An Assault On The American University

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While the nation occupies itself with two Harbaugh brothers coaching in the Super Bowl,
the Manti Te’o dead-girlfriend-that-wasn’tscandal, and Beyonce’s lip-syncing, there is a much more quiet and pernicious assault on one of the foundational institutions of American civic life:  our higher education.

We may be in the process of losing the global economic lead to China, but America’s finest universities are still the global leaders.   The best and brightest students from all over the world seek to come to the United States to receive the best education the world has to offer.  And yet, there is a direct, organized, well-funded assault on American universities from right-wing Republicans and big-business interests.

Let’s take a look at one site in which this assault is taking place in a methodical fashion:  North Carolina, home to the oldest public university in America: The University of North Carolina, ranked every year as the best buy in higher education.

For decades, there has been an acrimonious relationship between the University of North Carolina, which serves as the educational heart of the state, and right-wing Republicans who resent what they perceive as the University’s liberalizing mission.

 

http://omidsafi.religionnews.com/2013/02/01/an-assault-on-the-american-university/

 

 

I think this is a generally negative trend.  Public education in general, from the University system down through grade school, should have at the core of its being a mission to produce a citizenry that is well read and equipped with the intellectual tools necessary to critically examine the society in which they live.  We have a Business School.  And it does it's job well.  But you need another part of the university to not just teach students how to get a job at Goldman Sachs but it it's a good thing to work for Goldman Sachs.  That does happen sometimes.  I have a lot of business school friends who just immediately took jobs at the same financial institutions that entrapped huge numbers of people in predatory loans and crashed the global market.  But I also have some that told those same institutions to go floopy themselves and decided to work at more ethical companies.  That's a good thing.  

[Era Might]

There is no question that universities are facing hard economic times, but they are not factories, they are not “businesses” in the ordinary sense of the word.    Universities, schools, and hospitals should not be for-profit ventures where the mission is defined by their ability to produce profit.   No, these are institutions that our society invests in, because we remain committed to the notion that education and health are vital to a vibrant democracy.  They are the very backbone of our civic contract, and without them our democratic experiment is bound for demise.

 

So what’s behind all of this assault on our educational institutions?

 

A goal of any liberal arts education is to train critical thinkers, with ability to assess the validity of statements, think globally, recognize the assumptions and agendas behind truth claims, and write concisely and analytically.    The real issue is not job creation, something that all of us would like to see for our students.    It comes down with to the fact that vocational training would not offer any of the skills needed to see through layers of propaganda and unmerited privilege.     That is part of why the venom of these big-business voices is saved for women’s studies, African-American studies, Global studies—fields that precisely identify and critique the price that underprivileged communities pay for rampant capitalism, unjust distribution of wealth, globalism, sexism, war, and violence.

 

 

 

 

I dislike the entire school routine. Young people don't know anything, so of course they can learn quite a bit at a university. But the university thinks too highly of itself. People learn on the street, through music, even in prison just as validly as they do in a university. I find Malcolm X a lot more interesting than university classes on African-American studies. The best thing about universities is they are meeting grounds (theoretically, anyway)...it's too bad the opportunities to meet drowned out in testing, curriculum, programs, roles, etc. I don't think the university is anything but a system for academics by academics...and I have nothing against being an academic, just don't equate that with democratic virtues.

 

 

  ‎"It is impossible to look candidly at the present vast expansion and tight interlocking of the entire school system--from the graduate schools to the grade schools-- without judging that it has three main functions: apprentice-training for the government and a few giant corporations, baby-sitting of the youth during a period of rising unemployment in which most youth are economically superfluous, and the aggrandizement of the school system itself which is forming a monkish class greater than any since the sixteenth century. It is this unlucky combination of power-drive, commercial greed, public and parental guilt, and foundation money funding the expansion." --Paul Goodman, circa 1960

Edited February 2, 2013 by Era Might

[Apotheoun]

Here in California schools are not even that good at being meeting grounds anymore, because they have become so large and impersonal.  You can actually go to college in California and never interact with your teachers or your fellow students in any meaningful way.

[Era Might]

Here in California schools are not even that good at being meeting grounds anymore, because they have become so large and impersonal.  You can actually go to college in California and never interact with your teachers or your fellow students in any meaningful way.

 

Yeah, it's kind of hard to have really meaningful encounters in a context where everything is done in the shadow of the system. There are sometimes interesting conversations in classrooms, but always with an eye toward satisfying the requirements of the class and pleasing the professor who looms over the conversation. Why say anything if it doesn't help your grade?

[Gabriela]

But you need another part of the university to not just teach students how to get a job at Goldman Sachs but it it's a good thing to work for Goldman Sachs.  

 

The university used to be an integrated whole. In the late 19th century, disciplinary walls began to tower as industry reached out to education to co-opt academic programs for their purposes, ultimately shifting the goal of academic institutions from their centuries-old one of providing a liberal education to the present one of job credentialing. Your statement that critical thinking should be imparted in "another part of the university" assumes that critical thinking can be imparted effectively in the new system. But departmentalized education goes hand in hand with job credentialing. If we want real liberal education, critical thinking must be integrated into EVERY part of the university.

 

What Era Might says about vocational skills and critical thinking is correct. The point of the modern American university is not to teach people how to think. It's to teach them what to think. At least as far as pedagogy is concerned (research is another story), the modern American university does nothing but perpetuate a larger societal status quo in which the university has set itself up as the gatekeeper to the middle class.

 

I think that the modern American university is the greatest evidence of the sacrifice of the promise of "free education for all" to the insatiable appetite of capitalism. We used to get a decent education out of high school—decent enough to get a job that could support a family and provide a reasonably meaningful existence. Now, if you want to be able to support a family with any degree of dignity, you have to pay into the system first. It is no coincidence, I think, that as universities were making themselves indispensable for financial solvency, the quality of primary and secondary education was rapidly deteriorating—making universities that much more "necessary". Notice how, despite constant political talk of the shitty state of our public schools, nothing ever, EVER changes? Someone's profiting off of that...

 

Of course, the constellation of industries in the US has changed rapidly at the same time. There are almost no factories left. Outside of fast food restaurants, an unskilled, un-BAd (and, soon, un-MAd) American has very few options for employment. That is not higher education's fault, but it is capitalism's.

 

If you're interested in the catastrophe that is our current higher education system, Hasan, PM me and I can recommend a lot of outstanding books.

"Shiitake mushroom"? dUSt, I dub you "Creative Philter King of the Internet"!

[Gabriela]

Here in California schools are not even that good at being meeting grounds anymore, because they have become so large and impersonal.  You can actually go to college in California and never interact with your teachers or your fellow students in any meaningful way.

 

In higher ed literature this phenomenon is referred to as the "palace on the hill". I think it's fair to say that American unis have developed a "palace on the hill syndrome". The more services they offer, the more they can charge. And most students don't use half the services they are forced to subsidize --> more funds to funnel elsewhere (i.e., places that don't directly benefit students, like research).

 

At my university, we are forced to pay a "transportation fee", which funds the town's bus system ALMOST ENTIRELY. Have I ever ridden the bus? Once, about two and a half years ago. Why does the university fund the municipal bus system? Because the university practically OWNS the town.

[BG45]

In higher ed literature this phenomenon is referred to as the "palace on the hill". I think it's fair to say that American unis have developed a "palace on the hill syndrome". The more services they offer, the more they can charge. And most students don't use half the services they are forced to subsidize --> more funds to funnel elsewhere (i.e., places that don't directly benefit students, like research).

 

At my university, we are forced to pay a "transportation fee", which funds the town's bus system ALMOST ENTIRELY. Have I ever ridden the bus? Once, about two and a half years ago. Why does the university fund the municipal bus system? Because the university practically OWNS the town.

 

My "health and wellness" fee does not cover if I have to use the Health and Wellness Center.  I got sick last year and had to pay them more money for going there; the fee only covered going to the gym or STD testing.

 

Edit:  I would also like to use Hasan's thread to put forward (again) UnLearning Liberty, a book on the rampant censorship across American university campuses.  It's filled with history and examples, like the student who protested putting in a parking garage for essentially $7500 (or was it $75000) a parking spot, and was accused of making threats on the life of the university president for referring to it as a legacy project and expelled.  The President of the university tried to use his seeking psychological help for depression against him, bent several rules, convened over a dozen meetings on how best to smear and eventually get rid of this young man, and eventually a free speech advocacy group took the university to court and won, where they grudgingly were about to let the former Dean's List student back in.  However he'd already finished at another school and was in law school by that point, inspired by the injustice he had suffered.

Edited February 3, 2013 by BG45

[Era Might]

Great post, curiousing. Let me know any good books you would recommend. I think you nail it here:

 

 

The point of the modern American university is not to teach people how to think. It's to teach them what to think. At least as far as pedagogy is concerned (research is another story), the modern American university does nothing but perpetuate a larger societal status quo in which the university has set itself up as the gatekeeper to the middle class.

 

This is what Ivan Illich would call the "hidden curriculum" of western schooling. The routine and the system, from grade school on up, fit people into the routine of capitalism, consumerism, etc. And there is nothing worse than the drop out, because he is biting the hand that feeds him.

 

I'm very excited to see what comes of the current movement toward web-based learning resources. But if they just become another schooling model that is about organizing everyone into a system, then I think it will be just as useless. I'm more interested in RESOURCES that empower people rather than systems that organize them.

Edited February 3, 2013 by Era Might

[Gabriela]

Let me know any good books you would recommend.

 

Sure thing.

 

Academically Adrift, by Arum & Roksa (get it at a library, as it's an academic work, and so very expensive)

 

The Closing of the American Mind, by Bloom

 

The Condition of American Liberal Education, by Orrill

 

Clueless in Academe, by Graff

 

The Last Intellectuals, by Jacoby

 

I also highly recommend Elizabeth Warren's Two-Income Trap, which is tangentially related to this subject, but quite damning of our current economic system.

[Gabriela]

I'm very excited to see what comes of the current movement toward web-based learning resources. But if they just become another schooling model that is about organizing everyone into a system, then I think it will be just as useless. I'm more interested in RESOURCES that empower people rather than systems that organize them.

 

I also think that online learning promises hope. But it will go exactly the way of the unis if people don't organize THEMSELVES around it and make it useful on their terms. Universities will be cooking up ways to organize it for people, to give "added value", and people are too easily tempted to just accept something that's already been packaged for them by "the professionals". If we just accept online learning as another university product, the cost and value of higher education isn't going to change. Think about it: There's almost no overhead with online learning, but market forces can keep the price of a degree online just barely under that of one earned on campus. If we don't claim online learning for ourselves and find creative ways to use that learning to replace the job credentialing of traditional unis, then the unis will do it "for us", and the price won't go down. They'll just cut a whole lot of costs.

 

Then again, I don't think the traditional uni will ever die away completely. There is a great deal to be learned—and not just "content"-wise—from human interaction on campus, face-to-face mentoring with profs, the development of relationships centered around learning, etc. But if the choice is between unis as they currently exist (where one doesn't get that stuff anyway, despite being bodily present) and online learning, then clearly online learning is preferable.

 

What I suspect will happen is that universities will see how lucrative online learning can be, and that will eventually overpower the interests they currently have not to switch to that model. At first, they'll offer those degrees for less, to transition the populace out of the traditional system and into the new, online one. Once the transition has been fully made, they'll jack the prices up again, but by that time, the entire population will require a degree just to get a job, because the transition to the Information Economy will be complete as well. There will remain the age-old divisions: The rich will still go to traditional universities to get a "good education", while everyone else will have gotten free (worthless) education up to high school, and then have to pay whatever universities are charging for online degrees/certificates/"units" (there's all kinds of stuff out there right now) to get the piece of paper that will get them a job. It will be even worse for "the masses", because they'll be paying the same price for the degree, but they won't even get "the college experience" out of it, and they'll be doing a lot more of the education-work themselves.

 

For instructors, it will probably be even worse, as universities are likely to begin writing into their contracts that everything you create for their online courses becomes their property, in which case, once you've taught the class a few times, they can dispense with you and run the class automatically with low-wage "graders". If profs don't get organized, this is likely to start happening soon.

 

All the while, politicians will still be bickering about how to fix our public schools. But they won't have to worry about how to get everyone to college anymore, because the job market will have solved that problem for them. We will ALL pay whatever they ask for a degree, which for most of us will mean going into huge debt, on top of losing 4 (or more) years of labor that we could have spent saving money, paying into our retirement, paying taxes, etc.

 

Clearly I'm pessimistic about the future of higher ed...

Edited February 3, 2013 by curiousing

[Era Might]

I also think that online learning promises hope. But it will go exactly the way of the unis if people don't organize THEMSELVES around it and make it useful on their terms. Universities will be cooking up ways to organize it for people, to give "added value", and people are too easily tempted to just accept something that's already been packaged for them by "the professionals". If we just accept online learning as another university product, the cost and value of higher education isn't going to change. Think about it: There's almost no overhead with online learning, but market forces can keep the price of a degree online just barely under that of one earned on campus. If we don't claim online learning for ourselves and find creative ways to use that learning to replace the job credentialing of traditional unis, then the unis will do it "for us", and the price won't go down. They'll just cut a whole lot of costs.

 

Then again, I don't think the traditional uni will ever die away completely. There is a great deal to be learned—and not just "content"-wise—from human interaction on campus, face-to-face mentoring with profs, the development of relationships centered around learning, etc. But if the choice is between unis as they currently exist (where one doesn't get that stuff anyway, despite being bodily present) and online learning, then clearly online learning is preferable.

 

What I suspect will happen is that universities will see how lucrative online learning can be, and that will eventually overpower the interests they currently have not to switch to that model. At first, they'll offer those degrees for less, to transition the populace out of the traditional system and into the new, online one. Once the transition has been fully made, they'll jack the prices up again, but by that time, the entire population will require a degree just to get a job, because the transition to the Information Economy will be complete as well. There will remain the age-old divisions: The rich will still go to traditional universities to get a "good education", while everyone else will have gotten free (worthless) education up to high school, and then have to pay whatever universities are charging for online degrees/certificates/"units" (there's all kinds of stuff out there right now) to get the piece of paper that will get them a job. It will be even worse for "the masses", because they'll be paying the same price for the degree, but they won't even get "the college experience" out of it, and they'll be doing a lot more of the education-work themselves.

 

For instructors, it will probably be even worse, as universities are likely to begin writing into their contracts that everything you create for their online courses becomes their property, in which case, once you've taught the class a few times, they can dispense with you and run the class automatically with low-wage "graders". If profs don't get organized, this is likely to start happening soon.

 

All the while, politicians will still be bickering about how to fix our public schools. But they won't have to worry about how to get everyone to college anymore, because the job market will have solved that problem for them. We will ALL pay whatever they ask for a degree, which for most of us will mean going into huge debt, on top of losing 4 (or more) years of labor that we could have spent saving money, paying into our retirement, paying taxes, etc.

 

Clearly I'm pessimistic about the future of higher ed...

 

Do you happen to have a blog?

 

There's a local experiment (started in Boston, and they have one in San Francisco I think) called Corvid College, which is a sort of anarchic educational model that operates as a sort of cooperative of teachers. Basically people create their own classes and find students interested, and charge whatever they think their time and effort is worth. I met with one of the leaders a few months ago, he was trying to sketch it out to give it a more programmatic structure so that it could be a viable alternative to more conventional schooling, and so that the teachers could make a real living in it, but it's been tough to sort of find a skeleton in the anarchic framework. But I think that kind of experiment is key, finding ways to connect people and make the most out of the evolving resources. One of the practical problems this guy was telling me about was finding access to resources...for example, if someone wanted to offer a course in engineering, where could they get access to practical tools for the class?

 

But if this kind of alternative model can be built, I think it could be really empowering. And going back to the original article in this thread, this model allows for real diversity of interest, as people offer classes based on what interests them, design their own materials, etc. And teaching classes is not limited to tenured professionals...anyone can offer a class, it's just a matter of finding people who are interested in the topic.

[Gabriela]

Do you happen to have a blog?

 

No. Why you do you ask?

 

I never heard of Corvid College. I am looking them up! It sounds like a return to the "ancient"/"Medieval" way of education: In ancient times, teachers hired themselves out for a fee to be determined between teacher and student. In the Medieval university, teachers were paid per lecture. They could lecture as much or little as they wanted, and the more popular they were, the more they could demand. It's a good system in a lot of ways.

 

As for finding resources for a place like Corvid: Create your own! There's a whole DIY movement online, and I don't see why a few teachers couldn't band together, pool their resources, and build their own stuff. Of course, if you want a full-scale chemistry lab or something, that's not going to be possible. But I don't think that's necessary to teach. I think a lack of resources could do a lot of good for education: It'd force us to get creative with how we teach, to boil things down to the basics, to look to the everyday world around for us teaching tools, which makes our lessons that much more "relevant" to our students' lives.

 

This has been an enriching discussion. Thanks, Era Might (and Hasan)!

[Era Might]

No. Why you do you ask?

 

Just checking to add it to my feeds in Google Reader.

[Era Might]

Another site you might be interested to check out is a program in Boston called Changing Lives Through Literature:

 

http://cltl.umassd.edu/home-flash.cfm

 

It's an alternative sentencing program for probationers that is built around literature classes. On the site they have notes from professors detailing their experiences in classes...one of the long-time teachers was my professor in college, and he developed his university classes the same way, dividing the classes into small groups and having them direct their own discussions of whatever we were reading...he would give his thoughts in the middle of class, but he did not try to direct or control any of the discussions. At first it was strange, not to have the professor looming over everything, but it was an exercise in trust...throughout the semester as you got to know everyone (groups were changed each week) the chance for real encounters became possible.

Edited February 3, 2013 by Era Might