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Re: [Phys-l] Blame It on the Faculty



ABSTRACT: Scott Lederman, in his provocative report "Blame It on the Faculty,"
discusses how the U.S. Dept. of Education's (USDE's) "Commission on the Future of Higher Education, has lowered the boom on higher-education faculty, attacking the tenure and research emphasis of these "king makers [who dictate] campus policies that turn the institutions into bastions of inefficiency."
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In a response [Hake (2006)] to Scott Jaschik's (2006) cogent "Inside Higher Ed" report "Fresh Approach to the Accountability of Higher Education," I noted the favorable response of Charles Miller (2006) to the plan of the National Association of State Universities and Land-Grant Colleges (NASULGC) for a top-down summative-assessment of higher-education institutions. Miller, Chair of the U.S. Dept. of Education's (USDE's) powerful "Commission On the Future of Higher Education" (COFHE) is former Chair of the Board of Regents of the University of Texas System.

For more recent information on the activities of Miller's COFHE see Doug Lederman's (2006a) report "Blame It on the Faculty." Lederman writes [bracketed by lines "LLLLL. . ."; my CAPS]:

LLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLL
Until now, as the Secretary of Education's Commission on the Future of Higher Education has questioned how well colleges teach their students [Lederman (2006b)] and blasted the higher education accreditation system [Lederman (2006c)], college professors have largely remained off the radar, at least of the panel's public deliberations.

That changed Wednesday, as the commission released the latest of its "issue papers" [USDE (2006)] designed to stimulate discussion, including one [by Robert Dickeson (2006)] aimed at identifying "the major factors that induce institutions to spend (and charge) more" and exploring "what's being done - and can be done - about managing college costs and improving affordability."

While the paper proffers many reasons why colleges' costs and, in turn, prices have risen - competition for students, excessive government regulation, subsidies of sports programs - IT RETURNS AGAIN AND AGAIN, IN WAYS LARGE AND SMALL, TO LAY THE PROBLEM AT THE FEET OF THE FACULTY.
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
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Tenure, [Dickeson] says, has changed from a way to protect academic freedom to a "system to protect job security," which hurts institutions by impairing their ability to adapt their curriculums to changing student demands and making it harder for them to get rid of ineffective "dead wood." "The decision to tenure has an accompanying long-term price tag that easily exceeds $1 million per person," the report says.

Most strikingly, THE REPORT PAINTS A PICTURE OF PROFESSORS AS KING MAKERS, DICTATING CAMPUS POLICIES THAT TURN THE INSTITUTIONS INTO BASTIONS OF INEFFICIENCY. "To understand the management of a college one must understand the unique culture and extraordinary power of the faculty. To many faculty, they ARE the university." Dickeson writes. This power gives professors authority over all curricular decisions and overinvolves them in other campus policy making, resulting in a "slow-moving pace of change;" puts too much power in the hands of department chairs "neither trained in nor committed to management;" and emphasizes "research over instruction as the key to the internal reward systems," among other problems.
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
LLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLL

As indicated in USDE (2005), COFHE's all-star line-up of heavy hitters includes, in addition Texas Charles Miller: Nicholas Donofrio, Executive Vice President of IBM; James Duderstadt, President Emeritus of the University of Michigan; Gerri Elliott, Corporate Vice President of Microsoft; Kati Haycock, Director, Education Trust; James B. Hunt, Jr., former Governor of North Carolina; Arthur J. Rothkopf, Senior Vice President of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and President Emeritus, Lafayette College; Robert Mendenhall, President of the Western Governor's University; Richard Stephens, Senior Vice President, Boeing; Charles M. Vest, President Emeritus of MIT; David Ward, President, American Council on Education; and Robert Zemsky, Chair and Professor, The Learning Alliance for Higher Education, University of Pennsylvania.


Richard Hake, Emeritus Professor of Physics, Indiana University
24245 Hatteras Street, Woodland Hills, CA 91367
<rrhake@earthlink.net>
<http://www.physics.indiana.edu/~hake>
<http://www.physics.indiana.edu/~sdi>

"The academic area is one of the most difficult areas to change in our society. We continue to use the same methods of instruction, particularly lectures, that have been used for hundreds of years. Little scientific research is done to test new approaches, and little systematic attention is given to the development of new methods. Universities that study many aspects of the world ignore the educational function in which they are engaging and from which a large part of their revenues are earned."
Richard M. Cyert, former president of Carnegie Mellon University, in
Tuma & Reif (1980).


REFERENCES
Dickeson, R.C. 2006. "Frequently Asked Questions About College Costs," Sixth in a series of Issue Papers released at the request of Chairman Charles Miller to inform the work of the Commission, online at <http://www.ed.gov/about/bdscomm/list/hiedfuture/reports/dickeson2.pdf> (72kB). See also Dickeson (1999).

Dickeson, R.C. 1999. "Prioritizing Academic Programs and Services: Reallocating Resources to Achieve Strategic Balance." Jossey Bass. Amazon.com information at <http://tinyurl.com/fe5xa>. Note the "Search Inside This Book" feature/

Hake, R.R. 2006. "Re: Fresh Approach to the Accountability of Higher Education," online at <http://listserv.nd.edu/cgi-bin/wa?A2=ind0604&L=pod&F=&S=&P=1731> post of 4-5 April to various discussion lists.
Jaschik, S. 2006. "Fresh Approach to Accountability," Inside Higher Ed, 3 April, online at <http://insidehighered.com/news/2006/04/03/nasulgc>.

Lederman, D. 2006a. "Blame It on the Faculty," Inside Higher Ed. 6 April, online at <http://insidehighered.com/news/2006/04/06/costs>.

Lederman, D. 2006b. "No College Left Behind?" Inside Higher Ed, 15 February, online at <http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2006/02/15/testing>.

Lederman, D. 2006c. "Dropping a Bomb on Accreditation," Inside HigherEd, 31 March, online at <http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2006/03/31/accredit>.

Miller, C. 2006 . Comment on Jaschik (2006); online at
<http://insidehighered.com/news/2006/04/03/nasulgc> (scroll down to the second comment in the "Comments" section below the article.

Tuma, D.T. & F. Reif, eds. 1980. "Problem Solving and Education: Issues in Teaching and Research," Lawrence Erlbaum.

USDE. 2005. U.S. Dept. of Education, "Secretary Spellings Announces New Commission on the Future of Higher Education," press release online at <http://tinyurl.com/cxgfz>:

USDE. 2006. "Commission Reports: A National Dialogue: The Secretary of Education's Commission on the Future of Higher Education," online at <http://www.ed.gov/about/bdscomm/list/hiedfuture/reports.html>.