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Universities have a surprising degree of autonomy for large institutions in modern society. I was reflecting on the medieval origins of universities in the west, and realized that the method of faculty selection and promotion is very similar to the Roman Catholic episcopacy. Namely, the older generation of peers chooses the newer generation of peers. This is an institutional structure that is very good at preserving "how things are done" with minimal intervention or pressure applied from the outside. This results in hermetic canons and bureaucracies that become increasingly out of date as time goes by.
This of course flies in the face of a lot of reforms since the 12th century, which could be summed up as being pluralistic in nature. Having a plurality of power centers that have institutional checks on each others' behaviors is a more modern and in my opinion far superior model of governance than the priestly model of a self-policing bureaucracy that has control of who becomes a part of that bureaucracy.
The last major reforms to the university model were those of Humboldt in the late 19th century. I think we are due for a number of institutional reforms in higher education, given how academia seems to be becoming less effective over time. This declining effectiveness is due to both a changing mission, and also to the institutional ossification I described above.
While I concur there are problems, I'm not sure those is the cause(s). Some other things to consider are:
a. Too many students coming out of high school unprepared for college level work. Thirty years ago those kids would not have gone to college. Now they do. Does the college need to just fail them out? Lower standards to accommodate them? Other?
b. Increasing acceptance of nonsense as scholarly work out of ?? Ignorance? Fear of getting shut out? Fear of sounding mean/unaccepting/other?? Consider the recent scandals at both Harvard where a professor who was considered the world expert in ethics forged her data and at Stanford where the president resigned over having forged data in his work previously. Or consider this from the Atlantic (https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/ar...l-hoax/572212/
James Lindsay, Helen Pluckrose, and Peter Boghossian—wrote 20 fake papers using fashionable jargon to argue for ridiculous conclusions, and tried to get them placed in high-profile journals in fields including gender studies, ***** studies, and fat studies. Their success rate was remarkable: By the time they took their experiment public late on Tuesday, seven of their articles had been accepted for publication by ostensibly serious peer-reviewed journals. Seven more were still going through various stages of the review process. Only six had been rejected.
We’ve been here before.
It may well be we've simply become too polite to call BS on BS.
c. Duplication between high school and college in terms of what are often called "gen eds" -- that "little bit of everything" that may have been essential a hundred years ago when we didn't have universal high school but may have outlived it usefulness.
d. The cry of being "anti-education" raised to the rooftops whenever someone dares to question education-industrial complex. We see it here in the Education forum all the time. Makes it pretty hard to have a deep conversation about it.
I look forward to more discussion on such an interesting topic.
Universities have a surprising degree of autonomy for large institutions in modern society. I was reflecting on the medieval origins of universities in the west, and realized that the method of faculty selection and promotion is very similar to the Roman Catholic episcopacy. Namely, the older generation of peers chooses the newer generation of peers. This is an institutional structure that is very good at preserving "how things are done" with minimal intervention or pressure applied from the outside. This results in hermetic canons and bureaucracies that become increasingly out of date as time goes by.
This of course flies in the face of a lot of reforms since the 12th century, which could be summed up as being pluralistic in nature. Having a plurality of power centers that have institutional checks on each others' behaviors is a more modern and in my opinion far superior model of governance than the priestly model of a self-policing bureaucracy that has control of who becomes a part of that bureaucracy.
The last major reforms to the university model were those of Humboldt in the late 19th century. I think we are due for a number of institutional reforms in higher education, given how academia seems to be becoming less effective over time. This declining effectiveness is due to both a changing mission, and also to the institutional ossification I described above.
Those are all very good points. And the other, related problem is tenure, since it allows mediocrity, and takes away any chance of accountability. We can never have a good education system as long as we have tenure.
As for a changing mission: I think there is a constant battle as to whether college is about job training or about an education just for the sake of learning. At this point, an education just for the sake of learning may be a luxury that can't be afforded by the middle class, no matter how valuable some may claim that it is.
The other problem is professors' primary job being research. This causes even students to accept professors who are poor teachers, claiming that they are good researchers. Often with no knowledge of what "research" they do. I never experienced this personally, but I had friends who had professors who would show up to class high or drunk and teach nothing. But the students would defend them saying that they do good research. I seriously doubt that.
I made this analogy before: would you buy a car from a company that primarily made pianos? And, if you did, and the car was a lemon, would you just smile and accept it, saying that their pianos are the best quality, even if you never bought one of their pianos? I seriously doubt it.
While I concur there are problems, I'm not sure those is the cause(s). Some other things to consider are:
a. Too many students coming out of high school unprepared for college level work. Thirty years ago those kids would not have gone to college. Now they do. Does the college need to just fail them out? Lower standards to accommodate them? Other?
That is a problem, but the solution is that colleges should never accept such students. And, I know we don't agree, but the methods of weeding students out are the wrong methods. The methods of weeding out are more about how much garbage students are willing to accept without complaint.
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b. Increasing acceptance of nonsense as scholarly work out of ?? Ignorance? Fear of getting shut out? Fear of sounding mean/unaccepting/other?? Consider the recent scandals at both Harvard where a professor who was considered the world expert in ethics forged her data and at Stanford where the president resigned over having forged data in his work previously. Or consider this from the Atlantic (https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/ar...l-hoax/572212/
Maybe the solution is to get rid of affirmative action, but you wouldn't like that, since then your daughter would have had to actually pay for college.
Quote:
James Lindsay, Helen Pluckrose, and Peter Boghossian—wrote 20 fake papers using fashionable jargon to argue for ridiculous conclusions, and tried to get them placed in high-profile journals in fields including gender studies, ***** studies, and fat studies. Their success rate was remarkable: By the time they took their experiment public late on Tuesday, seven of their articles had been accepted for publication by ostensibly serious peer-reviewed journals. Seven more were still going through various stages of the review process. Only six had been rejected.
Are James Lindsay, Helen Pluckrose, and Peter Boghossian accepted authorities in the fields you mention? Or just random people. Helen Pluckrose is obvoiusly a woman. Are the 2 men minorities?
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We’ve been here before.
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It may well be we've simply become too polite to call BS on BS.
c. Duplication between high school and college in terms of what are often called "gen eds" -- that "little bit of everything" that may have been essential a hundred years ago when we didn't have universal high school but may have outlived it usefulness.
Agree. A "well rounded" education is a myth.
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d. The cry of being "anti-education" raised to the rooftops whenever someone dares to question education-industrial complex. We see it here in the Education forum all the time. Makes it pretty hard to have a deep conversation about it.
There is probably an institution of higher education out there for just about everybody regardless of their personal or political views. If I was far Left or far Right, my outside pressure would be to give my tuition dollars to an institute that aligned with my own thoughts or, if the institution that I didn't like was my only option, I live off campus in order to give them as little money as possible.
IHEs also have federal mandates such as Clery, VAWA, Equity Compliance and Title IX that are forced outside pressures.
Yep, higher-ed burocracies can be heavy and inefficient, but what do they gain monetarily by being otherwise? Universities are billion dollar businesses, and their business model works for them.
Universities have a surprising degree of autonomy for large institutions in modern society. I was reflecting on the medieval origins of universities in the west, and realized that the method of faculty selection and promotion is very similar to the Roman Catholic episcopacy. Namely, the older generation of peers chooses the newer generation of peers. This is an institutional structure that is very good at preserving "how things are done" with minimal intervention or pressure applied from the outside. This results in hermetic canons and bureaucracies that become increasingly out of date as time goes by.
This of course flies in the face of a lot of reforms since the 12th century, which could be summed up as being pluralistic in nature. Having a plurality of power centers that have institutional checks on each others' behaviors is a more modern and in my opinion far superior model of governance than the priestly model of a self-policing bureaucracy that has control of who becomes a part of that bureaucracy.
The last major reforms to the university model were those of Humboldt in the late 19th century. I think we are due for a number of institutional reforms in higher education, given how academia seems to be becoming less effective over time. This declining effectiveness is due to both a changing mission, and also to the institutional ossification I described above.
I need to understand exactly what issues you're trying to address here. Academia is becoming less effective in what ways? What does "self-policing" mean in an academic context? I don't know what you're referring to. Could you flesh out your topic?
While I concur there are problems, I'm not sure those is the cause(s). Some other things to consider are:
a. Too many students coming out of high school unprepared for college level work. Thirty years ago those kids would not have gone to college. Now they do. Does the college need to just fail them out? Lower standards to accommodate them? Other?
Which colleges are accepting such students? Even 30 years ago, faculty were complaining about the quality of student writing, and how they had trouble reading and making sense of what got turned in as term papers. What some of the state flagship schools did, as far as I can tell, is tighten standards and require applicants who didn't pass muster on the written portion of their SAT to take remedial courses prior to entering as a condition for acceptance. These schools went through a phase of offering remedial courses to students already at university, but later decided they no longer wanted to offer what amounted to community college courses (this is a drain on university resources), so they're requiring HS grads to firm up their lagging skills before beginning their freshman year.
Highschools need to get the message, that they need to do a better job of teaching writing, instead of passing the buck, so that students end up having to pay out of pocket for remedial work to qualify for college entry. And I can tell you, it's some of the public schools that are regarded as "the best" or among the best in their city, that are graduating students who can't write up to university standards. This issue goes back a lot farther than 30 years ago. There are some states that don't require the teaching of grammar in grade school and never have, so without that foundation, highschool teachers can't and don't teach college-prep grammar. This is why their students' writing is so convoluted. Students don't learn how to properly construct complex sentences.
So what's going on with admissions policy in other universities? What types of universities are these? Are we talking about the small private universities that are struggling to stay alive, so they're accepting unqualified students for the tuition money?
Which colleges are accepting such students? Even 30 years ago, faculty were complaining about the quality of student writing, and how they had trouble reading and making sense of what got turned in as term papers. What some of the state flagship schools did, as far as I can tell, is tighten standards and require applicants who didn't pass muster on the written portion of their SAT to take remedial courses prior to entering as a condition for acceptance. These schools went through a phase of offering remedial courses to students already at university, but later decided they no longer wanted to offer what amounted to community college courses (this is a drain on university resources), so they're requiring HS grads to firm up their lagging skills before beginning their freshman year.
Highschools need to get the message, that they need to do a better job of teaching writing, instead of passing the buck, so that students end up having to pay out of pocket for remedial work to qualify for college entry. And I can tell you, it's some of the public schools that are regarded as "the best" or among the best in their city, that are graduating students who can't write up to university standards. This issue goes back a lot farther than 30 years ago. There are some states that don't require the teaching of grammar in grade school and never have, so without that foundation, highschool teachers can't and don't teach college-prep grammar. This is why their students' writing is so convoluted. Students don't learn how to properly construct complex sentences.
So what's going on with admissions policy in other universities? What types of universities are these? Are we talking about the small private universities that are struggling to stay alive, so they're accepting unqualified students for the tuition money?
You'll see it with most colleges and universities, including some major ones. For example my alma mater (state R1) has a typical ACT range of 28-32 for the middle 50% of students. Yet they recently completed a major expansion designed specifically to transition students who would not otherwise be accepted into the university. The program enrolls them in the university, special dorms with extra support, transit to the local CC where they actually take classes for the first year or two because they aren't ready for university classes. On the one hand sounds good for helping lesser students. On the other hand, the facility investment was almost $200,000,000 plus recurring costs which have to be spread over the student body.
Within in my state of Tennessee, there is the TNPromise, intended to encourage more students to attend college with free CC. Part of that includes a major mentorship program where local volunteers help these students fill out application, remind them of ACT and application dates, ensure they get the paperwork in on time, and help them get through the first semester of CC. You have to ask the question if they need that much help to get into a CC, are they going to be able to handle college level work? So far, the graduation success rate would say no (around 50% drop out without completing a CC program). In fact, to show success they started including industry certificate programs as the same as attaining a degree.
I absolutely agree that high schools need to do a better job of preparing students for college. Not just in writing, but in overall study skills. Students are coming out of high school with good grades, but knowing how to learn; how to self-study; or even how to take notes.
That is a problem, but the solution is that colleges should never accept such students. And, I know we don't agree, but the methods of weeding students out are the wrong methods. The methods of weeding out are more about how much garbage students are willing to accept without complaint.
Agree they shouldn't be accepted. When it comes to weed out, if you experienced "garbage" then perhaps that was due to the school and not to the concept of weed out.
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Originally Posted by mitsguy2001
Maybe the solution is to get rid of affirmative action, but you wouldn't like that, since then your daughter would have had to actually pay for college.
Where do you get the idea that she didn't have to pay for college. I've explained that to you before that she worked during the school year, during summer, and took on debt. Her scholarship only covered a fraction of the cost.
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Originally Posted by mitsguy2001
Are James Lindsay, Helen Pluckrose, and Peter Boghossian accepted authorities in the fields you mention? Or just random people. Helen Pluckrose is obvoiusly a woman. Are the 2 men minorities?
I actually didn't pay attention to whether they were minorities, so I had to look. Appear to be white, as if that makes any difference. No, they were not accepted authorities, but writers who took on the investigative journalism task of exposing the lack of rigor in publications. You should look them up. They were inspired by Alan Sokal's work.
Location: We_tside PNW (Columbia Gorge) / CO / SA TX / Thailand
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I'm not an advocate of more 'controls' / nanny criteria / unnecessary reporting and more paid positions in EDU to fill out the 'expected' results.
More transparency might help (to better evaluate their actual results). But a key is for Higher EDU to refocus on delivering EDU, rather than social engineering based on their agenda (and each U may have their own).
Educators could educate
Businesses could do business
and Politicians could serve constituents (and the only campaign spending allowed for incumbents is to publish their voting record). Same for schools... what was their output and contribution?. Correct, accurate, and available information is powerful in the hands of the educated.
A Major reset required.
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