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."
**********************************************
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.
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
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.
"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/
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>: