The modern university

[DrVolin]

Pannapacker aka Benton asks a question that I have been asking myself for a while now. And he formulates it better than I have so far: 'The real question is how to build an institution of higher learning that is not an incubator of evil.'

I don't think he has the answer, but he certainly has the problem nailed down.

http://chronicle.com/article/Getting-Me ... er/126008/

[82_28]

*this is good*

Thanks for this. I agree with all of it. It just seems like it would be a very difficult movement to start let alone sustain in this era of facebook et al. I'm as idealist as they come, but I fear such an idea while easily conceived might wind up stillborn and then it would break so many hearts we would need to wait another generation or ten to . I dunno, but it is cool to think about and I am glad others are thinking about the same. Are there any schools currently that at least marginally approach this idea?

[blanc]

An interesting idea. A university where business studies has no place.

[bks]

One could imagine that in the Middle Ages, choosing a monastery might have been like selecting among liberal-arts colleges, each with a different variation of mission and expression. But the major purpose, in every case, was to turn away from the vices and distractions of the world toward a higher life—often a deeply intellectual one—nurtured by the work of one's hands.

Such an option is scarcely available to many so-called traditional students, for whom the life of the mind is barely an afterthought, perhaps somewhere below the availability of enough stair-climbing machines in the gleaming, new fitness megaplex financed by ruinous tuition costs and the galley-slave wages of self-loathing adjuncts staffing a thousand sections of remedial composition.

Just to emphasize a small part of this: Last week, I had nine courses running, two of which were online, and seven that meet (three of which were evening classes). This week, it's down to a manageable seven, where it will stay for another week, when it drops to six, which will be my load for the two months that follow.

Everyone knows, but no one says anything except thank you.

I imagine this feeling is somewhat similar to what Himalayan climbers experience upon returning to base camp after summiting. without the sense of accomplishment, of course. If I had more time, I think I could develop the metaphor, as i think it has some promise.

I will make as almost much during these three months as a tenured faculty member will make teaching two classes (without the benefits).

Students don't expect less of you, either, simply because you're an adjunct. I've been asked three times in the last year to oversee honors projects and to sit on theses committees, which I agreed to on each occasion (there's no pressure to in my case, though with other adjuncts there may be).

The main lament I have, besides having less time to form complex thoughts and read RI, is that despite the critique of power concentration, media abdication and consumerism I present in class, the central message that gets communicated to students with all the juggling I do with all my running around is the importance of keeping the machine running.

I hate that the overperformance of adjuncts literally keeps the system humming along and also keeps adjuncts indentured. I hate that underperforming as a gesture of protest will get read as not doing your job. I underperform anyway, from my perspective, though from the outside it looks like overperformance from what I am told (who knows what some people really think).

[nathan28]

I can't help but imagine that the US college system is going to go through increasing pressures to "standardize" b/c neoliberals love technocratic data b/c it has such a "bipartisan" feel to it while allowing the theft to continue unabated. No Scantron sheet left behind, etc.

At the same time, the boards at most universities are so high-powered that any resistance they offer, be it for the sake of integrity or general stodginess and resistance to change, will be significant, as will any "solutions" that earn the favor of those super-rich goons.

If I was going to offer my own fifty-cent solution here, what I'd suggest is just creating more "staff" lecturer positions and separate researcher (like a journalist who puts out academic rather than journalistic work) positions, rather than relying on adjuncts and grad students to teach while researching, and having a bunch of senile old men and the bootlicking stooges of the managerial class (Sunstein & Powers, I'm looking at you) walking lording their tenure over the actual workers. Yeah, sure, being a professor would lose a lot of prestige, but really, what is the point of prestige (and ten years of higher education... coulda been an MD) when you earn $24,000/year, commute four hours a day and relocate out of necessity eight times in ten years?

But the major purpose, in every case, was to turn away from the vices and distractions of the world toward a higher life—often a deeply intellectual one—nurtured by the work of one's hands.

Camille Paglia, whose star set long ago (which is probably news to her and a few holdouts from the 1990s "post-political" culture wars), suggested that it would be necessary to "revalorize the trades".

OTOH, I'm pretty wary of suggestions like this, not because I'm adverse to physical work or b/c I don't appreciate the mental work that goes into projects like that, so much as because there's something problematic in there that's not altogether clear to me. It's a kind of retreat from the world as it is and from having to examine why it is that there's been so much "de-skilling" (if there even has been any... "de-skilling" is a slippery word), or what the appropriate task might be.


And, on edit, Benton/Pannacker's worthwhile suggestion that universities provide *anything* to the surrounding communities (adult ed classes? multi-use community center buildings? parks?) is almost certain to go ignored.

[DrVolin]

I can only wish that we had enough tenure track positions for all the qualified applicants. The reality is that there are so many more good people than positions, that in a typical search, you could pick a candidate at random and most likely get someone who can do the job just fine. Good luck getting most of my colleagues to admit this though. So instead, most of them retreat to absurd selection criteria, mostly involving symbols of class membership. These criteria actually manage to beat the odds and often fail to identify a functional recruit, not surprisingly, which then allows everyone to claim that even with so many candidates, it is extremely difficult to find anyone who is truly qualified for the job.

Universities do actually provide many worthwhile services to their communities. They usually give access to their libraries for nominal fee, and provide cont. ed. or university extension courses at reasonable prices and flexible hours. Strangely though, this is true despite the fact that these are often the activities least valued and rewarded by the academic power structure.

As for the pressure to standardize, you are quite late to the party. The best we can do right now is do it to ourselves on our own terms, lamely limiting the damage, if it hasn't already been done to us on someone else's. There is still much good in universities, and much worth saving. The corporate assault has been making steady but thankfully slow progress.

[hanshan]

I can only wish that we had enough tenure track positions for all the qualified applicants. The reality is that there are so many more good people than positions, that in a typical search, you could pick a candidate at random and most likely get someone who can do the job just fine. Good luck getting most of my colleagues to admit this though. So instead, most of them retreat to absurd selection criteria, mostly involving symbols of class membership. These criteria actually manage to beat the odds and often fail to identify a functional recruit, not surprisingly, which then allows everyone to claim that even with so many candidates, it is extremely difficult to find anyone who is truly qualified for the job.

Universities do actually provide many worthwhile services to their communities. They usually give access to their libraries for nominal fee, and provide cont. ed. or university extension courses at reasonable prices and flexible hours. Strangely though, this is true despite the fact that these are often the activities least valued and rewarded by the academic power structure.

As for the pressure to standardize, you are quite late to the party. The best we can do right now is do it to ourselves on our own terms, lamely limiting the damage, if it hasn't already been done to us on someone else's. There is still much good in universities, and much worth saving. The corporate assault has been making steady but thankfully slow progress.

More later. However, in the meantime: thank god I'm not an academic. Caveat: Surrounded by teachers & the chronically over-educated, beat feet for the hinterlands of good ole
physical labor. Slave-wage?: yes.


...

[tazmic]

The real question is how to build an institution of higher learning that is not an incubator of evil. One that cultivates the higher values and steers students away from self-gratification, materialism, and worldly ambition toward a purity of purpose sustained by cultivation of the intellect, discipline, and cheerful self-denial.

If a child has grown to university age without getting past 'self-gratification, materialism, and worldly ambition', then perhaps the problem is not with the 'higher' institutions. Providing a 'monastic' university to shelter 'higher' aspirations there would indeed be only medieval.

But why didn't he write this twenty years ago?

"In this season of austerity,"

Oh, I see...

[bks]

tazmic wrote:

But why didn't he write this twenty years ago?

If he had, Morris Berman might have gotten accused of stealing his idea 10 years later.

http://www.amazon.com/dp/039332169X?tag ... E0SSMFR5R&

Of course I'm not saying the idea originated with Berman (or that the two ideas/analyses) are identical. I just immediately thought of Berman's book, which I read 10 years ago, when I read this article.

[nathan28]

This seems relevant.

Kaplan Students petition for 3d party to handle grievances

Once they're enrolled, students discover loans they never signed up for and bills for classes they never took. They find themselves harassed on the phone (one prospective student was called 180 times in one month) and dogged by creditors at their door.

For-profit school admin sounds not just incompetent, but outright malicious.

[justdrew]

First Beatles graduate is announced
Canadian singer earns a Masters degree in studying the Beatles.
A Canadian singer has become the first person in the world to graduate with a Masters degree in The Beatles.

Former Miss Canada finalist Mary-Lu Zahalan-Kennedy, 53, was one of the first students to sign up for the course on the Fab Four when it launched at Liverpool Hope University in March 2009.

Twelve full-time students joined the Master of Arts course in The Beatles, Popular Music and Society that year and Mary-Lu is the first from her class to graduate.

She said: "I am so proud of my achievement. The course was challenging, enjoyable and it provided a great insight into the impact The Beatles had and still have to this day across all aspects of life.

"The faculty and students at Liverpool Hope University were crucial in providing an unforgettable experience and their support was invaluable."
The course looks at the studio sound and composition of The Beatles and how Liverpool helped to shape their music.

The MA examines the significance of the music of The Beatles and how it helped to define identities, culture and society.

Mike Brocken, founder and leader of the Beatles MA, said: "This programme is the only postgraduate degree programme in the world of its kind.

"Mary-Lu now joins an internationally recognised group of scholars of Popular Music Studies who are able to offer fresh and thought-provoking insights into the discipline of musicology."

Ms Zahalan-Kennedy is a professional singer and actress with three CDs recorded and a Juno nomination for Most Promising Female Vocalist in Canada in 1983.

[nathan28]

First Beatles graduate is announced
Canadian singer earns a Masters degree in studying the Beatles.
A Canadian singer has become the first person in the world to graduate with a Masters degree in The Beatles.

Former Miss Canada finalist Mary-Lu Zahalan-Kennedy, 53, was one of the first students to sign up for the course on the Fab Four when it launched at Liverpool Hope University in March 2009.

Twelve full-time students joined the Master of Arts course in The Beatles, Popular Music and Society that year and Mary-Lu is the first from her class to graduate.

She said: "I am so proud of my achievement. The course was challenging, enjoyable and it provided a great insight into the impact The Beatles had and still have to this day across all aspects of life.

"The faculty and students at Liverpool Hope University were crucial in providing an unforgettable experience and their support was invaluable."
The course looks at the studio sound and composition of The Beatles and how Liverpool helped to shape their music.

The MA examines the significance of the music of The Beatles and how it helped to define identities, culture and society.

Mike Brocken, founder and leader of the Beatles MA, said: "This programme is the only postgraduate degree programme in the world of its kind.

"Mary-Lu now joins an internationally recognised group of scholars of Popular Music Studies who are able to offer fresh and thought-provoking insights into the discipline of musicology."

Ms Zahalan-Kennedy is a professional singer and actress with three CDs recorded and a Juno nomination for Most Promising Female Vocalist in Canada in 1983.

It's strange (and possibly misreported) that the entire MA is Beatles-related, rather than just music history. Is that the future, where the school offers highly specific degrees rather than general subject area degrees that require specialization under the direction of the student as a thesis or dissertation?

[DrVolin]

Is that the future, where the school offers highly specific degrees rather than general subject area degrees that require specialization under the direction of the student as a thesis or dissertation?

We call it the credentialization of university education. And yes, it is the future, unless I can do something about it.

[Allegro]

.

College, Inc. | PBS FRONTLINE 01/04

Documentary Original



Michael Clifford, an educational entrepreneur residing in Delmar, California, snoops for then infuses large amounts of capital into failing universities. Clifford is a born again Christian, and his mentor was and maybe still is Bill Bright, who in 1951 founded Campus Crusade for Christ International, and it was Bright who recommended that Clifford enter postsecondary education. Note billionaire, and founder of University of Phoenix, John Sperling, the architect of the for-profit model for education, was apprenticed in the 1990’s by Clifford. I sensed Christian proselytizing and winning souls for Christ insinuated throughout the film, but are not so unconspicuous during a couple of minutes in one part of the film. And that’s just my personal judgment call. That’s all.


Oh, and another thing. Religiosities and dogmas obviously still rule in hearts and minds of too many, oh let’s say, North Americans; scientific scholarship I’ll claim doesn’t even come close to an equal in hearts and minds, unfortunately.

College, Inc. | PBS FRONTLINE 02/04


College, Inc. | PBS FRONTLINE 03/04


In part three, you’ll observe three graduates of nursing, each of whom paid nearly $30K for a 12-month program yet did not enter a hospital during their university studies, and even attended sessions called “psychiatric notation” (whatever that is) at a Museum of Scientology. The mention of the museum is at mark 10.11 in the video. Subsequent to high online course tuitions, thousands of student loans’ unpaid balances and defaults are regarded as dangerous as the entire mortgage debacle.

College, Inc. | PBS FRONTLINE 04/04


Now, there’s a movement that’s changing the way people think of getting an education: it’s not so surprisingly all about profiteers’ capital and —goals, percentages, quotas— controlling decisions, for example, of purchases of (regional) accreditations as if they were auto licenses.

[Jeff]

If you want a picture of the modern university, imagine studying Peter Munk's boot stomping on a human face, for credit.

Excerpt: The Trouble with Billionaires by Linda McQuaig and Neil Brooks

On the campus of the University of Toronto, buildings bear the names of some notable Canadians: among them, literary giant Northrop Frye, public health pioneer John FitzGerald, inventor Sir Sandford Fleming, who introduced the concept of standard time. But the buildings named in honour of important intellectual figures typically date back more than three decades. In more recent years, campus buildings have been named almost exclusively after those whose distinguishing characteristic is the possession of lots of money.

...

Paul Hamel, a biologist in the U of T Faculty of Medicine and one of the professors pushing for the Tommy Douglas program, says that the university simply wasn’t interested in the idea, seeing little potential in it for fundraising.

Hamel criticizes the university for adopting this attitude, which he sees as a function of the growing power exerted by its fundraising arm. “As a result, the priorities of the university have been skewed towards areas that interest the elites,” says Hamel, “rather than towards the priorities of faculty, staff and students who are engaged in critical analysis, research and teaching.”

This seems certain to undermine the role of universities and colleges as places of critical thought, where the prevailing policies and dogmas — championed by those wealthy business interests — are carefully scrutinized and debated.

This aspect of philanthropy is rarely mentioned in the public feting of wealthy benefactors. On the contrary, the role of philanthropy in funding universities — as well as hospitals, museums, art galleries, concert halls and opera houses — is typically advanced as one of the reasons we shouldn’t be concerned by the rise of billionaires. After all, we’re told, our public institutions need money, following the cutbacks of the 1990s.

Of course, the problem is circular. If governments hadn’t cut tax levels so deeply — particularly for those at the upper end — there would be sufficient revenue to sustain our public institutions, as there was in the early postwar years.

The public also has an inflated sense of how much financing wealthy donors actually provide through philanthropy. For instance, there was much celebration in April 2010 when it was announced that a new $35 million donation from Peter Munk would enable the University of Toronto to establish a school of global studies. The new Munk School of Global Affairs (incorporating the existing Munk Centre for International Studies) is to be housed in a century-old stone building on fashionable Bloor Street West, and feature an elevated pixel board flashing the latest world news headlines.

But, although it wasn’t mentioned in the announcement, Munk will receive a $16 million tax reduction for his $35 million contribution, reducing his actual personal contribution to $19 million. So he will really be paying just a little more than half the cost of his contribution, while the government (Canadian taxpayers) will be paying just a little under half. For that matter, if Munk made his donation in the form of shares in publicly traded companies — as most donors do — then his tax savings will be considerably larger (possibly by millions of dollars) and his personal contribution far smaller than $19 million.

The Ontario and federal governments also announced that they would each contribute $25 million to the new Munk school, bringing the total contribution of Canadian taxpayers to at least $66 million. But when it came to naming the building, the taxpayers’ $66 million simply disappeared; only Munk’s $19 million (or less) counted. Accordingly, the new school, with its flashy building on Bloor Street, has been named after Munk, ensuring that the thousands of people passing by daily will be confronted with a constant reminder of Peter Munk’s commitment to higher education and global understanding.

Probably few of them will realize that Munk’s contribution only amounts to about 20 per cent of the overall cost of establishing the new school. Indeed, since there will also be ongoing costs running the school — which taxpayers will cover — Munk’s share of the overall cost of the school will be well below 20 per cent. It would seem more accurate, then, to call it the Canadian Taxpayers School of Global Affairs, with Some Help from Peter Munk.

So, for $19 million (or less) of his own money, Munk has not only gotten his name on a prominent public building, but he’s managed to direct at least $66 million of public money towards a project of his choosing: a global affairs school. And it’s likely to be a global affairs school that will fit with the political views and sensitivities of Peter Munk.

U of T administrator Tad Brown insists that Munk will have no influence over what goes on at the school he is helping establish.

But, according to Munk’s written agreement with the university, the Munk donations will be paid over an extended time period, with much of the money to be paid years from now — and subject to the Munk family’s approval of the school. For that matter, the school’s director will be required to report annually to a board appointed by Munk “to discuss the programs, activities and initiatives of the School in greater detail.” This sure sounds like Munk will have influence over the school’s direction — and will indeed be able to withhold money if the school doesn’t please him.

Equally disturbing is the fact that the agreement stipulates that the school will also house the Canadian International Council — a right-leaning think-tank that has been pushing to replace Canada’s earlier role as a leading UN peacekeeping nation with a more prominent role in U.S.-led war efforts.

Philanthropy offers the wealthy an appealing option. Rather than simply handing money over to tax authorities, as all of us are obliged to do, the fabulously rich can afford to donate large sums in ways that allow them to increase their public influence, even as they’re honoured in the community for their virtue and generosity. Honourary university degrees and other public tributes are frequently bestowed on philanthropists; Peter Munk, Joseph Rotman and Leslie Dan have all been awarded the Order of Canada, the country’s highest civilian honour. And philanthropists receive highly flattering media attention for their donations.

...

http://www.thestar.com/News/Insight/article/859721