Dear Graduating Senior, I must beg your pardon for a somber reflection amidst the joy of your accomplishment: not to be a wet rag on the festivities of graduation, but to shine a light on the realities of post-secondary education.ā¦
Universities have lost their mission. Education and academic performance take a back seat to reinforcing the inflated self-concept of students and their families. We have reduced admission standards, reduced standards to progress through courses, and reduced standards of performance requiredā¦
People are concerned about community colleges. Faculty and administrators at some universities see the two-year institutions as competition. Others look down their noses at transfer students. But we better quit grousing about it and address the real issue. Students enrolledā¦
The relationship of a student to the university is a bit like a marriage. The idea of that relationship is shifting as George Bernard Shaw predicted it would. As with marriage, the university experience is becoming a contractualĀ affiliation rather thanā¦
Well-meaning faculty members, university leaders, and groups of students and parents have always found that the most navigable and widely paved path to address increasing costs leads straight to the state house. That mindless āhair-of-the-dogā economic thinking is antiquated. And,ā¦
Current events related to intercollegiate athletics leads me to post a story this week that was originally published on July 27, 2010. The cost of low integrity programs and poor executive decision making is the highest cost to bear, evenā¦
The separation of private beliefs and public expression of those may be acceptable in many settings (though I am not convinced that is the case) but it is absolutely unacceptable for university leadership. University leadership is private morality expressed publically.ā¦
There is a shameful trend in higher education and other quarters of society that treats success as something to be considered with suspicion.Ā Some accuse The Occupy Wall Street crowd of holding this position, but achievement and greed are notā¦
Second in a series on state funding for higher education Historically, while state contributions to the total operating budgets of universities have increased as a percentage of all spending, tuition has remained a roughly stable percentage of all operating costs.Ā ā¦
Universities must take responsibility for screening those students who are borrowing money for college.Ā Tell the truth.Ā Give potential students the odds. āWith this high school GPA, this test score and class rank, the probability of finishing the degree atā¦
The quality of the educational experience and the earning power of degrees attained are the purview and responsibility of each student and family who enter the educational marketplace.Ā It is a marketplace where ideas of value (hopefully) are exchanged forā¦
Universities must change. The culture of college needs to evolve, particularly with regard to “perverse institutional incentives” that reward colleges for enrolling and retaining students rather than for educating them. “It’s a problem when higher education is driven by aā¦
Unions have helped create positive working conditions in this country that would have been unimaginable 100 years ago.Ā One needs look no further than the history of the development of the Fair Labor Standards Act for proof.Ā Every major advanceā¦
Our University: Great Expectations In a New York Times piece on February 18, 2009, by Max Roosevelt entitled Student Expectations Seen as Causing Grade Disputes, James Hogge, associate dean of the Peabody School of Education at Vanderbilt University is quoted.ā¦
On our university campuses the complexities of political activity to create accountability in public resource allocations abound as performance based funding measures evolve.Ā If handled poorly, and without strong faculty leadership, these good intentions will be for naught, at best.Ā ā¦
Eighth and final in a series of who our students are and how they perform. Appreciating different perspectives diminishes neither loyalty nor purpose, but enriches both. Diversity of opinion within the framework of loyalty to our free society is notā¦
Our University ā Race, Ethnicity and Other Forces Seventh in a series of who our students are and how they perform. The factors that influence ethnic and racial diversity in universities are many: Ā wealth; preparation; ability, whether innate or learned;ā¦
Sixth in a series of who our students are and how they perform. Quality transfer students can bring positive characteristics to the university, not the least of which is a willingness to work.Ā Avril Thorne, Professor of Psychology at U.C.ā¦
