On “Innovation in Higher Education? Hah!” by Ann Kirschner (The Chronicle Review, April 13), from chronicle.com:
I’m shocked—shocked—that a board member of the biggest for-profit higher-ed scam in the country would advocate for the fourth-rate, impersonal, cookie-cutter teaching model from which she derives a paycheck. Here’s a factoid for you: In those countries that have made significant gains in the percentage of citizens with college degrees, public investment in higher ed has increased markedly. Here, in the United States, it’s been declining for 30 years. The idea that America’s regional public universities should transform themselves into Internet diploma mills to compete with the Scammo Online School of Business and Cosmetology should strike anyone with a functioning frontal lobe as ludicrous. Unfortunately, that’s exactly the direction in which we’re headed. God help us all.
fleabiscuit
I’ve said this before and I’ll say it again. Higher ed has convinced the private sector (and legislators) that a college degree is necessary to succeed in any (all?) job, when that’s simply not the case. Right now, I’m doing the same accounting work with an employer-required master’s degree that I did 30 years ago with no college education whatsoever. Students who can’t afford and don’t need a degree can’t get jobs that shouldn’t require one. Overeducated graduates are filling the entry-level positions that used to go to bright people right out of high school.
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Many of us believe that students (especially those age 18-25) need (1) the steady guidance of real human beings whom they have met; (2) an intentional, skills-based course of study that will make them better citizens, parents, and workers; and (3) a chance to think about big problems and questions in a safe environment where inquiry is honored. College may be the last clear chance for them to get stronger in those ways.
Whatever educational systems do the best at sending knowledgeable and flexible alumni into our big, complicated world are the best systems. The outcomes should drive the change. It’s time to reverse-engineer the college experience.
lisa_maryland
Online learning is merely one tool in the box that might assist in balancing the ledger. But the value of the university is multifaceted. And as Stanford, Harvard, MIT, and other universities have demonstrated, the value of the degree is only part of the overall experience. The value of established networks can far exceed the branded piece of paper as the currency of competency, as nongrads of those universities have clearly demonstrated across the business landscape.
Mike Green
Ann Kirschner is on point. Our universities are not only reluctant to change, agents of change on campuses are ostracized for not maintaining the status quo. A colleague has been consumed with alternative delivery methods in education for the last five years, but instead of providing assistance, the university increases roadblocks to implementing change. He has developed a hybrid model of content delivery combining consulting, open courseware, and second-screen technology, with measurable results. However, anyone on a college campus who has potential to interfere with the traditional employment model does so at the risk of losing his or her job. Therefore, I do take issue with Dean Kirschner’s ending statement that “the American university, the place where new ideas are born and lives are transformed, will eventually focus that lens of innovation upon itself. It’s just a matter of time.”
Change will come from outside, not inside, the traditional university model.
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