Concealed Weapons

There have been many words dispensed on the issue of campus violence and allowing concealed weapons on campuses.  An then yesterday the story broke of a disagreement between faculty members that got really ugly.  A faculty member at Cal. St. Northridge has been arrested for repeatedly urinating on the door of a fellow faculty member who he disagreed with. 

Really?!  That's what we have come to.  Getting pissed off and then pissing on one another's doors?

Certainly it is better than gunplay at faculty meetings, but we should be able to set an example for how people trained in higher order thinking handle their disagreements.

T.S. Hall

Gainful Employment - Part I

Over the course of the last eighteen months the number of articles questioning the value of a college degree have been increasing.  Federal and state governments are suggesting that they might apply some sort of "gainful employment of graduates" test to educational institutions in considering funding levels.

The idea of a value added assessment for degrees is not anathema to me.  I do, however, wonder how such a system might work.  There are several options that come immediately to mind.  None of them are perfect, but discussing them within the academic community might enable us to become partners in crafting the end result rather than the victims of another poorly thought out funding strategy.

The advantage of such a policy could be to help curb grade inflation and ensure a quality of product (graduate), since producing lots of poorly educated students with high grades will induce a Yugo Effect where lots of cheap poor quality products is economically unsustainable to the producer.

Of course this means that colleges and universities will have to do a calculation of the cost of producing a product of value verses the payout they get from the graduates.  Degrees with small numbers of students and/or high costs of education will be difficult to sustain.  The STEM fields could suffer through one or both of these issues.

There is also the question of when gainful employment begins.  Does postgraduate education count as gainful employment?  Again, STEM fields could suffer depending on how "gainful employment" is defined.

The effect of the cost-benefit analysis might be the closing of many degree programs and, if handled with forethought, the consolidation of some degree types at specific universities.  The STEM fields might find themselves consolidated into poly technical colleges and universities where larger numbers of students would make the accounting work.  The downside of this is that some regions just don't have enough students to support such programs so technical education could become something geographically distant for many students and therefore unattainable.

Another problem of this system of funding is that it will reduce degree flexibility so that the boom and bust cycles seen in some disciplines will be exacerbated.  As degree values fluctuate, so can departmental funding, making it difficult to manage programs.

A gainful employment policy will also make it increasingly important that educational institutions act as employment agencies.  While this in not in itself a bad idea, it will demand increased resources to support the new Dean of Employment infrastructure.  This will take resources away from the educational enterprise.

In Part II of this commentary I will look at ways "Gainful Employment" might be defined.

T.S. Hall

Salted Student Evaluations

The results of the Fall Semester student evaluations should be in mailboxes any day now.  Before opening them and starting the Spring Semester in a funk make sure to apply a healthy grain of salt.

In a study released by a University of Northern Iowa professor in early December, one-third of students surveyed admit that they stretch the truth in evaluations, including lying on the comments section (20%).  As hard as it might be to believe, most often they do so to punish professor's they don't like.

The evaluation literature is replete with studies that show factors that have nothing to do with education play a significant role in student's evaluations, yet universities continue to place weight on this flawed tool in assessing faculty.

One of my colleagues from a private institution reported that his school sent a memo to faculty before final exams indicating that students would not be allowed to file the online evaluations for classes until after faculty had submitted grades.  No doubt, if asked they will swear that there is no connection between student evaluations and grades.

I am not saying that we should not have student evaluations, just that we should recognize that they poorly measure faculty competence.  In my own case I have found some very useful comments in evaluations.  I also find comments stating how unfair it is that I don't give practice exams that contain all the questions likely to be on the exam, that even though the front row is empty students hiding in the back can't read the board well enough, etc.

If are not yet a tenured full professor print a copy of the UNI study and send a copy anonymously to your Provost or Academic VP.

T.S. Hall