University to Offer Commercial Space Flight Degree

Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University plans to offer a Bachelor's Degree is Commercial Spaceflight beginning in the fall of 2013, pending approval by the Board of Trustees.

Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University has announced plans to launch the nation's first ever bachelor's degree in Commercial Space Operations. 

The announcement was made Wednesday at the 16th Annual FAA Commercial Space Transportation Conference in Washington. 

The new degree program would be offered at Embry-Riddle's campus in Volusia County [Daytona Beach]. The school said the program will supply the commercial spaceflight industry with skilled graduates in the areas of space policy, operations, regulation and certification, as well as space flight safety, and space program training, management and planning.

When I was a kid, I wanted to attend Embry-Riddle--but two things stopped me---money (it is expensive) and the fact that Calculus II and I simply did not get along so well.

Still, in a period of time in which commercial spaceflight is growing by leaps and bounds, the offering of a commercial spaceflight degree is probably a good step for the small school.  I suspect that many other leading technical universities will soon follow.

I wonder if and when they will offer a graduate degree in commercial spaceflight?  Hmmmmmmmm.......

__________________________________

Check out my soccer blog at Nutmegs and Stepovers

Three to Read--Higher Education Edition

Last month, my oldest child turned 11, that means in seven years she will be making a decision about going to college and which college to attend.  Considering that eight years ago, just after her birthday, we were in London and that seems like just yesterday, higher education is starting to creep in to my mind (not to mention the difficulty of paying for said higher education--scholarships anyone?).  So, here are a few higher education related stories:

The Cost Driver Behind that Big Tuition Bill--Administrators!
Tuition continues to rise, outstripping inflation in most cases, despite efforts by some states to institute tuition freezes and the like.  What is driving those costs--administrative bloat perhaps?  Benjamin Ginsburg at Minding the Campus talks about wasteful administrators.  First the history:

Today's great universities were created by faculty who-contrary to the myth of the impractical professor-often turned out to be excellent entrepreneurs and managers.  Over the last several decades, however, America's universities have been taken over by a burgeoning class of administrators and staffers determined to transform colleges into top-heavy organizations run by inept bureaucrats. 

To professors, the purpose of the university is education and research, and the institution is a means of accomplishing these ends.  To the professional deanlets and deanlings, though, the means has become the end.  Teaching and research have been relegated to vehicles for generating revenue by attracting customers to what administrators view as a business-an emporium that under the management of the deanlets may be peddling increasingly shoddy goods. 

Next, an example of the problem:

One typical example of administrative bloat and its consequences was illustrated by the American Association of University Professors and featured in a 2012 report by John Hechinger of Bloomberg News.  Between 2001 and 2010, the number of tenure and tenure-track faculty at Purdue, of one of America's great land grant universities, increased 12 percent while the number of graduate teaching assistants actually declined by 26 percent.  Student enrollments in this decade increased by about 5 percent. 

During the same period, though, the number of administrators employed by the university increased by an astonishing 58 percent and resident tuition rose from just under $1400 to nearly $9000 per year in a pattern that appears highly correlated with administrative growth.  One $172,000 per year associate vice provost had been hired to oversee the work of committees charged with considering a change in the academic calendar-a change that had not yet even been approved.  Since the average Purdue graduate leaves school with about $27,000 in debt, the salary of this functionary is equivalent to the education loans of six students.
           
This new administrator blithely told the Bloomberg reporter, "My job is to make sure these seven or eight committees are aware of what's going on in the other committees."  At the same school, the chief marketing officer earns $253,000 and the chief diversity officer $198,000 per year.  The marketing officer spent $500,000 to "rebrand" the university, developing the slogan, "We are Purdue. Makers, all. What we make moves the world forward."  Very catchy, indeed!  Perhaps the marketing department could develop a slogan that would help explain to parents and students why they must take on more and more debt to pay the salaries of ever-growing hordes of administrative parasites. 

A statistical model and a solution:

A recent paper by two respected economists, Robert Martin and R. Carter Hill, shows that the fiscally optimal ratio of administrators to faculty at research universities is one full-time administrator for every three faculty.    Deviations from this ratio produced significantly higher costs per student.  The unfortunate reality as Martin and Hill found is that the ratio has almost been reversed--2 administrators to one faculty.  Martin and Hill's findings suggest, moreover, that about two-thirds of the growth in higher education costs between 1987 and 2008 can be attributed to the rise of administrative power during this period.

snip

I would suggest-and I fully recognize the mischievous nature of this suggestion--that university, and perhaps other non-profit boards as well, should be subject to the requirements of the 2002 Sarbanes-Oxley Act from which they are currently exempt.  For most schools, this would entail enhanced Board accountability for administrative actions, the creation of an independent audit committee, an organizational procedure for the protection of whistle blowers, a formal process for the identification and selection of new board members and a strengthening of conflict of interest rules.          

I believe that if Board members were legally more accountable for administrative conduct they would be more cautious about whom they hired to manage the university and would also pay closer attention to what those individuals did once appointed. Perhaps if they were held to account, Boards would be careful not to turn over their campuses to the high-handed and profligate presidents who seem all too common in the world of higher education.  Indeed, in order to avoid trouble, Boards might even find it useful to fully consult the faculty on matters of administrative hiring and retention.

Read the whole thing.

Social Education for Professionals
I do not find it surprising that too many of our recent college graduates have no idea how to navigate even the most basic challenges of the work world.  I have seen for myself some of the most basic failings, such as recent graduates and near graduates coming to interviews in wholly inappropriate attire, inability to talk about even the most recent news in a small talk environment, or new hires who consider office hours to be an "optional" concern.  Part of the problem is that these young people never learned them at home (a fact of life that will be addressed in my household).  So colleges are offering optional "etiquette" courses:

More than a third of managers think their youngest hires act less professionally than their predecessors, according to a national survey by the Center for Professional Excellence at York College in Pennsylvania. 

“A good resume and a degree only gets you to the table,” says Matthew Randall, the center’s director. “Professional behaviors are what gets you a job. And what colleges are trying to do is help these students develop the behaviors that employers want.”

snip

And it’s not just communicating that appears to challenge this latest group of college students. It’s mingling, networking, handling conflict, eating—even dressing.

“Students don’t really know what’s meant by professional dress, whether it’s a young lady wearing a skirt that’s way too short or a young man whose pants aren’t really tailored,” says MIT’s Hamlett. “Most students just roll out of bed in whatever it is they want to wear. There’s this ‘come as you are’ about being a college student.”

Colleges blame in part an entitlement mentality of the millennial generation raised by helicopter parents hovering so much, but certainly the art of face to face communication and social aptitude are disappearing.  





College Preparation Gap?
Of greater concern to many college professors and education thinkers is the lack of preparation among high school students for college.  Check out the infographic about preparation conducted by Hobson's.

Some key take-aways:

• 92% of high school students say they are going to college, but only 68% actually enroll and fewer still graduate within 6 years of matriculation.
• More than 2 out of 3 students (69%) were very concerned or extremely concerned about their academic preparation for college.  Which is not surprising since....
• 1 out of every 2 new students in two year colleges are placed in remedial classes.  Among new enrollees of four year colleges, 1 in 5 find themselves in remedial classes.  Student concerns about preparedness are not unfounded.

So there is room for criticism in our secondary education system as well.

__________________________________

Check out my soccer blog at Nutmegs and Stepovers

Conservatives Try New Tack on Campuses

From the NYTimes.com:

Acknowledging that 20 years and millions of dollars spent loudly and bitterly attacking the liberal leanings of American campuses have failed to make much of a dent in the way undergraduates are educated, some conservatives have decided to try a new strategy.
They are finding like-minded tenured professors and helping them establish academic beachheads for their ideas.

These initiatives, like the Program in Western Civilization and American Institutions at the University of Texas, Austin, or a project at the University of Colorado here in Colorado Springs, to publish a book of classic texts, are mostly financed by conservative organizations and donors, run by conservative professors. But they have a decidedly nonpartisan and nonideological face. (Links in original omitted)

I don't know if this is necessarily a "new tack" but here is what it will do--create an environment of real debate and real academic inquiry.

Your Tuition Dollars At Work

Lots of other people are linking to this story. I know that professors are entitled to their opinion, but at this point, the students should be demanding money back for this kind of behavior.

To be honest, the only way this kind of crap will ever be prevented is if students start demanding refunds for professors spouting their personal political preferences particularly in non-relevant courses like English Comp.

Question About College and Potential Students

In this silly political season, we often hear that college should be made available for everyone, or some other such silly notion. Yes, it is a silly notion because college is not for everyone nor should it be. Kevin Carey in a post that is a couple of weeks old notes:

This question comes up often, sometimes slightly rephrased as "Is College for Everyone?" or "Should Everyone Go to College?," and it's a silly formulation because the answer is, obviously, no. If you put it this way, people immediately think of their idiot third cousin or that guy from high school who liked to drink grain alcohol and tie M-80s to the backs of squirrels, and they rightly say "Of course not, and anyone who thinks otherwise is being utopian and dumb."

The real question (and the one Osterman actually addresses) is how many people should go to college, and is that number, compared to current college-going and degree completion rates, too small, too large, or about right? Osterman frames the discussion around the college wage premium (the average difference between wages for people who have college degrees and those who don't). This number has been bubbling up with increasing frequency in policy debates, because it hasn't changed much over the last seven years. That's a break with historical trends; from the early 1970s to 2000, the premium grew steadily and substantially, particularly for people with advanced (post-baccalaureate) degrees.

Carey is referring to this paper by MIT economist Paul Osterman.

But the question of how many should be going to college needs to be coupled with a couple of other questions.

1. Who should go to college? The proper answer in politically correct circles is "anyone who wants to." But that is not really a good answer since a fair number of students, including those going to high-level public universities, have no business being in college AT THAT TIME. I capitalize that last part to make clear that yes, I think anyone who has the skills, preparation and attitude should be able to go to college. But I would also note that there is a large portion of entering freshmen every year who could use some time to mature, gain necessary skills and otherwise make themselves ready for college. College is expensive and it is far better to spend a little time before you get to college making sure you are ready to do the work necessary to succeed rather than a) waste your own money (or your parents), b) waste scholarship money, or c) incur student loan debt unnecessarily.

2. How do we determine who and how many should go to college? Clearly self-selection is not necessarily working out since some 40 percent of students don't get a degree within six years of entering college. So the question is interesting as to when and how to identify someone as ready for college. No, the SAT is not an accurate predictor, nor is high school peformance. So what is the proper determinant? I really don't know, but it seems like a relevant question to ask since so much money, time, heartache and headache accompanies such a decision. Too often, teh decision of whether to go to college or not does not belong to the student themselves, but rather the expectation, particularly among middle class and upper class children is made for them by the time they are able to walk. Is that healthy or proper?

Clearly the political push to have everyone who wants a college education be offered the means to obtain one is, on balance, good for this country. But there are consequences and some of those consequences are becoming apparent as a larger percentage of students never get a degree, yet they pay the price for their lack of completion.

Not surprisingly, academics and policy wonks are talking about the issue and maybe there is a public relations role for the government, but I think clearly the initial responsibility must come down on K-12 schools to make sure their graduates have the skills and mentality to succeed at college. If that were happening then the question of appropriateness boils down to student desire and nothing else. Oh, were that the way of the world.

Can We Assess Learning?

Chad Aldermna at The Quick and Ed linked to a piece by Bernard Fryshman called Do We Assess Learning? Pull Up a Chair... in which Fryshman argues about the assessment of colleges and college learning. After a lengthy and hypothetical series of questions, Fryshman writes:

Come to think of it, we may not be able to answer your question. Because assessment is not a number, assessment is a conversation. Learning outcomes are not numbers. We simply can’t assimilate all the variables — those noted above and so many others — without papering over most of the things that really matter. There are so many permutations, even a statistical approach is not viable. Because each person’s interaction with higher education is unique, the sample size is always one, no matter how large the population.

There are no clear answers — and not because we wouldn’t like to give you an answer, nor is it because we think “you won’t understand.” There is little that can be measured with any degree of certainty. A shoemaker can perhaps be judged by the quality of the shoes he turns out. He and his colleagues start with identical pieces of leather, nails, shoelaces and thread. The products have few enough variations that there can be some comparison between the two.

Not so, colleges and universities. Every individual coming in has so complex a series of characteristics, and emerges after so many different activities and variables, that any comparison or generalization is meaningless. Sometimes, when large enough numbers of students from similar enough backgrounds travel through a narrow program that is relatively unchanging, one can reach some general conclusions. But only on a discipline by discipline basis — anything broader brings to bear so many different variables as to make assigning a numerical value to student learning outcomes an exercise in futility.

First of all, I don't think anyone who insists on some sort of assessment ignores the concept that each student in any school is an individual, with a complex background, different skils, interests and ambitions. Having said that, I don't understand why anyone would insist that it is impossible to assess learning at any level.

I don't understand when and where the term "assessment" came to be equated with "numbers." Assessment is not all about a number and no person with a goal of determining the quality of any institution is going to be satisfied simply with "the numbers." Are the numbers instructive? No doubt. When talking about colleges and high schools, numbers like graduation rates, cumulative GPA, absolute numbers of graduates, type and number of degrees, enrollment, remedial educaiton numbers, etc. All of these numbers matter, but there is more and there we get in the qualitative measurements which Fryshman seems to think cannot be assessed, but is that really the case.

There is and has to be a systematic manner in which qualitative measurements be taken. Fryshman his ilk seem to think that because they can't envision (or don't like the measurement) then it doesn't or can't exist.

This is bollocks, to put it bluntly.

We have to assess whether or not high schools and colleges are providing a valuable service and worthy of the money spent and the education supposedly offered.

College Class Transparency

I like this idea. Hat tipPhi Beta Cons.

Most of my classes weren't a surprise when I got there, and some turned out to be more interesting than the description. Still, more information is helpful, particularly when it comes to some of the more flexible subject matter class. A student has a pretty good idea what Physics 101 is going to be about, but far less knowledge of "comparative literature" or something similar.

Remedial College Classes--Are they Worth if For Students

Inside Higher Ed links to a study that indicates that there are mixed results at best. Money quote from the study:

Meanwhile, the likelihood of passing subsequent college-level English composition was slightly lower for reading remedial students while no difference was found in future math course performance for math remedial students. No discernable impact was found in terms of certificate or associate degree completion or transfer to a public four-year college. Overall, the results suggest that remediation might promote early persistence in college, but it does not necessarily help students on the margin of passing the cutoff to make progress toward a degree.

The problem with remedial classes is that for the schools, they are something of a win-win--they can promote a more open admissions policy and still charge full freight for a class that the student will not get credit for. So the students come, unprepared for college, are forced to take (and pay for) a class that may or may not make them ready for full college level courses. Oh then there is the evidence that students who take remedial classes are far more likely to drop out, thereby increasing the revenue potential for "remedial level" students in a college.

Recently, I noted the cynical treatment, saying:

If K-12 institutions are taking a beating for not preparing students for college, colleges and universities, including community colleges, need to be beaten severly about the head and shoulders for their cynical treatment of these less than fully prepared students as little more than profit makers. Incentivize the colleges to push K-12 schools to do better. One such way would be, at least for public colleges and universities, prohibit those institutions from charging full tuition for remedial classes (and take care that schools are fudging the definition of remedial classes) and requiring that schools make available all services given to student athletes be made available to all students, among other actions.

Tuition may be necessary (a case can be made that it is not) for remedial classes, but if the student isn't going to get any credit, they shouldn't have to pay full price. Antoher idea would be to start billing that student's K-12 school system for indemnificaion for failing to do their job. That would be a big financial incentive for K-12 schools to do a better job. Can you imagine that annual bill?

Title IX and Science Education

New York Times' John Tierney takes a look at what might be the next frontier for Title IX--Science. More specifically, science education at universities.

Before proceeding, I think Title IX did wonders for the higher education of women in this country. Schools accepting federal aid and grants could not discriminate against women and had to make the same accomodations as were made available for men. The purpose of Title IX was holistic, meaning the entire university community was affected. However, when I or other say "Title IX" almost immediately we think of intercollegiate sports. Like just about every other law out there designed to address discrimination of all sorts, racial or gender, Title IX rather quickly became short hand for quotas.

In Title IX's universe, the quota was "how many athletic scholarships" or "athletic programs" were given to women versus men. The fallout quickly became the dismantling of men's teams for wrestling or other generally male sports in favor of women's sports. Schools came to make sure that the number of female athletic scholarships were distributed in proportion to the male/female population on campus. Men's athletic programs were dismantled or radically altered in order to make sure some magic number of parity was attained and maintained, never mind what it did to some male athletes for whom that athletic scholarship represented the only means by which they could go to college. An heaven forbid a single football or basketball scholarship was cut. Instead of adding teams for women, schools looked at Title IX as a zero-sum game, i.e. "We have X number of scholarships to give out and in order for a woman to get one, a man cannot."

Tierney's article says that some Title IX absolutists are looking to do the same thing in science departments. But here is the problem, unlike scholarships, you cannot ensure equal representation in matters like faculty appointments without jeopardizing the quality of the school's academic and teaching reputations. (of course of the two reputations, the former is vastly more important than the latter among many professors). But the female representation of college faculties is far more difficult to rectify that the number of athletic scholarships that a school gives out:

In this debate, neither side doubts that women can excel in all fields of science. In fact, their growing presence in former male bastions of science is a chief argument against the need for federal intervention.

Despite supposed obstacles like “unconscious bias” and a shortage of role models and mentors, women now constitute about half of medical students, 60 percent of biology majors and 70 percent of psychology Ph.D.’s. They earn the majority of doctorates in both the life sciences and the social sciences. They remain a minority in the physical sciences and engineering. Even though their annual share of doctorates in physics has tripled in recent decades, it’s less than 20 percent. Only 10 percent of physics faculty members are women, a ratio that helped prompt an investigation in 2005 by the American Institute of Physics into the possibility of bias.

But the institute found that women with physics degrees go on to doctorates, teaching jobs and tenure at the same rate that men do. The gender gap is a result of earlier decisions. While girls make up nearly half of high school physics students, they’re less likely than boys to take Advanced Placement courses or go on to a college degree in physics.

So how is a college or university supposed to rectify a situation that is the result of hundreds of individual decisions by millions of women made years before they even consider attempting to get an academic position? The short answer, of course, is that they can't.

So what about teh notion that girls are "discouraged" from following careers in science and engineering.

But if you read “The Sexual Paradox,” Susan Pinker’s book about gender differences, you’ll find just the opposite problem.

Ms. Pinker, a clinical psychologist and columnist for The Globe and Mail in Canada (and sister of Steven Pinker, the Harvard psychologist), argues that the campaign for gender parity infantilizes women by assuming they don’t know what they want. She interviewed women who abandoned successful careers in science and engineering to work in fields like architecture, law and education — and not because they had faced discrimination in science.

Instead, they complained of being pushed so hard to be scientists and engineers that they ended up in jobs they didn’t enjoy. “The irony was that talent in a male-typical pursuit limited their choices,” Ms. Pinker says. “Once they showed aptitude for math or physical science, there was an assumption that they’d pursue it as a career even if they had other interests or aspirations. And because these women went along with the program and were perceived by parents and teachers as torch bearers, it was so much more difficult for them to come to terms with the fact that the work made them unhappy.”

“Creating equal opportunities for women does not mean that they’ll choose what men choose in equal numbers,” Ms. Pinker says. “The freedom to act on one’s preferences can create a more exaggerated gender split in some fields.”

Applying Title IX to science was proposed eight years ago by Debra Rolison, a chemist at the Naval Research Laboratory. She argued that withholding federal money from “poorly diversified departments” was essential to “transform the academic culture.” The proposal was initially greeted, in her words, with “near-universal horror.”

Some female scientists protested that they themselves would be marginalized if a quota system revived the old stereotype that women couldn’t compete on even terms in science. But the idea had strong advocates, too, and Congress quietly ordered agencies to begin the Title IX compliance reviews in 2006.

I wonder why such a task was undertaken. The words "political correctness" come to mind rather quickly. The fact is that so long as women are not prohibited from following the path they choose, then Title IX will have accomplished its goal. You cannot erase a discrimination that is simply not there. If colleges and universities were not hiring otherwise competent female engineering professors or physicists because they were women, then we would have a different problem. But if the number of such women candidates is much smaller than their male counterparts, is it something that a law can address.

No, and we shouldn't delude ourselves into thinking it can.

In Class From 8 a.m. to 9:50 p.m

Wow that is a lot of classroom time in one day.

Citing the effects of high gas prices on the pocketbooks of its commuting students, Volunteer State Community College in Gallatin, Tenn., is introducing what it calls “Full Time Friday” in the fall semester. This option allows for students to enroll in as many as four general education courses in sections that only gather during Friday meeting times. Though students do not have to enroll in a full day’s worth of classes to take advantage of this scheduling opportunity, some have already expressed to the college that they would have taken full advantage had it been offered to them in them past. More enterprising students, for example, could maintain their full-time status by taking all four Friday-only classes via this option. A potential downside is that such a student would be in class from 8 a.m. until just before 10 p.m. and spend almost 11-and-a-half hours sitting in the classroom. There is an hour break for lunch and two 30 minute breaks between afternoon and evening classes. Still, college administrators admit this schedule is not for the faint of heart.

Gee, you think?

My posterior aches just thinking about it. The discipline and endurance it will require is shocking, but some people will take advantage of it and I am glad to see a school trying something new.

The Hoax and Myth of a College Education

Kevin Carey notes a forthcoming article in The Atlantic by an anonymous Professor X, who is an adjunct teaching in the Northeast.

One thing's for certain: this piece will be catnip for those who like to adopt the contrarian too-many-people-are-going-to-college-these-days position. This is an especially attractive stance for elitists and/or people who spend a lot of time searching for opportunities to loudly begin sentences with some variation of the phrase "I know it's not politically correct to say this, but..." as if this denotes intellectual bravery of some kind. The article's sad story of one Ms. L, who says she was "so proud of myself for having written a college paper," only to be crushed by a grade of "F," will be used as evidence that we are not doing people any favors by letting them into college. Charles Murray has apparently written a whole book about this--adorned with blurbs from Jonah Goldberg, Bill Bennett, P.J. O'Rourke, and Tom Wolfe no less--to be published later this year.

Needless to say, I disagree. Not with Professor X's contention that his classes reveal disturbing truths about higher education. He's right about that.

Carey disagrees with the notion that the suggested course of action proposed by Professor X is the right one:

No, my disagreement is with the prescription. The promise of higher education neither a "hoax" nor a "myth" (in fairness to Professors X, these words don't do justice to the more thoughtful tone of his piece). After all, without college, what are Ms. L and her struggling classmates supposed to do? Live out the rest of their lives hardly able to read and write? Find some menial job quietly providing service to the likes of Murray, Bennett, and Wolfe, who enjoy three PhDs and a J.D. between them? Everyone in this story is getting screwed, including Professor X. (Who apparently isn't comforted by being the world's greatest telepath. When failing students, that probably makes things worse.)

This is a common problem in education, both K-12 and higher, wherein we take the students with the greatest educational needs, give them the fewest resources and the worst education, and then call their failure inevitable.(emphasis in original)

Carey then suggests shedding a little more light on the problem, i.e. confronting the public and the institutions with the poor preparation, poor educational model and poor course content that is expected of students today.

Carey notes the financial windfall that befalls community colleges and universities that offer continuing education. Most of these "second shift" students are taught by underpaid adjunct faculty, are less properly prepared for the rigors of a college education and yet pay full tuition rates. Carey asks that we not use adult education as simply a profit center but to actually fulfill the school's mission, i.e. the education of their students. But there are greater points.

As far as the poor preparation, I am not sure how much more we as a public need to be enlightened on this subject. But on the financially cynical side, colleges and universities simply don't care enough. Sure they pay lip service to the inadequate preparation arguments, but they really don't have the incentives to change or demand change in the K-12 schools because they get paid full tuition dollars for the remedial classes necessary for these students, but don't grant credit for the classes in most cases. In short, remedial classes are another profit center--just like adult education. (keep in mind that most remedial classes are likely to be taught by graduate student teaching assistants or adjuncts, not by full professors).

The situation is even worse from the financially cynical point of view. Although I have no data to back up this assertion, my gut tells me that it is true. The vast majority of students who drop out of college are those whose academic career begin in one or more remedial classrooms. So the university is churning through these lower level students at a very high rate (compared to their graduation rate) and thus earning money on a quicker basis.

While I don't subscribe to the view that everyone should go to college and I never have, there is nothing Carey can say to make me change my mind, I do believe that it is incumbent upon K-12 education to provide students with the basic skills necessary to go to college if they choose. On the other hand, colleges have to take a little responsibility for admitting students whose academic preparation is not clearly demonstrated. Just because a student applies doesn't mean they should get in and if admitted, the college must take pains (including financial loss if necessary) to do whatever it takes to get that student the opportunity to succeed. The duty must extend beyond simply offering services (some of which are not particularly publicized), but to actively informing the student of services and even requiring attendence for those it places on academic probation. In short, treat all college students, particularly those admitted on less than ideal academic circumstances like college athletes.

So the problem is not just publicizing the problem of lack of preparation among incoming college freshmen, it extends beyond that. I think most Americans who care already know about the problem. I think the solution is to hold a mirror up to the institutions themselves. We need to remove the incentives inherent in taking tuition money from students who are required to attend remedial classes, pay for services they don't know about and can't access (note, some academic resources like writing centers or math labs are generally unavailable to students in evening courses, being open during "business hours" when most evening students are working to support themselves or their family), and being taught by less than fully qualified instructors.

If K-12 institutions are taking a beating for not preparing students for college, colleges and universities, including community colleges, need to be beaten severly about the head and shoulders for their cynical treatment of these less than fully prepared students as little more than profit makers. Incentivize the colleges to push K-12 schools to do better. One such way would be, at least for public colleges and universities, prohibit those institutions from charging full tuition for remedial classes (and take care that schools are fudging the definition of remedial classes) and requiring that schools make available all services given to student athletes be made available to all students, among other actions.

Defedning Free Speech Is Hard

Particularly when people don't see or understand what you are doing.

Read this post about FIRE, please!

MN Grad Student "Investigated" For Classroom Dissension

As usual, FIRE is on the case. Most of it turned out well, but this caught my eye:

While it remains shameful that the student's views were so unpalatable to the professor that she ended up successfully excluding those views from her classroom, it is heartening that after just a few reminders about students' First Amendment rights, higher-level administrators finally did the right thing.

The student made statements that questioned the professor and the professor didn't like the statements, sought to have the student investigated for disrupting class and ultimately removed from the physical class.

I argue that it is not a good professor who cannot stand up to challenges and is actuall a disservice to all students by not allowing respectfully dissenting voices.

No-Loans Policies, Need-Blind Admissions and Higher Education Costs

This is a great peice and raises a good side question: are there educational programs or post graduate work more deserving of a free education that others?

Farewell to Women's Studies At One British College

The last 12 Women's Studies majors will graduate from London's Metropolitan University this year. The program is closing down for lack of interest.

The disappearance of a course that women academics fought so long and hard to have taught in universities has divided opinion on what this means for feminism. Is it irrelevant in today's world or has the quest for equality hit the mainstream?

The course's critics argue that women's studies became its own worst enemy, remaining trapped in the feminist movement of the 1970s while women and society moved on.

"Feminist scholarship has become predictable, tiresome and dreary, and most young women avoid it like the plague," said Christina Hoff Sommers, resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute for public policy research in Washington and author of Who Stole Feminism? "British and American societies are no longer patriarchal and oppressive 'male hegemonies'. But most women's studies departments are predicated on the assumption that women in the West are under siege. What nonsense."

Others believe young women have shied away from studying feminist theory because they would rather opt for degrees that more obviously lead to jobs, especially since the introduction of tuition fees.

"[Taking] women's studies as a separate course may not feel as relevant to women who go to university to help them enter the job market," said Jean Edelstein, an author and journalist. "As the feminist movement has become increasingly associated with extreme thoughts, women who may have previously been interested in women's studies may be deterred by these overtones."

Women's studies proponents take heart, some radical feminist will come out and say that it is a white male conspiracy designed to keep women down.

A Foundation Gift with Strings Attached

Reason Magazine has the story:

The University of North Carolina-Charlotte was -- way back in 2005 -- one of many schools to accept a business college endowment from the BB&T Charitable Foundation. BB&T Chairman John Allison is a big fan of Ayn Rand. Not suprisingly, Allison has been using the foundation to fund courses and programs on the moral defense of capitalism. In the case of UNCC, this was to include an Ayn Rand Reading Room at the business school. Again, this was widely known years ago.

Now -- all of a sudden -- the UNCC faculty has noticed the program and is freaking out. Chancellor Phil Dubois -- in the proud tradition of edu-crats -- is waffling and attempting to plead ignorance of the whole thing. That "teaching" Rand and specifically Atlas Shrugged was not to be part of the course offering as he understood it. Whatever.

Goodness knows we can't be defending capitalism in colleges can we?

A Good Question about Student Athletes and Historically Black Colleges

From Phi Beta Cons, highlighting a story from yesterday's Washington Post:

This reader flags in particular the suggestion (by a white player at one such school, ironically) that “there could be limits on the number of scholarship white players at HBCUs to ensure the schools' and teams' missions and histories are not affected," and notes the likely outcry if the shoe were on the other foot and such limits were placed on the number of black athletes at non-HBCUs. Good point.

Odd Response by YouDiligence Owners

a couple of weeks ago, I posted this piece about YouDiligence as monitoring tool that would allow colleges and universities to monitor what their student-athletes post on the web about anything.

I have receive three comments to the post that quite frankly, I didn't expect. One was trying to correct my understanding of how the software operates and made this statement:

Second, let me ask you a question. If a student goes running though the halls screaming "Let's kill all the kikes and niggers", is it censorship to take this student aside and have a discussion with them? I believe it is educators' duty to confront this student.

Now let's consider that the student is screaming these words in Chinese. It should not change the need to have a discussion with this student. All YD does is give educators the power to understand within the public forum, the world of the web. In the case of Chinese student, opaqueness comes from the language. With the web, it is the sheer amount of data out there that creates the opaqueness.

Well, actually pulling a student aside for racial slurs and talking to him is not censorship. But mandating that he talk to someone about his speech is. Monitoring his speech is not censorship per se, but you are one step closer. but it goes futher. The only speech that the university could monitor is public speech, but that speech is protected--even it is racist, uneducated and otherwise offensive. That is the point of free speech.

Then there is this:

Lastly, it is the University's interests that are being served. Over time, a University's reputation and endowment will be much better served by good respectful citizens than by inappropriate, rascist assholes. If users are revealing themselves as such within public spaces, why shouldn't a University have the right to say "we do not want to be associated with a person who behaves as such"?

Yes, the university's interests are being served, possibly at the expense of their free speech rights. A public university may not take any action against any student for the content of that student's speech absent a clear contractual obligation by the student otherwise (and no a student Handbook doesn't count). Something like an athletic scholarship that was clear in its langauge would suffice. But since an athletic scholarship, even if it has a morals and behavior clause, is not likely to be specfic enough, but I am willing to concede it is possible.

Sure, a public university can choose not to associate with a student (and most readers of a Facebook page would never impart a student's words with the stamp of university authority). But the university cannot, absent something significantly more, dismiss a student for racist or stupid language. Nor can they punish a student.

As a tool, I would suspect that YouDiligence is rather neutral in its approach. My guess is that it works like a web search tool, looking for specific combinations of schools names, mascots, players, students and other terms it is programmed to seek and if present notify the designated person. In and of itself, the tool is probably not much more than specific type of search engine. Harmless enough. But is is not the tool that is the problem, but the application of the tool. Univesities of late have not exactly proven themselves as defenders of the freedom of speech and thought. Just take a look at FIRE's Website.

The second comment said this:

We would like to clarify that the person who wrote this post is not part of the company that built, owns and operates YouDiligence(TM) . The opinions of the person expressed while in spirit do match an important part of the mission ( efficient reputation management) -the tone and words used in no way reflect the opinions of GlobalNI Inc. The fact is that people who conduct themselves in certain ways in public are with or without YouDiligence(TM) risking personal and professional consequences- the technology is neutral and defensive not invasive. Additionally there is much false information posted about high exposure individuals and Youdiligence(TM) is also designed to give people situational awareness and empower them to manage exposure that may harm their personal or professional interests. Athletes are not the only people who are exposed.

First, no where on the post or my blog do I indicate that I am in anyway associated with the program or its designers/owners. Similarly, I am not sure if the second comment was referring to the first comment or not. (so if someone from GlobalNI Inc. wishes to clarify I will post those comments in their entirety).

By freedom of speech, as I have said, I do not mean to indicate that the speaker is free of the consequences of their speech to either their personal or professional reputation. A person must be associated with their words and deeds. But the problem I have with this kind of service and its application is the potential for a student-athlete to be punished by the university for their speech. The university cannot (again absent a contractual clause otherwise) punish a student for his/her speech. that does not mean the student can't otherwise be held accountable.

Finally, MVP Sports Media Training posted this comment:

We at MVP Sports Media Training, have the exclusive rights to market YouDiligence(TM) to the collegiate and education markets would also like to get on the record that the person who made the initial post is not part of MVP. Additionally, the initial post includes tone and words that do not reflect the opinion or mission of MVP. We are about helping student-athletes proactively protect their reputations and athletic departments project a positive image. YouDiligence(TM) can be an effective tool to assist with both in the new media era. We welcome further open discussion and debate about this topic.

Again, I don't know if MVP is referring to my original post or the first commenter. As with GlobalNI, I am willing to post verbatim anything MVP sends to me.

I know that image management is an important part of any athlete or athletic department's mission. However, having said that, the Athletic Department is still part of the university community and a public university cannot discipline a student or student athlete for the content of that student's personal Facebook account. As for managing the reputation of a student-athlete-certainly, I will grant that YouDiligence will enable a school to monitor what others might be saying about their student-athletes to manage the reputation. But it is the monitoring of the student-athelte themselves by the school that is troubling. This is from the YouDiligence materials:

YOUDiligence, searches MySpace and Facebook for any potentially damaging material. YOUDiligence automatically notifies you by email should it find questionable written material posted by one of your
student-athletes. What you decide to do with that information is entirely up to you.

It is the last statement is what is troubling?

Perhaps MVP could clarify how it intends the product to be used? What does it envision the University doing with the infromation they receive? Managing reputation is one thing, policing the online thoughts of a student-athlete is a far different thing.

Again, I will be happy to post verbatim anything MVP sends my way.

Back to School for Outspoken Student :: Inside Higher Ed :: Jobs, News and Views for All of Higher Education

T. Hayden Barnes, the Valdosta (Georgia) State University student who was "administratively withdrawn" from the school has been reinstated. Here is the Inside Higher Ed article:

Months after first reviewing the expulsion of a student activist from Valdosta State University, the Georgia Board of Regents agreed to allow T. Hayden Barnes — once dubbed a “clear and present danger” to the campus by its president, Ronald Zaccari — to return to his studies, reversing the university’s May decision to “administratively withdraw” him.

Barnes initially attracted Zaccari’s ire when he publicly criticized the president’s plan to build two parking garages on campus using $30 million of students’ mandatory fees. Besides writing letters to administrators and sending mass e-mail messages, Barnes had posted a collage of images to his Facebook profile that Zaccari took to be a direct threat to his safety. (Other links posted to his Facebook profile included a video contest whose slogan, including the words “Shoot it,” was [mis]interpreted by the administration as a literal call to arms.)

After first appealing to the board, Barnes contacted the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education, which directed him to a lawyer and publicized the case. Just last week, FIRE announced Barnes’s lawsuit against Valdosta State, alleging that it had violated his First Amendment rights.

Here is FIRE's Press Release.Here is more of FIRE's coverage of the case.

Illegal Immigrants and Higher Education

Phi Beta Cons discuss a Washington Post article about the children of illegal immigrants and higher education.

For illegal immigrants, public school is a rare refuge. There's no requirement to prove legal immigration status to enroll in school. But the transition into the adult world can be abrupt. About 65,000 illegal immigrants graduate from U.S. high schools every year, unable to work legally and often unable to afford college without access to in-state tuition or government-backed financial aid, according to the Urban Institute.

PBC's asked an important question when examining this issue. Assuming that most illegal immigrants come to this country to seek a better life for themselves and their family,

As noble a goal as that may be, for government to help them realize it only encourages more illegal immigration.

The problem is not applying or even being accepted into college, the problem is paying for it. While illegal immigrants tend to be on the lowest levels of the socio-economic ladder, most poor people end up taking out student loans to pay for college. But illegals cannot obtain those loans because of their status. What some people are looking to do is to bypass the status requirement and allow illegals to obtain student loans via govnerment programs.

There is no doubt that these young people would contribute to society with a higher education. However, we as a nation cannot incentivize illegal behavior by allowing an exception to the status rule. Like one of the students profiled in the Post article, go back, get legal and then we will do all we can as a nation to help you fulfill your academic dreams. Until then, tough luck on the higher education front.