some context Education, especially higher education used to be considered a "calling" (not unlike a religious calling) and the objective was wisdom and the advancement of human knowledge. Access to the academy was closely guarded and elitist.
K-12 education started moving away from this model in the 1800s in response to an idealist notion of "universal education" and a market notion of needing an educated (to a certain vocation driven extent) workforce. Today, the idea of knowledge for knowledge's sake is vestigial at best, and knowledge for a job dominates the philosophy, structure, and process of that segment of our educational system. College and graduate education was slowly succumbing but reasonably resistant to those same influences until the end of WWII. At that point the universal education and vocational training forces were compounded by the need for a factory, assembly line, high volume educational process and a severe need to use education as a means for regulating the workforce. (You had to get all those women out of the workforce and find something for the unemployable - because of lack of demand - ex-soldiers to do.) Over time "higher ed" succumbed to these forces just as K-12 did. In parallel, there was a change in management philosophy, away from considering educational institutions as something akin to a "church" led by wise elders (faculty) to considering them as a business led and governed by MBAs with curricula as commodity and students as customers. The result is an educational system that is substantially bankrupt and that substantially should be abandoned as the op-ed piece suggests. Tenure evolved from being an acknowledgement of accomplishment and scholarship plus protection from political and ideological harassment to a labor relations negotiating chip as the threat to faculty primarily became (and is) grounded in budget decisions. Today the issue with tenure is not who has it and why but the proportion of expensive tenured/tenure track versus adjunct and non-tenure track in the faculty. This ratio is effectively more important in accreditation criteria for an institution than the quality of education it delivers. (The second most important accreditation criteria - not surprisingly - is outcomes assessment, skewed to how much money your graduates earn in the workforce and how pleased their employers are with the education you provided.) Yes, I know I am painting in broad strokes, and that there are exceptions. davew On Wed, 29 Apr 2009 08:58 -0600, "Owen Densmore" <[email protected]> wrote: > Well, not to go on, but: > > - Wouldn't most of the problems tenure solves be solved by variations > on the 20% theme: You have 20% of your time to be exploring "research" > that is not on your main "deliverable" path? Google does this. Xerox > too. Ditto SunLabs. And any savvy engineer/researcher does it on the > sly. Sabbaticals are on a different time scale, but similar in nature. > > And as far as jobs -- I don't recall even thinking about jobs until > well after getting out of schools. I just assumed, due to all the > money flying around for tech/sci/math after Sputnik, that learn Math > and Physics .. mainly 'cause they are deeply philosophic and you *do* > need somehow to figure our how the world works. But it wasn't related > to work, only getting aligned with the world somehow. > > But I certainly also hear a lot about folks studying X for job Y. > Isn't that a pretty new thing, tho? Most folks go to college to go > through that last phase of life before "growing up". > > Man, I'm old. > > -- Owen > > > On Apr 29, 2009, at 7:50 AM, Pamela McCorduck wrote: > > > Yes, tenure helps. If you're pursuing really strange paths, with a > > high probability of failure (but a big payoff if they work) tenure > > helps. One example jumps to mind: Lotfi Zadeh says he could never > > have worked on fuzzy logic if he hadn't already got tenure. It took > > both intellectual and missionary work over more than a decade before > > it even began to pay off. As a young untenured assistant professor, > > he could never have done this--he'd be out after his sixth year. > > > > I could write an essay on where the liberal arts went wrong (an old > > English major here) but I'll spare you except to say as disciplines, > > they went from irrelevant to downright scandalous, the result of one > > part science-envy, one part who the hell knows. I'm speaking here of > > literary studies, not anthropologists or psychologists, who have an > > honest claim to be scientists, in that they study phenomena to try > > and understand them, illuminate those phenomena for others. > > > > Merle and others have smacked our wrists for thinking about > > employability, but it's a fact of life for most people. I don't > > think it needs to be THE central issue in higher education, but it > > needs to be considered. However, I like her idea that the university > > is a complex adaptive system waiting to happen, and would love to > > take that discussion on further. > > > > Pamela > > > > > > > > > > On Apr 28, 2009, at 10:47 PM, Owen Densmore wrote: > > > >> On Apr 28, 2009, at 6:47 PM, Pamela McCorduck wrote: > >>> Some other takes on the essay, from Dave Farber's listserv: > >> > >> Nice! I suspect it's pretty right on in the academic world. > >> Although I'm a bit surprised at the mud-slinging at "far liberal > >> arts". > >> > >> In industry, we were delighted to have the humanities finally > >> become part of the high tech world. We had anthropologists study > >> our organizations, and Human Interface experts (with expertise > >> spanning everything from psychology to brain studies) help us > >> figure out how to integrate computers into human activities. > >> > >> I've never had Tenure. Does it really help? > >> > >> -- Owen > >> > >>> From: "David P. Reed" <[email protected]> > >>> Date: April 28, 2009 4:34:57 PM EDT > >>> To: [email protected] > >>> Cc: ip <[email protected]> > >>> Subject: Re: [IP] Re: Op-Ed Contributor - End the University as We > >>> Know It - NYTimes.com > >>> > >>> I agree with Ben Kuipers below. But here's a simpler observation: > >>> what > >>> hubris allows a religion professor in Columbia to indict ALL > >>> graduate > >>> programs in ALL universities without doing any research whatsoever? > >>> > >>> Any serious professor in any serious graduate school would have > >>> never > >>> allowed him to get a Bachelor's degree, much less a graduate degree > >>> with that attitude towards the craft of learning... > >>> > >>> Flunk him out. > >>> > >>> David Farber wrote: > >>>> > >>>> > >>>> Begin forwarded message: > >>>> > >>>> From: Benjamin Kuipers <[email protected]> > >>>> Date: April 28, 2009 10:29:39 AM EDT > >>>> To: [email protected] > >>>> Cc: "ip" <[email protected]>, Benjamin Kuipers <[email protected]> > >>>> Subject: Re: [IP] Op-Ed Contributor - End the University as We Know > >>>> It - NYTimes.com > >>>> > >>>> Dave, > >>>> > >>>> A colleague forwarded that column to me last night, and here is my > >>>> reply: > >>>> > >>>> With all due respect, I disagree with this Op-Ed essay, > >>>> comprehensively. > >>>> > >>>> First, far from being "the Detroit of higher learning", American > >>>> graduate education, at least in the STEM fields, is the envy of the > >>>> world. (This is changing under the influence of Bush-era visa > >>>> restrictions that have made it more difficult for American > >>>> universities to get the very best students from around the world, > >>>> so > >>>> graduate programs in other countries have been improving rapidly.) > >>>> > >>>> Second, Mark Taylor, the author of this essay, is a religion > >>>> professor at Columbia. Many of his criticisms are relevant to > >>>> (what > >>>> I might call) the "far liberal arts", rather than to the STEM > >>>> fields, the social sciences, and many of the more empirically- > >>>> oriented humanities. (I have a great deal of respect for the > >>>> humanities, including the "far liberal arts", but they do face very > >>>> different intellectual issues from the STEM fields.) > >>>> > >>>> Third, while his praise for inter-disciplinary work is certainly > >>>> appropriate, he ignores the need for interdisciplinary work to > >>>> build > >>>> on a strong disciplinary foundation. There was a fad for > >>>> "interdisciplinary studies" starting in the 1960s, that I believe > >>>> led more-or-less nowhere, but turned out people with inadequate > >>>> preparation to do interesting interdisciplinary work. (Do you give > >>>> an undergraduate a major in "Water"? What are they then prepared > >>>> for?) Herb Simon once pointed out that good interdisciplinary work > >>>> must be first-class work within the standards of each discipline > >>>> involved. > >>>> > >>>> Fourth, I believe that the importance of tenure for intellectual > >>>> freedom is not so much freedom from reprisals for controversial > >>>> positions (though this may be more of an issue in other > >>>> disciplines), but freedom to pursue the intellectual directions > >>>> that > >>>> one considers important, over a career. This has proved to be an > >>>> effective way to get interesting and important new knowledge > >>>> created > >>>> by a selected community of scholars. > >>>> > >>>> Fifth, to support individuals who devote a lifetime to pursuing > >>>> intellectual questions they consider important, an institution must > >>>> provide some degree of stability in its own structure. Certainly > >>>> too > >>>> much stability invites stagnation, but a stable departmental > >>>> structure, along with a more fluid structure of laboratories, > >>>> centers, institutes, and the like, provides a good balance. I > >>>> suggest it already provides the flexibility that Mark Taylor would > >>>> like to see, without jeapardizing the stability that lets the > >>>> institution support creative thinkers. > >>>> > >>>> Sixth, if you were to seriously eliminate tenure, and create a > >>>> system where a significant fraction of senior faculty would get > >>>> laid > >>>> off from the university, needing to find non-academic positions, I > >>>> predict that you would greatly reduce the level of creativity and > >>>> intellectual risk-taking in our major universities. > >>>> > >>>> Seventh, Mark Taylor raises the spectre of "dead wood" faculty, > >>>> impervious to leverage or change. Perhaps this is a problem in his > >>>> field or his institution, but I have seen remarkably little of that > >>>> in the departments I am familiar with. Over the course of a > >>>> career, > >>>> the focus of one's efforts inevitably changes, but if the > >>>> institutions pays reasonable amounts of attention to respecting and > >>>> cultivating its senior faculty, the vast majority of them will end > >>>> up working for the benefit of the students and the institution, in > >>>> one way or another. If Mark Taylor is having a significant problem > >>>> with unproductive faculty who are unwilling to "assume > >>>> responsibilities like administration and student advising", then > >>>> perhaps his department needs new leadership. > >>>> > >>>> Summing up, I think that the critiques in this essay are > >>>> superficial, and the suggestions for change are wrong-headed. Some > >>>> of his ideas, like his praise of problem-oriented inter- > >>>> disciplinary > >>>> work, are good ideas, but they are already achievable within the > >>>> framework we have. > >>>> > >>>> Cheers, > >>>> > >>>> Ben > >> > >> > >> > >> ============================================================ > >> FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv > >> Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College > >> lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org > >> > > > > > > "The only function of economic forecasting is to make astrology look > > respectable." > > > > John Kenneth Galbraith > > > > > > ============================================================ > > FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv > > Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College > > lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org > > > ============================================================ > FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv > Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College > lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org ============================================================ FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org
