Forum http://www.mindingthecampus.com/forum/ en Copyright 2010 Wed, 01 Sep 2010 18:26:16 -0500 http://www.sixapart.com/movabletype/ http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/tech/rss Brooklyn College Assigns a Book How Does It Feel to Be a Problem? Being Young and Arab in America. Jewish Week quoted from one of the courageous voices on the faculty, Jonathan Helfand, who noted that the "book is problematic if given without an alternative vision." The New York Daily News reported that one BC alumnus, Bruce Kessler, has withdrawn a "significant bequest" to the school from his will. And in the New York Post, Ron Radosh accused the school of trying to "force feed" freshmen one (extreme) point of view on contemporary Middle Eastern matters. Bayoumi's book couples vignettes about several Arab-American youth (the book offers no guidance on how, or if, the author considers his subjects representative of the broader Arab-American community) with an extremist critique of Israeli national security policy and U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East. Regardless of the merits of Bayoumi's portrayal of his subjects, it's hard to see U.S. policy toward Israel as the prime mover in how Arab-Americans are treated in the United States. At one level, the Bayoumi selection is wholly unsurprising. The process through which colleges and universities select mandated books for incoming freshmen too often provides a perfect illustration of Cass Sunstein's law of group polarization---that is, when people with common beliefs deliberate together, the tendency is toward a decision that reflects an extreme version of the common beliefs. In the typical English Department (the body that made the selection at BC), intellectual diversity is in short supply, while an emphasis on race, class, gender, and victimization is common fare. These sorts of things just don't happen at BC---take the example of common reading selections at UNC in 2002 or 2005.]]> http://www.mindingthecampus.com/forum/2010/09/brooklyn_college_assigns_a_boo.html http://www.mindingthecampus.com/forum/2010/09/brooklyn_college_assigns_a_boo.html Wed, 01 Sep 2010 18:26:16 -0500 Title IX Has A Disparate Impact--for Black Women Title IX, it turns out, hasn't benefited female athletes of color nearly as much as it has their white teammates. And the resulting gap, says one legal scholar in a newly published book, poses a challenge for those who rally passionately around the law. This news comes from yet another report of yet another "gap" we have to worry about, with its inevitably accompanying "disparities," in the Chronicle of Higher Education, Narrowing the Gap, which features a new book, Getting in the Game: Title IX and the Women's Sports Revolution, by Deborah Brake, a law professor at the University of Pittsburgh. "Title IX did not introduce problems of racial inequality into our nation's school system," Prof. Brake acknowledges. "The problem is," she argues, "Title IX doesn't do anything about it, either."]]> http://www.mindingthecampus.com/forum/2010/08/title_ix_has_a_disparate.html http://www.mindingthecampus.com/forum/2010/08/title_ix_has_a_disparate.html Mon, 30 Aug 2010 11:21:49 -0500 The Suicide of English The Weekly Standard, James Seaton has a review of the new edition of The Norton Anthology of Theory and Criticism that illuminates a basic mistake the discipline of literary studies committed many years ago. Here is the second paragraph of Seaton's review:
Despite its length, the new NATC is most revealing in its omissions, the most significant of which occurs in the title. The NATC claims to deal with 'theory,' not with 'literary theory' and with 'criticism,' not 'literary criticism.' One cannot help but be impressed by the effrontery expressed by the deletion of the qualifying adjective. The strategic omission of 'literary' intimates (without explicitly declaring) that English professors who use the NATC are equipped to provide guidance to all those who employ any sort of theory, presumably including their colleagues in the social sciences, and even in physics and chemistry. Such pretension has not been seen since the heyday of the Hegelian system, which claimed the intellectual authority to give the law to every particular science and discipline, from physics to history and everything in between. 'Theory' with a capital 'T' deserted philosophy with the demise of Hegelian idealism early in the 20th century, but it seems to have reappeared in the unlikely precincts of the English department.'
The point gets to the heart of how literary studies changed over the course of the 1980s and 90s. In a word, much of the field stopped being "literary"---or at least it claimed such. English professors branched out into media, cultural studies, popular and mass culture domains, and several other non-literary fields, and they pursued non-literary themes of race, sexuality, imperialism, the environment, etc.]]> http://www.mindingthecampus.com/forum/2010/08/the_suicide_of_english.html http://www.mindingthecampus.com/forum/2010/08/the_suicide_of_english.html Sat, 28 Aug 2010 13:13:23 -0500 Cornell's Dubious Plan for Women "gender diversity...that affects the quality of our enterprise", funds four programs: Faculty Development, which creates mentorship programs for all S&E faculty as well as workshops, professional development grants, and research-initiation grants for women faculty; a Climate Initiative, which establishes a department chair, search committee, and faculty workshops on "diversity issues"; an Evaluation Initiative, which tracks the careers of women S&E faculty; and a Recruitment Initiative, which will develop strategies for recruiting women, provide interview support for female candidates, and give placement support and funding for the spouses of female faculty. Cornell has taken meaningful steps to monitor ADVANCE's progress. It directed staff from its Office of Institutional Research and Planning to devote half of their time evaluating the program. Additionally, it solicited from each of its colleges an ADVANCE liaison, who would "share best practices, report on progress within the college, and suggest new programming and events." ]]> http://www.mindingthecampus.com/forum/2010/08/cornells_dubious_plan_for_wome.html http://www.mindingthecampus.com/forum/2010/08/cornells_dubious_plan_for_wome.html Thu, 26 Aug 2010 01:25:17 -0500 More Groupthink Perils seminal article analyzing the "groupthink" that pervades the modern academy, my colleague Mark Bauerlein described the effects of the Common Assumption ("that all the strangers in the room at professional gatherings are liberals"), creating an academy in which "members may speak their minds without worrying about justifying basic beliefs or curbing emotions." Alas, the Common Assumption has its "argumentative hazards": "academics with too much confidence in their audience utter debatable propositions as received wisdom . . . a lone dissenter disrupts the process and, merely by posing a question, can show just how cheap such a pat consensus actually is." Two recent events involving Penn professor Tom Sugrue illustrate the perils of the Common Assumption; and, more broadly, the manner in which groupthink (unintentionally) limits the ability of "mainstream" academics to influence public discourse. Sugrue's website lists multiple, prestigious fellowships. His first book, Origins of the Urban Crisis, justifiably won numerous awards; it's one of the three or four best books currently in print on 20th century American political culture. Sugrue, in short, is hardly an academic crank, or a caricature of a "tenured radical." He's a serious scholar, producing first-class work on important topics.]]> http://www.mindingthecampus.com/forum/2010/08/more_groupthink_perils.html http://www.mindingthecampus.com/forum/2010/08/more_groupthink_perils.html Wed, 25 Aug 2010 10:03:46 -0500 Why So Many Administrators? "Administrative Bloat at American Universities: The Real Reason for High Costs in Higher Education." Greene collected data from the U.S. Department of Education on enrollments, costs, and personnel, including figures for employees who fall under the category "Administration." The major findings begin with costs and the student population:]]> http://www.mindingthecampus.com/forum/2010/08/ive_often_heard_professors_com.html http://www.mindingthecampus.com/forum/2010/08/ive_often_heard_professors_com.html Thu, 19 Aug 2010 23:11:30 -0500 Trower's Tenure Troubles Harvard Education School professor Cathy Trower. The New York Times' "Room for Debate" section included a contribution from Trower, in which she proposed a "constitutional convention" selected through a kind of quota system---"selected to mirror the diversity the academy presumably desires"---to redefine tenure. Writing in Slate, Christopher Beam glowingly quoted Trower arguing that "the current system may actually be scaring talented young people away from academia. 'This one-size-fits-all, rigid six-year up-and-out tenure system isn't working well,' she says . . . Don't abolish tenure altogether, says Trower. Just rework it. Create a tenure track that explicitly rewards teaching. Give interdisciplinary centers the authority to produce tenured professors. Allow for breaks in the tenure track if a professor needs to take time off. Offer the option of part-time tenure, a lower-cost alternative for professors who want to hold other jobs. In other words, make tenure flexible rather than a monolithic, in-or-out club." Beam cited Evergreen State College, a far-left, AAC&U-oriented institution (best-known nationally as the institution that produced the late anti-Israel "activist" Rachel Corrie), as the model for his and Trower's vision. I first encountered Trower in 2003, when Brooklyn College's then-provost, Roberta ("teaching is a political act") Matthews invited her to address all of the college's 31 departmental personnel committees. The event was an eye-opener. Among other things, Trower proclaimed that "merit is socially constructed by a dominant coalition," and "even if we don't think we are biased, there's a good chance that we are"; she suggested that opponents of affirmative action will ignore all evidence contrary to their beliefs and just gather all evidence to support their view. As part of her call for new personnel standards, she recommended white male job candidates demonstrate a commitment to "furthering diversity on campus" before being hired; redefining expectations for scholarly excellence to demand projects that achieved "improvement of society as well as advancement of knowledge"; and reorienting tenure standards to address the "accumulated disadvantage" for faculty of color that their teaching and scholarship don't meet the requirements for tenure.]]> http://www.mindingthecampus.com/forum/2010/08/trowers_tenure_troubles.html http://www.mindingthecampus.com/forum/2010/08/trowers_tenure_troubles.html Wed, 18 Aug 2010 17:00:00 -0500 ACTA & Its Critics new, expanded survey of college general education requirements has earned justified praise. Here's Pulitzer Prize winner Kathleen Parker, from her column this Sunday: "The study and Web site do fill a gap so that parents and students can make better choices. As a consequence, colleges and universities may be forced to examine their own responsibility in molding an educated, well-informed citizenry." ACTA's guide is so significant because it provides an easy-to-use, easy-to-compare, and easily accessible portal of the general education requirements at 700 institutions. This information should be the starting point for parents as they consider where to send their sons or daughters---and it also should be a prime piece of data for alumni and trustees as they evaluate the state of their institutions. Sure, this information was previously available. But too often colleges and universities go out of their way to bury curricular material in ways to frustrate those eager for sunlight on college campuses. A good sign of the importance of ACTA's work comes in the fury that the study has aroused from defenders of the academic status quo. In particular, the AAC&U, the organization that has distinguished itself for its relentless assault on quality---in the name of "diversity"---in higher education, belittled ACTA's efforts.]]> http://www.mindingthecampus.com/forum/2010/08/acta_its_critics.html http://www.mindingthecampus.com/forum/2010/08/acta_its_critics.html Wed, 18 Aug 2010 10:20:08 -0500 Big Gaps In Two Big Gap Studies Chronicle of Higher Education ("Reports Highlight Disparities in Graduation Rates Among White and Minority Students") and Inside Higher Ed ("'Gaps Are Not Inevitable'") reported on two large studies by The Education Trust of the graduation rate gap between white and African-American students and betweenwhites and Hispanics. Even aside from the fact that the Asian gap was apparently not studied, there is a Big Gap in both gap studies. Noting in its press release that "60 percent of whites but only 49 percent of Latinos and 40 percent of African Americans who start college hold bachelor's degrees six years later," The Education Trust said their studies "dig beneath national college-graduation averages and examine disaggregated six-year graduation rates at hundreds of the nation's public and private institutions." That deep digging produced evidence --- hold your hat!---that minorities do better at some institutions than others.
We identify public and private four-year institutions that appear to serve their black and white students equally well---that is, where both groups graduate at similar rates. We also identify public and private institutions that have a lot of work to do to catch up: Their graduation rate gaps are among the largest in the country.
]]> http://www.mindingthecampus.com/forum/2010/08/big_gaps_in_two_big_gap_studie.html http://www.mindingthecampus.com/forum/2010/08/big_gaps_in_two_big_gap_studie.html Tue, 17 Aug 2010 09:00:00 -0500 Not Just Another College Ranking Forbes has issued its 3rd annual College Rankings, delivering its crown to Williams College. Comparison to the U.S. News and World Report list is inevitable so let's not delay in getting to it; this result, and most of the top 20 rankings on the Forbes list aren't that dissimilar from the similar U.S. News list (when accounting for the fact that Forbes elides the distinction between the "liberal arts college" and "university" categories). This is unsurprising; a number of the factors in their ranking formula are not much dissimilar from the US News and World Report list; student debt, loan default rates, four-year degree completion rates, and the like. Any sensible list would feature these factors, and it's a testament to the objective value of certain colleges that they place highly on multiple lists. The Forbes list is distinctive, however, for its focus on results; its "ends-oriented" ranking, despite its similarities with U.S. News at the top of the scale, seems worlds different once venturing lower in the listing. On this list Whitman College in Washington and Centre College in Kentucky outrank Dartmouth; Colgate University stands many spots above Brown. It is a different measure with clearly different results. Forbes' initial formula two years ago proved the results-focused ranking simpler said than done; in granting a quarter of its weight respectively to an enrollment adjusted appearance of graduates in "Who's Who in America" and to aggregated RateMyProfessor rankings, Forbes deserved the numerous accusations of rankings ham-handedness it received. Happily, their worthy goal has acquired a more substantial statistical foundation in this iteration.]]> http://www.mindingthecampus.com/forum/2010/08/on_wednesday_forbes_issued_its.html http://www.mindingthecampus.com/forum/2010/08/on_wednesday_forbes_issued_its.html Fri, 13 Aug 2010 14:23:56 -0500 Dean Minow's Superiority Boston Globe on August 8, once again addressing a racial issue, Minow committed the same dishonesty. It's an op-ed on the Elena Kagan confirmation hearings, and it chides Republicans for attacking Justice Thurgood Marshall and hints that "some want to appeal to and perhaps feed anxieties of some whites about desegregation."]]> http://www.mindingthecampus.com/forum/2010/08/dean_minows_superiority.html http://www.mindingthecampus.com/forum/2010/08/dean_minows_superiority.html Thu, 12 Aug 2010 11:50:25 -0500 A Small-c Conservative (Lukewarm) Defense of Tenure Recently my colleague Mark Bauerlein commented on the interesting debate regarding the continued merits---or lack thereof---for tenure. The basic critique of tenure is a powerful one: as Freakonomics put it, "What does tenure do? It distorts people's effort so that they face strong incentives early in their career (and presumably work very hard early on as a consequence) and very weak incentives forever after (and presumably work much less hard on average as a consequence)." Indeed, I'm sure most professors can point to one or two (or more) cases from personal knowledge that don't even meet this standard---of professors who produced little or nothing as untenured faculty but received tenure anyway, and continued their commitment to mediocrity for the next 30 years. It's hard to doubt this critique, especially since the traditional argument for tenure---it's necessary to protect academic freedom---is now almost laughable, for two reasons. First, as Alan Charles Kors has long held, the path to tenure encourages timidity. A professor who spends seven years as a junior faculty member worrying about speaking out is very unlikely to suddenly reverse course once he or she receives tenure. The pattern of behavior simply has become too ingrained.]]> http://www.mindingthecampus.com/forum/2010/08/a_smallc_conservative_lukewarm.html http://www.mindingthecampus.com/forum/2010/08/a_smallc_conservative_lukewarm.html Wed, 11 Aug 2010 02:51:20 -0500 McCarthyism or Simple Transparency? Texas House Bill 2504, passed in May 2009, requires all instructors at state universities, starting this fall, to post online the syllabi for the courses they'll be teaching; their curricula vitae a list of their published works, and their salaries. The universities' per-student attendance costs and departmental budgets must also be posted. The information must be searchable, accessible without a user name and password, and no more than three clicks away from the school's home page. The stated aim of the new law is transparency. It is one of several measures recently enacted by the Texas legislature designed to give state residents accurate information about the cost and activities of government, including the pay of state employees. Other states have similar transparency laws, although Texas is the only state so far to include institutions of higher learning in its transparency mandate.]]> http://www.mindingthecampus.com/forum/2010/08/mccarthyism_or_simple_transpar.html http://www.mindingthecampus.com/forum/2010/08/mccarthyism_or_simple_transpar.html Tue, 10 Aug 2010 10:05:35 -0500 Two More Reasons Why College Isn't All It's Cracked Up To Be Help Wanted Thursday and Friday that there's not much for me to do but poke around the rubble. Let me take up two collateral points that are too little discussed. First, the assumption that a college degree means that the student has learned much of anything, let alone how to deal with complexity and adapt to changing job requirements, is a joke. I exempt those who major in math, engineering, and the hard sciences. But otherwise, I think the stereotype of the hard-partying, class-skipping, unmotivated undergraduate applies far more widely than most people realize. Hundreds of thousands of the children of upper-middle class parents are in college because their parents are paying for it and it's expected of them. They treat college as a four-year vacation before they have to think about dealing with the real world. I cannot be more precise because it is one of those topics that hasn't received as much systematic scrutiny as it deserves. But a recent report on trends in studying among college students concludes that study time for full-time students at four-year colleges fell from 24 hours per week in 1960 to 14 hours per week in 2003. That's a very big drop to a very low level. And I know that the reaction I got from college professors and administrators---and students too---after I criticized today's college education in Real Education was overwhelmingly of the "You don't know the half of it" variety. My second under-discussed point is that many young people who could profit from a college education are more likely to do so if they don't go straight to college from high school. My wife, who formerly taught English literature at Rutgers, was just the first of many college faculty to bring this to my attention. The students who have come to college after a hitch in the military or working for a few years know why they are in college, why they are taking a particular course, and what they want out of it, in ways that kids fresh out of high school seldom do. Apart from that, quoting my wife, "Henry James wasn't writing for nineteen-year-olds." Neither were Aristotle, Milton, or Adam Smith. One of the best things we could do to improve the college experience for students and faculty alike is to persuade a new generation of high school graduates that they ought to get the hell out of the educational system for a few years and thereby learn something about themselves. ]]> http://www.mindingthecampus.com/forum/2010/08/two_more_reasons_why_college_i.html http://www.mindingthecampus.com/forum/2010/08/two_more_reasons_why_college_i.html Mon, 09 Aug 2010 09:04:46 -0500 The Safe and Secure Professoriate Higher Education? How Colleges Are Wasting Our Money and Failing Our Kids and What We Can Do About It , says about tenure in a recent interview in Atlantic Monthly:
Here's what happens. Academics typically don't get tenured until the age of 40. This means that from their years as graduate students and then assistant professors, from age 25 through 38 or 39, they have to toe the line. They have to do things in the accepted way that their elders and superiors require. They can't be controversial and all the rest. So tenure is, in fact, the enemy of spontaneity, the enemy of intellectual freedom. We've seen this again and again. And even people who get tenure really don't change. They keep on following the disciplinary mode they've been trained to follow. What bothers us, too, is that over 300,000 professors have it. That's a tremendous number. What that means is these people never leave. There's hardly any turnover in the senior ranks---not just at Harvard, Yale, and Stanford but at small colleges in Kentucky, everywhere. You go to a campus and over two thirds of the faculty have been there at least 25 years. They begin to stagnate. In many ways, they become infantilized, embroiled in ideological issues like faculty parking.
]]> http://www.mindingthecampus.com/forum/2010/08/the_safe_and_secure_professori.html http://www.mindingthecampus.com/forum/2010/08/the_safe_and_secure_professori.html Fri, 06 Aug 2010 00:23:51 -0500