Author Archives: profhainline

About profhainline

Professor of Psychology at Brooklyn College;former Dean for Research and Graduate Studies; neurobehavioral/developmental psychologist by training; Principal Investigator of grants for both research and institutional programs to increase STEM diversity and improve STEM teaching; UG degree from Brown University; MA and PhD degrees from Harvard University

Readings for March 25th — Higher Education and the Corona Virus

This is a collection of articles in places you already know (Inside Higher Ed, Chronicle of Higher Education and the New York Times) about how various constituencies in higher education are reacting or coping with the emergence of Covid-19. You have the good(??) fortune to be taking this seminar on higher education in the semester when colleges and universities have been shaken to their core by this epidemic. Where this will end up is, of course, totally unknown, except most are predicting it will materially change higher education in the future. It’s a mess but not a perfect one, I think most would say. I would be interested in getting your reaction as students to both the ideas in these articles and to your own experiences in the past two weeks.

I have organized these articles into three bundles – one about the impact on institutions, another on the impact on students and a short one on the impact on faculty. You can read these relatively quickly — like you would read a newspaper. I would like you each of you to come in with at least two discussion questions or reactions for each of the bundles. We’ll be doing our first on-line course, and I think it might go better if you come armed with some issues we can get started with. I will also be interested to hear about your first post-hiatus week and what has surprised, puzzled or troubled you about your experiences. We are all operating without a map here.

It turns out that I didn’t need to have all your Gmail addresses into Google to invite you to the class meeting. I can just send you an invitation, which I will try to do a bit early, in case I have problems. More on that later.

First bundle:

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Download (PDF, Unknown)

Third Bundle:

Download (PDF, Unknown)

Prof. Hainline

Assignment for the final paper, some links you can check if you have time

As I had indicated a few weeks ago in an email, your assignment for the final is to design what you consider to be the ideal modern college or university for the future of NY City. It can be public or private. Points to consider/cover (may not be exhaustive)

  • What will your mission/vision for the institution be and what is the rational for this mission? 
  • Is it a public, private or for-profit institution?
  • What kind of governance will you have? 
  • How you will fund your institution?
  • What will your ideal entering student class look like?
  • Will the preponderance of financial aid be merit or need-based?
  • What will your curriculum look like and what kinds of pedagogy would you propose to have your faculty use to teach that curriculum? (Assume that you do not have to fight with accrediting or state agencies about changing any rules about the delivery of instruction.)
  • What kind of credentials would you be seeking for your faculty, and what will they be spending their time doing? 
  • Will you have tenure for faculty or not?  Why/Why not?
  • How will you know if your institution is realizing its mission?
  • How will your institution advance the goal of improving the future of NYC?

You can deal with other questions as well, but you should explain why you are making the decisions you are. The concept is to use the information and analysis from this semester to create your view of the ideal institution of higher education to further the viability of NYC.

Some recent Times and other links (all short) you may be interested in (non-mandatory but timely):

1. Fourth no confidence vote, but John Sexton is holding on: http://www.nytimes.com/2013/05/11/education/fourth-no-confidence-vote-for-the-president-of-nyu.html?emc=eta1&_r=0

2. How Cooper Union squandered their endowment and ended up having to charge tuition: http://www.nytimes.com/2013/05/11/business/how-cooper-unions-endowment-failed-in-its-mission.html

3. How the huge load of student debt is affecting other sectors of the economy: http://www.nytimes.com/2013/05/11/business/economy/student-loan-debt-weighing-down-younger-us-workers.html

4. Merit schlarships going up, need-based aid down, http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2013/05/08/merit-aid-makes-college-more-expensive-low-income-students-report-finds

5. Tuition discounting keeps increasing at the Privates: http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2013/05/07/nacubo-survey-reports-sixth-consecutive-year-discount-rate-increases

6. Football coaches and public institution presidents (at least some of them) keep getting higher salaries than others in HE — wonder who pays the costs:
http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2013/05/08/coaching-salaries-rising-10-times-faster-instructional-salaries
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/05/13/education/university-presidents-are-prospering-study-finds.html

7. And a critique of an article about how to decide who should go to college: http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2013/05/09/study-questioning-college-going-all-itself-questioned

 

 

Readings for the rest of the semester, starting May 1

The following are four chapters, most not long, from a book I found later in the semester which speaks directly to the future of higher education. You do not have to do any reading questions for these, but please try to read at least some of them, if not all of them, by our next class, May 1. Margaret will also be coming to the next two classes to work with you on structuring and formatting your presentations. These chapters will be used for a final writing assignment that will stand in for a conventional final exam.

All these are chapters from a book entitled: Reinventing Higher Education: The Promise of Innovation, a 2011 book edited by B. Wildavsky, A.P. Kelly and K. Carey,

Introduction, including at the end a description of other chapters not being assigned.  wkc intro

Chapter 1 on Barriers to Innovation in Higher Education, by D.J. Brewer and W.G. Tierney. wkc innovation

Chapter 8 on The Mayo Clinic of Higher Ed by K. Carey. wkc mayo
(this is the chapter about a very innovative approach to teaching science that I have alluded to from time to time this semester — will be interested in what you think)

Conclusion, B. Wildavsky, A.P. Kelly, and K. Carey wkc conclusion

I will be using these readings for the written piece I will be asking you to write in lieu of a final. More on that later.

 

 

 

April 24: What are the Liberal Arts and what are they good for (or not good for)?

These are the readings for April 24. I know that some of you will be on interviews or will have to leave early, but here are readings on the last major topic I wanted to cover for the semester, directly related to the question of the purpose of higher education, in particular views about the liberal arts vs. professional education. This is mostly material looking at the liberal arts side of that comparison.

These are again mostly short articles which I have bundled together. 

1. Definition of the liberal arts. definition of lib arts

2. Value of the liberal arts: value of la and a PPT of  results of a recent study of employers: humphreys

3. Critique of the liberal arts: critique of la

4. An essay from a book  by a public intellectual about the consequence of the loss of the arts and humanities: nussbaum

Readings for Wednesday, April 17, Who goes to college and legal challenges to affirmative action

Here are the readings for next week. I have a bunch of deadlines the next two weeks, so am not sending a detailed bioliography, but will do that later.

There are three specific items that are separate files and a few bundles with news articles from various sources.

1. Attewell, P. and Lavin, D. E (2012) The other 75%: College education beyond the elite, ch 4 in E..C. Langermann and H. Lewis, What is College for?: The Public Purpose of Higher Education. New York: Teacher’s College Press.. attewell lavin

2.  Kim, Y.M. (2011) Minorities in higher education, 2011 Supplement. American Council on Education, , particularly the summary on pp 1-4 ace report

3. Lederman, D. (2013) Affirmative Action, Innovation and the Financial Future: A survey of presidents. Inside Higher Ed, March 1. (good for affirmative action/access issues but also as suggestions of what other college presidents are thinking, relevant to your interviews) lederman

4. Bundle 1: The case of Grutter vs. the University of Michigan grutter

5. Bundle 2: Post-Grutter developments: Accommodation and Alternatives post-grutter

6. Bundle 3: The newest cases: Fisher vs. U. Texas, a case on Michigan Proposition 2, now on the Supreme Court docket fisher & michigan

Readings are posted for next week and a few random thoughts

Readings: The publication rate of stories about MOOC is amazing. I’ve tried to give you a sense of some of the recent ones, but it’s impossible to keep this up-to-date. This is a sampling.

Interviews: Today was busy, but I’ll email the staffers of some of the first set of interviewees tonight. I still need info on who the contact people are for a couple of groups.

A reflection on higher education today?: The news at Rutgers University with the basketball coach abuse scandal  could be a case study for a final exam on the material in this course. I won’t repeat the whole story if those are those who haven’t been reading about it, but basically, a basketball coach has been fired for being physically and verbally abusive to his players, caught on video tape by a former employee. He was making $750K a year and part of the motive for his hiring was to get Rutgers into the  Big Ten, where they would get more $ and more prestige. The coach’s boss, the athletic director, was a former TV executive who had never run a college program or been a coach,  but had experience doing national broadcasts of college games. This person is likely to be fired. The Rutgers president was hired less than a year ago to oversee a merger with the University of Medicine and Dentistry of NJ, a failing medical center. The State of NJ gave Rutgers control over the medical school because the officials believed that a merger would attract “more research money and therefore more prestige to Rutgers” (NY Times quote). He may be on his way out.  There are serious calls to fire the president too, as the abuse was known months ago and there was no serious action taken (shades of Penn State). High salaried administrators, cover-ups, untrammeled ambition to increase money and prestige, and scandal potentially eliminating the “living logo” when the logo is sullied — sounds like a show on cable TV. And this is an institution of higher education.

For interest, I looked up what their mission is:  “Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey, is a leading national public research university and the state’s preeminent, comprehensive public institution of higher education. Rutgers is dedicated to teaching that meets the highest standards of excellence; to conducting research that breaks new ground; and to turning knowledge into solutions for local, national, and global communities. As it was at our founding in 1766, the heart of our mission is preparing students to become productive members of society and good citizens of the world. Rutgers teaches across the full educational spectrum: preschool to precollege; undergraduate to graduate and postdoctoral; and continuing education for professional and personal advancement. Rutgers is New Jersey’s land-grant institution and one of the nation’s foremost research universities, and as such, we educate, make discoveries, serve as an engine of economic growth, and generate ideas for improving people’s lives.” I’d give them a C-, at least for this semester.

Double majors: I have also attached a reading from the Chronicle on a study of the impact of double majoring along with the on-line commentary. This is not a required reading but I thought it was interesting in light of the high frequency of double majors in the class. double majors

See you next week.

Prof. Hainline

Readings for Wednesday, April 10, Group 4 in charge of the discussion and questions

The topic of this session is the use and role of technology in the future of higher education. There are a few longer articles which are posted individually and a lot of shorter (1-3 page) articles from recent media sources. To make this easier, I have created bundles of these so they can be opened as a group.

Standalone files:

Economist Intelligence Unit (2008) The Future of Higher Education: How technology will shape learning. economist

Shedd, J. M. (2003) The History of the Student Credit Hour ch 1 in New Directions for Higher Education #122. History of the credit hour (this one has all the pages)

Stokes, P. (2011) What online learning can teach us about higher education. Ch 7 In B. Wildavsky, A.P. Kelly and K. Carey, eds. Reinventing Higher Education: The Promise of Innovation. stokes

Times Bundle: ny times articles
Friedman, T. (2013) The Professor’s Big Stage, New York Times, 3/5/2013.

New York Times (2012) The trouble with online college. 2/18/13.

Eisenberg, A. (2013) Keeping an eye on on-line test takers. New York Times, 3/12/13.

Lewin, T. (2013) California bill seeks campus credit for on-line study. New York Times, 3/12/13.

Chronicle Bundle: chronicle bundle
Essig, L. (2013) It’s MOOAs, not MOOCs, that will transform higher education. The Chronicle of Higher Education. 3/28/2013.

Field, K. (2013) Student aid can be awarded for “competencies”, not just credit hours, U.S. Says. The Chronicle of Higher Education. 3/19/13.

Jenkins, R. (2013) A massively bad idea. The Chronicle of Higher Education. 3/18/2013.

Jenkins, R. (2013) Catfished. In The Chronicle of Higher Education, 4/2/2013.

Kirschner, A. (2012) A pioneer in on-line education tries a MOOC, The Chronicle of Higher Education, 10/1/12.

Kirschner, A. (2012) Innovation in higher education? Hah, The Chronicle of Higher Education, 4/13/2012.

Kolowich, S. (2013) SUNY signals major push toward MOOCs and other new educational methods. The Chronicle of Higher Education. 3/20/2013.

Kolowich, S. (2013) The professors behind the MOOC hype, The Chronicle of Higher Education,3/18/2013.

Chronicle of Higher Education (2013) All you need to know about MOOCs

Miscellaneous Bundle: misc
Crawley, A. Growth of on-line learning excerpted from ch. 1 in Supporting On-line Students in Tomorrow’s Professor Newsletter,

Cuban, L. (2013) “Irrational exuberance”: the case of MOOCs, http://larrycuban.wordpress.com/2013/01/26/irrational-exuberance-the-case-of-the-moocs/

Robbins, J. (2013) The ethics of MOOCs Inside Higher Ed, 3/25/2013.

Snyder, M.D. (2012) The State of the Profession, excerpt from Academe, Nov/Dec. issue.

 

Readings for 4/3/2012 – Group 3 is in charge of leading the discussion

These are the readings for next Wednesday (4/3/2013), on the Economics of Higher Education.  Group 3 should post reading questions ahead of time and be prepared to lead the discussion. Others should do reading questions or reading reactions of their own, but they do not need to be as extensive as those done by the group with this week’s assignments. Thanks for the interview questions. I will review them before the next class.

It looks like a lot, but most of them are one to a few pagers from the media. You may want to start with the Johnstone one. I’ve also included some links to a bunch of articles and on-line graphics from the WSJ. I was able to get some of them directly, but the others (with the small fonts) I had to get through the BC Library. Not sure why some were available and some not. but anyway, here they are in alpha order:

    • 1. Bowen, W. Universities suffering from near fatal “Cost Disease”, Posting from Tomorrow’s Professor, 2/18/2013 bowen
    • 2. DiNapoli, T. P. (2010) The Economic Impact of Higher Education in New York State, report 7-2011, Office of the State Comptroller. dinapoli
    • 3. Guskin, A.E. and Marcy, M.B. (2003) Dealing with the future now. Change, July/August. guskin & marcy
    • 4. Jashik, S. (2013) Study casts doubt on idea that spending more per student leads to better educational outcomes. Inside Higher Education 1/25/2013. jascik
    • 5. Johnstone, D.B. (2011) Financing higher education: Who should pay? Ch 12 in in P. G. Altbach, P. J. Gumport, and R. O. Berdahl, American Higher Education in the Twenty-First Century, 3rd Ed., Baltimore: Johns Hopkins Press. 

johnstone
6. Kiley, K. (2013) Moody’s report calls into question all traditional university revenue sources. Inside Higher Ed, 1/17/13. moody
7. Kirp, D. L. (2005) This little student went to market, ch. 8 in Hersh, R. H. and Merrow, J. Declining by degrees: Higher Education at Risk. New York: Palgrave/Macmillan

  • kirp
    8. Lexington, Higher Education: Is it really the next bubble? The Economist. 4/21/2011. lexington
    • 9. WSJ interactive articles on the Costs of College (some also scanned but the website has good videos and interactive graphic demonstrations (could get some on-line directly but for others had to go through the College Library):

Colleges lose pricing power: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887324442304578231922159602676.html

Selected articles at: http://online.wsj.com/public/page/cost-of-college.html

Student Debt: http://live.wsj.com/video/student-debt-nears-one-trillion-dollars/54FCA287-FFDD-441A-950E-A90784C80270.html#!54FCA287-FFDD-441A-950E-A90784C80270

Tuition: http://live.wsj.com/video/grading-colleges-by-student-debt/1ECF80C1-AC34-4143-8E07-EE6C7444A1E1.html#!1ECF80C1-AC34-4143-8E07-EE6C7444A1E1

Who can still afford State U? tp://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887323501404578163290734542674.html#printMode

WSJ interactive data: http://graphics.wsj.com/PUBPRIV1212/#SelectedCategories=University+of+New+Mexico/unv58%7CUniversity+of+Florida/unv42%7CUniversity+of+Central+Florida/unv37%7CMississippi+State+University/unv10%7CUniversity+of+South+Florida/unv64&SugCategories=lUnv

Need vs. Merit: http://graphicsweb.wsj.com/documents/HOPE1212/

Administrative costs: http://graphicsweb.wsj.com/documents/NONCLASS1212/

Videos: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887324442304578231922159602676.html#articleTabs%3Dvideo