The dominoes start to fall? No surprise at all to see Arizona State University leading the charge on this one - every dumb new fad in higher-ed, expect to see ASU in there somewhere..
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/04/23/us/arizona-state-university-to-offer-online-freshman-academy.html --------------------------------------snip Arizona State University, one of the nation’s largest universities, is joining with edX, a nonprofit online venture founded by M.I.T. and Harvard, to offer an online freshman year that will be available worldwide with no admissions process and full university credit. In the new Global Freshman Academy, each credit will cost $200, but students will not have to pay until they pass the courses, which will be offered on the edX platform as MOOCs, or Massive Open Online Courses. “Leave your G.P.A., your SATs, your recommendations at home,” said Anant Agarwal, the chief executive of edX. “If you have the will to learn, just bring your Internet connection and yourself, and you can get a year of college credit.” Under Michael Crow, its president, Arizona State has been a leader in using technology to serve large numbers of students — for example, through web-based introductory math classes. Still, before now it had never embraced MOOCs, free courses offered by edX, Coursera and others that began three years ago — shaking up the traditional academic world and attracting 100,000 or more students. But the courses do not offer credit or lead to a degree, and their larger promise of democratizing higher education has not materialized. Education policy experts said the new Arizona State effort could be different, because it offers academic credit under its well-known brand and the opportunity to delay payment for that credit until it is earned. On Fri, Jan 2, 2015 at 12:08 PM, raghu <[email protected]> wrote: > It certainly seems to be giving NYU a run for its money. > > In the news this week: ASU is asking non-tenured faculty to teach 2 extra > classes per year without any increase in pay. > > https://www.insidehighered.com/blogs/just-visiting/asu-and-non-tenured-human-shields > > > Which led me to pause and wonder why ASU seems to be at the forefront of > every dubious new development in higher-ed in the US. There was the > Starbucks partnership earlier this year: > > http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/06/19/starbucks-asu-scholarships-spending_n_5512376.html > > > And various controversies surrounding their President Michael Crow who > styles himself as a Jack Welch-type superstar CEO. See e.g. this one for > some cringe-worthy details: > http://www.fresnostate.edu/academics/grants/news/wsj-research-business.html > > > And oh, by the way, Crow's contract explicitly ties his compensation to US > News rankings: > https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2007/03/19/usnews > > > Elizabeth Shermer has written about the rise of ASU into a research > university in the 1960s and how it was tied to the growth of the Phoenix > metropolis, a growth carefully managed by local business elites: > > https://books.google.com/books?id=ySPdXiVbsakC&printsec=frontcover&source=gbs_ge_summary_r&cad=0#v=onepage&q&f=false > > > -raghu. > > > > > > >
_______________________________________________ pen-l mailing list [email protected] https://lists.csuchico.edu/mailman/listinfo/pen-l
