At 09:04 PM 3/21/02 +0000, J. Williams wrote: >Also, is easier access to higher education a bad thing?
of course not ... not necessarily but, here is one example that has some relevance to this discussion ... maybe not a lot but, some most graduate degree granting institutions ... especially at the doctoral level ... have some sort of a "residence" requirement (though the notion of residence and the competition from online degree providers is changing this). the idea of this was ... the student was expected to be ON campus approximately at the time when he/she would need to have access to professors and resources most ... that time around when the dissertation was being worked on. i think there is some value in that ... though i would not want to push it to the extreme. penn state had this requirement for years and years but, not too many years ago, they changed it. now, if a student has been admitted to the doctoral program initially (rather than say the masters ... which could then lead to entering the doctoral program) ... their residence clock starts the day they set foot on campus. so, in 2 semesters when all most students are doing is taking courses and getting acclimated to campus ... their residence requirement is done. thus, the value (which i think has some validity) of residence has essentially evaporated. now, we can debate legitimately whether residence served any purpose at all (which i think it did) but, the fact is that the change has made residency essentially meaningless and, for sure, has made it easier ... MUCH easier ... for a student to tick that requirement off their list. this contributes in some way to dragging dissertations out longer than they should be ... and, in a sense setting up the scenario where too many students are desperately trying to do their dissertations off campus (which might be fine in some cases) where, the control over circumstances and access to necessary resources is diminished. generally, i think this lowers the quality of the process and, product. on the faculty side, we used to have a two tiered system of faculty being on the graduate faculty. under the old system, a NEW faculty member ... especially one right out of grad school .... would have to serve a short apprenticeship being an associate member of the grad faculty ... learning his/her ropes around the institutional grad school rules, assisting on doctoral committees but, not directing dissertations yet ... and getting a bit of research experience under their belt. now, this would usually be 2/3 years ... and then they could apply to become a senior member of the grad faculty. no longer. day 1 on campus ... even fresh out of grad school, they can apply and are more or less automatically placed on the grad faculty. i think while this clearly makes is FAR easier for a faculty member, it degrades the process and quality of doctoral advising. i am not sure brand new faculty right out of grad school should be directing dissertations quite yet ... or perhaps teaching high level grad courses quite yet ... but, that is just my opinion. there are many many issues related to this matter ... and, lots and lots of exceptions to what i think is the general rule ... that is, standards and quality have diminished over the years ... at every level ... institutional rules, faculty standards, and quality expectations for students > > > >6. faculty committees, for whatever reasons, have increasingly allowed > >students to get more and more assistance with their projects (for design, > >analysis, writing, editing, etc.) > >================================================================= Dennis Roberts, 208 Cedar Bldg., University Park PA 16802 <Emailto: [EMAIL PROTECTED]> WWW: http://roberts.ed.psu.edu/users/droberts/drober~1.htm AC 8148632401 . . ================================================================= Instructions for joining and leaving this list, remarks about the problem of INAPPROPRIATE MESSAGES, and archives are available at: . http://jse.stat.ncsu.edu/ . =================================================================
