(Under)Statement of the day: on higher education

Higher education has become a colossus—a $420-billion industry—immune from scrutiny and in need of reform.

The authors go on to list a few proposals that they argue could begin the process of setting things right.  I support most of them, and have also consistently blogged about most of them.

There is a comical twist to this, though.  The same article lists a few colleges and universities that are, according to the authors, doing a good job.  The institution where I teach is included there.

One might think that such a positive note about the teaching and learning would be welcomed by faculty, right?  With a huge note of thanks to the authors? 

Hmmm .... think again!  Strange things happen in academe! Here are excerpts from all-campus emails that were in response to the publicity given to the article:

From Professor 1:

it mis-represented our campus:
"There are no star professors, little research, and the administrative pool is bare bones. All energy is focused on one thing: educating undergraduates."

This is actually a fully functioning university that includes many graduate programs, and many faculty who do excellent research. We mentor and guide graduate students, as well as undergraduates, and our programs are geared toward encouraging students to value research as a vital component of ongoing education. Moreover, it might be noted that one reason for the excellence of faculty and programs at this University is the collective bargaining agreement, which has rationalized the process of tenure and promotion, providing assurance to newly hired faculty that their career trajectory here will be rewarding and largely protected from the stress-inducing caprice of higher-level administrators that is more typical at other universities. This is a unionized faculty. And we do damn good work--research and teaching.

From Professor 2

I suspect the authors cherry picked items from PR statements and included them in the story.  We at WOU need to determine who in our administration is responsible for distributing official information about faculty workloads whereby outside observers can conclude that faculty here do "little research."  The person or persons responsible need to change their information and apologize to faculty.

From Professor 3:

Both authors visited campus about two years ago and conducted interviews.  I don't know the breadth of their research but I can tell you that I had dinner with them and agreed to be on the record for an interview of about two hours.  Claudia is a well known science reporter for the NY Times and she took extensive notes.  My point here is that the information about WOU was not simply a product of the WOU public relations office.  We will have to read the entire manuscript to see what else they have to say about our campus.

From the provost:

The Chronicle story about WOU’s appearance in the forthcoming book, Higher Education? How Colleges Are Wasting Our Money and Failing Our Kids—and What We Can Do About It, came as a surprise to me.  The authors did not contact my office about any information used to compile the book and we had no advance notice about the Chronicle reference. ...It’s worth noting that the Chronicle piece is symptomatic of a suspicious portion of the population that has been suffering the longest and deepest recession in the country’s history and that no longer believes in government programs or the provisions that government purports to make “for the common good.”  It is likewise representative of a good portion of our citizens who question the value of a college degree as tuition continues to rise and the economy and job growth remain stagnant....

From the Director Academic Affairs/Assistant to Provost (Comment #59; I assume this was triggered by the faculty reactions to her congratulatory email)

As pleased as I am that our institution, Western Oregon University, is cited by the author as one among many who "get it right", and I must confess I do believe that our undergraduate education experience is exemplary, I would like to interject a couple of important points: First, that Western Oregon University's faculty consists of some very fine professors who are committed to teaching undergraduates but who also are fine researchers published in peer-reviewed journals and contribute significant hours of service locally, nationally and internationally. Our faculty and staff are committed to student success and they been recognized for outstanding academic advising by NACADA for the past three years.

More update ... from the minutes of the Division meeting on Sep 22nd:

HIGHER EDUCATION? – Dean Braa and Peter Callero were quoted in a new book out about higher education.  Peter apologized about the controversial book.  He said that the authors interviewed several faculty members here at Western Oregon University.  The authors and faculty disagreed with some areas of the book.  The authors defended labor unions and supported adjunct professors.  They also discussed the corporization of campuses.  Peter mentioned that they spent the afternoon with the authors and had dinner with them.  Western Oregon University’s students won the authors over.  They left “loving” the campus and faculty of Western Oregon University.  Dean Braa stated that he stressed that Western Oregon University is a teaching institution, but the faculty do good research as well.  The authors came because they love to teach.