Category Archives: Colleges and Universities

From controversial opinion piece to full length book

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I was unaware that this was a common phenomenon: write a controversial op-ed in a major newspaper, receive a book deal, and then produce a book that is much too long and that doesn’t argue much. David Bell describes this process:

The syndrome has become all too common. A provocative op-ed piece appears in a major newspaper (for preference, The New York Times). Its logic is fragile and its evidence is thin, but the writing is crisp and the examples are pungent, and the assault on sacred cows arouses a storm of discussion (much of it sharply critical, but no matter). It goes viral. And almost immediately, publishers comes calling. “This should be a book,” they coo, and the author, entranced by a bit of sudden fame (not to mention, perhaps, a decent advance), eagerly agrees. He or she sets to work, and soon enough the original 800 words expand to 50,000. But far from reinforcing the original logic and evidence, the new accretions of text only strain them further, while smothering the original provocations under thick layers of padded anecdote, pop sociology and oracular pronouncement. Call the syndrome Friedmanitis, after a prominent early victim, the New York Times columnist Tom Friedman.

I wonder if I have been a victim of this process. I have read a number of non-fiction books where I thought the argument was thin and the argument could have been effectively made in just a few pages. One problem may be a lack of data – opinion books are difficult to sustain as they often jump from one opinion to another without providing sufficient evidence for the claims being made.

From the book publishers perspective, this process makes some sense. Perhaps the hope is that the op-ed author has more to offer; that if given more space, they can develop a much more substantive argument. Since it is difficult to predict which books will succeed once published, an op-ed that generates attention may look like a sure thing.

At the same time, these op-eds can quickly invoke many criticisms within hours of being published online. By the time a book is released that is built around the same topic, it may be too late to make the argument again (particularly if it is badly argued in the book).

Women now earning a majority of PhD degrees

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A recent report from the Council of Graduate Schools shows that women now earn 50.4% of all PhDs in the United States. This is a change even from 2000 when the figure for women stood at 44%.

Of course, the figures vary widely by discipline: women dominate in the health sciences (70%), education (67%), public administration and services (61%), and social and behavioral sciences (60%). Men dominate in the fields of engineering (women earn 22% of the PhDs, math and computer science (27% women), physical and earth sciences (33% women), and business (39% women). These figures by discipline are not surprising given the stereotypes present in American society about what work men and women should do.

h/t Instapundit

An interesting social experiment: restrict social media access at a college for a week

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Social media is ever-present on college campuses. It appears that some institutions are thinking about ways to encourage thinking about using social media – by restricting it:

Professors have experimented with assigning technology fasts for their students—by discouraging gadget use for five days, for example, or rewarding extra credit for a semester without Facebook.

Harrisburg University of Science and Technology is going one step further with a “social-media blackout.” Starting Monday, the Pennsylvania institution will block Facebook, Twitter, AOL Instant Messenger, and MySpace on the campus network for a week. Faculty and staff members will be affected as well as students.

“Telling students to imagine a time before Facebook is like telling them to imagine living in a world with dinosaurs,” said Eric D. Darr, Harrisburg’s executive vice president and provost. “It’s not real. What we’re doing is trying to make it real.”

Ah, equating life with no social media with the age of dinosaurs – this is quite funny (though probably accurate).

When I first saw this headline, I thought this school might be doing this to help students to use the time they might spend on social media in other ways. To discover the world outside of Facebook. Alas, the school has other aims:

Mr. Darr said his hope is that people…would take the week to reflect on outside-the-box ways to use social media—such as for entrepreneurship or political advocacy.

So the goal in restricting social media use is to help people think about social media use? And I was hoping for a social experiment where students might discover other virtuous things to do with their time…

Teaching 9/11 in schools

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Now that we are nine years removed from September 11, 2001, this is something I’ve wondered: how do schools teach about this day? According to the Christian Science Monitor, there seems to be a variety of approaches.

Another place to look would be school textbooks. With evidence that textbooks either just plain get it wrong or present biased perspectives, how younger generations learn about 9/11 will be something to watch.

Overall, both specific school lessons and textbooks will help shape the American collective memory regarding the event. This collective memory can take time to develop and is likely to be controversial; just look at how long the 9/11 memorial is taking to shape up at Ground Zero.

Starting salaries by college major

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The National Association of Colleges and Employers has released a new study looking at 2009 starting salaries by college major. Average starting salaries for all graduates dropped a small amount from 2009:

NACE’s Fall 2010 Salary Survey shows that the overall average offer to Class of 2010 bachelor’s degree graduates stands at $48,288, compared with $48,633 offered to the Class of 2009. This represents a drop of 0.7 percent.

Liberal arts majors were below the average starting salary:

The average starting salary offer to liberal arts graduates—as a group—dipped 3 percent from last year to $35,508. Salary offers to sociology majors climbed 3.1 percent to $35,357 and history majors saw a slight increase of 0.7 percent to $38,731. Meanwhile, offers to English majors dropped 1.8 percent to $35,946 and offers to psychology majors fell 6.7 percent to $32,260.

The top five salaries? Four of five involve engineering – from number 1 to number 5, petroleum engineering, chemical engineering, mining and mineral engineering, computer science, and computer engineering.

Discussions about student-learning outcomes among college boards

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As discussions about assessment and student-learning outcomes build on college campuses, a new report looks at what governing boards think about their discussions of student-learning outcomes:

While oversight of educational quality is a critical responsibility of college boards of trustees, a majority of trustees and chief academic officers say boards do not spend enough time discussing student-learning outcomes, and more than a third say boards do not understand how student learning is assessed, says a report issued on Thursday by the Association of Governing Boards of Universities and Colleges.

According to members, boards tend to focus on business matters. But this issue of assessment and student-learning outcomes is one that is likely to affect all levels of colleges and universities.

(A note about how the results were obtained: the survey was sent to “1,300 chief academic officers and chairs of board committees on academic affairs how boards oversee academic quality.” The response rate was only 38%.)

Rethinking how to study

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The New York Times highlights recent research that suggests older methods or habits for studying may not be worthwhile. Instead, there are new suggestions for studying that haven’t yet caught on:

[P]sychologists have discovered that some of the most hallowed advice on study habits is flat wrong. For instance, many study skills courses insist that students find a specific place, a study room or a quiet corner of the library, to take their work. The research finds just the opposite…

Varying the type of material studied in a single sitting — alternating, for example, among vocabulary, reading and speaking in a new language — seems to leave a deeper impression on the brain than does concentrating on just one skill at a time. Musicians have known this for years, and their practice sessions often include a mix of scales, musical pieces and rhythmic work. Many athletes, too, routinely mix their workouts with strength, speed and skill drills…

When the neural suitcase is packed carefully and gradually, it holds its contents for far, far longer. An hour of study tonight, an hour on the weekend, another session a week from now: such so-called spacing improves later recall, without requiring students to put in more overall study effort or pay more attention, dozens of studies have found.

These would be worthwhile for any type or stage of learning. While it may be initially difficult to change ingrained habits, switching to new study methods would pay off in the end with improved abilities to retain and utilize knowledge.

Reading about this could lead to some interesting questions regarding how people and students learn or acquire their study habits. Is it an intuitive process that each person needs to figure out for themselves? Do most people simply do what others have told them to do? How often do we assess our own studying/learning habits to determine their effectiveness?

The D+ Campaign

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Drake University has unfurled a new marketing campaign built around this symbol: D+. While the scheme has been criticized for linking the college to a bad academic grade, the school suggests it is helping differentiate Drake materials from materials from other schools:

The education blog of the Des Moines Register reports that Tom Delahunt, vice president for admission and student financial planning, and Debra Lukehart, executive marketing director, responded to faculty and alumni criticism via an e-mail message. Conceding that faculty and staff members should have been allowed to preview the campaign before its release, the letter nonetheless explains that the concept was rigorously tested on 921 mostly Midwestern high-school students.

In an online survey, “more than three-quarters of the respondents indicated the cover grabbed their attention either a little or a lot,” the letter says. “In addition, nearly 90 percent of the respondents felt the concept was unique from other college and university materials they have seen.”

In a market (college admissions) that saturates students with materials, perhaps getting the attention of students is all a school could hope for.

The inequalities in higher education

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Christopher Shea takes a look at two books that call for reforms to the university and college system, reforms which would include possible reforms for the tenure system. After considering what these books have to say, Shea suggests the real issue is how universities and colleges are being split into two groups: those with considerable resources and those with few resources:

Here we have the frightening subtext of all the recent hand-wringing about higher education: the widening inequality among institutions of various types and the prospects of the students who attend them. While the financial crisis has demoted Ivy League institutions from super-rich to merely rich, public universities are being gutted. It is not news that America is a land of haves and have-nots. It is news that colleges are themselves dividing into haves and have-nots; they are becoming engines of inequality. And that — not whether some professors can afford to wear Marc Jacobs — is the real scandal.

This is an interesting observation though it isn’t just public schools that are struggling with finances: many schools with fewer resources have had to make changes. What would Shea (or others) suggest could be done about closing this gap between schools?