Learning online: More colleges aim to broadcast lectures, but not all professors are ready — from spotlight.macfound.org
On 04/14/2010,
in future of higher education, game-changing environment, online learning,
by Daniel Christian
On 04/04/2010,
in budgets, business side of he, change, colleges, consortiums, future of higher education, game-changing environment, liberal arts,
by Daniel Christian
Academia in crisis: Brian Hawkins addresses the NITLE Summit — NITLE
Brian L. Hawkins, co-founder of the Frye Institute and the first president of EDUCAUSE, gave an impassioned presentation “The Information Resource Professional: Transformation, Tradition & Trajectory” to an engaged group of conference participants at last week’s NITLE Summit. He didn’t mince words: along with institutions in all other sectors of higher education, it is urgent that liberal arts colleges invent a new future together, working in true collaboration. Today’s uniquely dire higher education fiscal environment is the driver. Institutional failures to respond energetically will result in the institution not surviving (emphasis DSC).
Hawkins based his argument both on astute observation of the current milieu and on comparisons with the trajectory of events and transformations he observed during his long and distinguished career of higher education leadership (emphasis DSC). Drawing on his experience in roles ranging from Senior Vice President at Brown University to EDUCAUSE leader, and returning to his many publications and presentations throughout that career, Hawkins delineated the current environment, painting an unsettling picture: (emphasis DSC — which I call a game-changing environment).
- Public universities, once beneficiaries of state support, are increasingly competing for the same tuition and research dollars as private institution, and public funding will likely not return.
- Private institutions are increasingly priced beyond the means of most American families.
- Smaller colleges and universities are as vulnerable to environmental stresses as fish in small fish tanks.
- The model of higher education that has obtained in the US for 130 years “is broken and no longer works.”
- Because of the constrained fiscal environment we face as a nation, higher education has lost its traditional political supporters in state and federal government. Politically “we have no allies.”
- Institutions are dysfunctional: resistant to change, slow to adapt, fraught with “special interests,” mistaken that they can return to an earlier time, and precluded by their own distinguished and complex histories from “starting over.”
- The “new normal,” as delineated by Cornell president David Skorton in the opening plenary (PDF) at NAICU’s annual meeting this part January, includes lost endowment income, weakened fund raising, smaller tuition increases, and more demands for financial aid, moving forward.
- The global information environment has evolved far more quickly than have educational institutions.
…Hawkins further stressed the critical importance of genuinely transformative inter-institutional collaborations: “We have to stop thinking of collaboration as an avocational approach…… it is the only means of competitive survival.”
Career readiness: Don’t expect too much from colleges — from educationnext.org by Mark Bauerlein
A few weeks ago, Hart Research Associates released a report entitled “Raising the Bar: Employers’ Views on College Learning in the Wake of the Economic Downturn.” The report listed the findings of a survey of 302 employers whose firms have 25+ employees, with at least one-fourth of new hires possessing a two-year or four-year college degree. It was commissioned by the Association of American Colleges & Universities, apparently to determine how well post-secondary school curricula match up with workplace demands.
One of the broadest indicators: “Only one in four employers thinks that two-year and four-year colleges are doing a good job in preparing students for the challenges of a global economy.”
Interestingly, employers didn’t endorse a training-oriented kind of preparation. They preferred “a blend of liberal and applied learning.” Indeed, they emphasized not only skills and knowledge tailored to a specific field, but also “a broad range of skills and knowledge.” (emphasis DSC)
Because of the focus on the “global economy,” on the actual conditions of the downturn and the “more complex” realities of our hyper-connected world, the report speaks of “active learning,” “real-world settings,” “cultural and ethnic diversity,” “the challenges of today’s global economy,” “ethical decision-making,” and “emerging educational practices.” These ideas and terms are common enough in education circles. (emphasis DSC)
From DSC:
I post this with hesitation, as I don’t see parents — or students who are funding their own educations these days — having the luxury to take such a viewpoint. At the price of $100,000+ for 4 years, can someone not expect a serious ROI that involves being able to (at least in some substantial part) “hit the ground running”?
On another note, I suppose Mark’s right to say that the earlier students learn how to write well the better (and he emphasizes the importance of the middle and high school years). However, that doesn’t seem to be happening in many cases. Hmmm….no easy answers here…as he mentions, learning how to write is a labor-intensive process.
College news in ‘three clicks or less’ — from College Inc.
“A web site under development promises to deliver a news feed on 200 of the world’s top colleges in three clicks or less. The site is called Aca*medes, a contraction of the words academe and the mathematician Archimedes. The idea is quick access to news on selective colleges. Go to the site. Click. Pick a drop-down menu. Click. Choose from a list of top public or private universities or liberal arts schools, chosen based on collegiate rankings. Click. Choose any of three news sources: official campus news, the independent campus newspaper, or an aggregation of stories from the mainstream media. Click. Three clicks. Or four.”
Colleges See 17 Percent Increase in Online Enrollment — from The Chronicle by Marc Parry
Colleges saw a 17 percent increase in online enrollment, with more than one in four students taking at least one online course in the fall of 2008, according to an annual survey published today by the Sloan Consortium.
The growth rate eclipsed last year’s 12-percent increase and dwarfed the 1.2 percent growth rate of the overall higher-education student population. The report, which has become a widely cited benchmark of distance learning, found a total of more than 4.6-million online students overall. That’s up from about 3.9 million the previous year.