline; consequently, there is a tendency to view one’s discipline as especially important relative to others.

• When revising general education programs, faculty tend to think about what is in their department’s or unit’s best interest rather than what’s in the best interest of the university more generally. 

• When revising a general education program in the midst of an economic downturn and declining resources, point two is doubly true.

• When soliciting feedback on possible general education program improvements, some faculty will inevitably submit comprehensive proposals that they believe to be the only way forward. In actuality, progress is always slow and the result of continuous collaboration.

• For the sum of students’ educational experiences to equal more than the parts faculty have to do more than periodically exchange syllabi; at minimum, they have to talk, listen, and revise syllabi and engage in programmatic assessment together.

• When faculty are not provided opportunities to get to know their colleagues from across campus, they often fall victim to negative preconceived notions about other departments and units and don’t fully appreciate what they contribute to the general education program. Put differently, opportunities for substantive cross campus conversation fosters mutual respect which is integral to redesigning general education programs and successfully implementing them.

• General education excellence takes many forms. Successful implementation requires faculty to pay considerably more attention than normal to teaching methodologies. Faculty need to come to grips with the limits of 20th century “transmission of knowledge” pedagogies and ask “How should we adapt our teaching in light of the information revolution?” 

Choosing a College 1

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My daughter, known as A or 16, is beginning her college search. This is the first of several posts on how to choose a college. I do not want to make A’s decision for her, I simply want to share one insider’s perspective and stimulate her thinking.

Suggestion one: compare and contrast general education programs and choose a school with a thematic, interdisciplinary oriented general education program. Ask yourself, “Is the logic of the general education program self apparent and engaging?” And ask people at the college, “Does the sum of the general education sequence equal more than the individual parts?”

Five, six winters ago, two friends and I headed to a telemarking ski clinic. Free the heel, free the mind.

Friend one is a doc, a general practitioner. Friend two is a scientist who leads Washington State’s response team whenever there’s an oil spill or other type of accident that has serious ecological consequences. His team works with the groups responsible for the accident to restore the damaged area to it’s original state.

On the way home, One reflected on the limits of his medical education. Specifically, he wish he had learned how to run a business since that had proven to be the most difficult aspect of creating a thriving clinic. Two regretted being dependent upon an anthropologist who helped his team interact more thoughtfully with native groups every time their land was threatened by oil spills and other accidents. He wished there had been a little anthropology somewhere within his doctoral science program.

Now I’m going to let you in on a dirty little secret. Some of my colleagues, let’s call them the “militant liberal artists” believe strongly that academics must reject any and all references to business model thinking. If you were to ask them, doesn’t a faculty that charges $100 to $200k for four years have some responsibility to equip graduates with skills that will enable them to earn a livable wage, they’d say, not really.  They’d point out that the economy is in constant flux and the purpose of a liberal education is to think deeply about the human condition, to question the status quo, to develop self understanding, to self actualize. Let the job market take care of itself and let technical colleges focus on marketable skills.

Economics department and business school faculty tend to think very differently about the purposes of higher education which can make for depressing faculty meetings. The business model folks, let’s call them “the utilitarians”, tend to think about higher education as an investment that should pay tangible dividends including a good job, health care, and material well being.

One philosopher of ed captures the different orientations of the “militant liberal artists” and the “utilitarians” by distinguishing between “education for being” and “education for having.” Getting faculty with wildly contrasting orientations to agree on general education requirements is exceedingly difficult because the MLA’s (pun intended) believe literature, art, music, religion, history, philosophy, and languages are most important while the U’s emphasize math, the sciences, economics, and business.

In large part, that philosophical divide explains why so many general education programs lack coherence and fail to inspire. Most people don’t understand that they are compromises. Keep some modicum of faculty peace, take one of these, two of those, and one of these. Students mindlessly check off each requirement as they go and the sum rarely equals more than the parts.

When it comes to undergraduate education, I’m more MLA in orientation; when it comes to graduate education, I’m more sympathetic to the U’s.  

A higher education is not a mutual fund; consequently, I’m not terribly concerned with whether undergraduate students and their families feel they receive an adequate monetary return for their investment. In my view, the more important question is whether graduates have sufficient interdisciplinary knowledge, skills, and sensibilities to make a positive difference in their communities. 

What would happen if the MLA’s and the U’s made nice and designed a general education program in response to One’s and Two’s questions: How does one provide quality medical care in an economically viable way? And how does one protect ecologically sensitive environments in culturally sensitive ways? The answer to one is by melding science and business, and to two, by melding science, humanities, and social science content.

The gen ed status quo requires students to take eight separate requirements in five, six different areas, but in those programs faculty typically don’t even read one another’s syllabi so students are left to themselves to connect dots between courses.

So A, if your goal is to graduate with the knowledge, skills, and sensibilities to improve the actual quality of life of people, seek a school with a thoughtfully designed, engaging, thematic, interdisciplinary general education program.