Joe Beckmann writes: <<I further agree that small schools are desirable but not determining, marginally worth their marginally higher costs, and have an organizational impact that exceeds those costs sometimes substantially. That said, I'm not sure how Chickering's insight into redundancy substantially differs from my argument that the size the institution "feels" depends more on its leadership and the collaborative quality of its staff than absolute numbers, but Chickering says this better and is a much better source than my limited 30 years in the field.>>
Since this matter of size is indeed critical to the smaller and poorer nations, the two points here need to be contested. The evidence to support the widespread belief that the larger schools cost less is shaky; giantism introduces all sorts of new costs into the comparison. More important, the redundancy argument has nothing to do with "leadership and collaborative quality" of staff. If there are nine positions open on the baseball team, and ten students interested in playing, one student is redundant. If ninety are interested in playing, eighty-one are redundant. Redundancy is not a matter of institutional "feel": it is a matter of the arithmetic of opportunity, and the learning and joy that smallness affords and redundancy denies. On the matter of your 30 years of experience, I say to you what againg Rongald reagan said to Walter Mondale when the age issue was introduced: I will not hold your youth and inexperience against you. Steve Eskow [EMAIL PROTECTED] _______________________________________________ DIGITALDIVIDE mailing list [email protected] http://mailman.edc.org/mailman/listinfo/digitaldivide To unsubscribe, send a message to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the word UNSUBSCRIBE in the body of the message.
