Monday, November 22, 2010

LU Faculty’s Interests and Concerns Parallel Those across the Nation

Guest Blogger: Jim DeBoy

In perusing the last few months of Academe, I was rather surprised by the “hot topics” in higher education, in that those selected for publication were virtually identical to the issues and concerns that have flummoxed us these past three or four months. While the articles themselves may not lead us to the promised land where all students maximize their abilities and talents, the authors do confirm that our difficulties/challenges are shared by most of our counterparts on other campuses. Maybe commiseration is beneficial.

This report will be an attempt to identify some of those issues that faculty (Lincoln and others) deem important and, perhaps more to the point, expend a great deal of time and effort. There is no attempt here to supply answers to the questions raised; I will opt for the Socratic instructional technique and construct additional questions to ones raised by Academe contributors. There are 23 questions in all and, like most important issues in life, there will undoubtedly be more than one reasonable response. Happy problem solving!

1. College Rankings
a. Is a college’s “quality” almost fully determined by its selectivity in admissions?

b. Is not selectivity closely related to first-year students’ SAT scores?

c. Are not college ranking formulae heavily weighted by SAT scores?

d. Are not “high-scoring” SAT students likely from “high-earning” parents?

e. Should not colleges be evaluated for what they actually do for students once they arrive on campus?

f. Should not value-added impact supersede admissions criterion as a factor in rankings?

g.Why do US News & World Report rankings criteria differ for HBCUs (polling of HBCU presidents and provosts)?

h. Want LU to jump in those rankings? Hire 20 more fulltime faculty members, thereby decreasing both faculty-student ratio and number of classes that exceed 50 enrollees


2. Teaching
a. Are colleges truly committed to effective teaching?

b. Do publications and obtaining external funding warrant more consideration for tenure/promotion than teaching?

c. Does knowledge of one’s field make one knowledgeable how to teach it well?

d. Is not teaching effectiveness comprised of the ability to master and articulate the content and control classroom dynamics?

e. Should not new faculty be mentored in educational assessment, classroom management, curriculum development, and student advising?

f. When do students learn best? (Hint: personal investment, active engagement,prompt, helpful feedback, and cooperative learning with peers and faculty)

g. Does assessment of teaching effectiveness (for promotion/tenure purposes) consist only of student end-of-semester course evaluations and chair’s observations?

3. Assessment of Student Learning

a. Is the ultimate assessment goal of “corporate-model” higher education to identify and administer one high-stakes test for all students? And then use those results to reward or punish faculty?

b. Will decisions about promotion and tenure be judged solely by learning outcomes (at least the teaching effectiveness component)?

c. Should not faculty/administrators be more concerned what students did not know/could not do when they first entered college ? (the so-called “value-added” effect )

d. If assessment of student learning is here to stay, how can we increase faculty interest and expertise in the assessment process?

e. Are all faculty presently capable and willing of making informed judgments about curriculum and academic standards? (These duties do fall under the auspices of faculty)

f. Has the government begun replacing both institutional and faculty judgment in academic matters?

g. What happens if/when government succeeds in controlling regional accreditors, e.g., Middle States?

h. Are learning goals in the liberal arts diametrically opposed to the culture of assessment (as some have proposed)?

4 comments:

  1. What a great series of questions! Too many to tackle at once, so for now I’ll just address the first one.
    Does admissions selectivity determine quality? I’d say, no, not entirely, and in fact the influence also goes the other way: to some extent, perceived quality determines selectivity. Selectivity is simply a function of how many apply compared to how many enroll after being admitted. Perceived educational quality (and I emphasize “perceived”) is certainly an important motivator for applicants but surely not the only one, and for many not the most important. Social factors can also be paramount, and, of course, financial considerations can be the deciding factor. When I was applying to colleges, I recall that Swarthmore was listed as the most selective college in the country. But at the time I was convinced that this didn’t mean that Swarthmore offered an education that was any better than some others (e.g. my own alma mater, Bryn Mawr College, which attracted fewer applicants, as an all women’s college). Obviously, the larger the applicant pool (or, more accurately, the larger the pool of likely attenders within the applicant pool), the greater the opportunity will be for the college to select more “desirable” students according to the college’s preferred and perhaps prioritized criteria (whether they be SAT scores, high school grades, extracurricular interests, or whatever).

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  2. I'd like to offer my thoughts on some of the points/questions raised regarding the assessment process.

    a. Is the ultimate assessment goal of “corporate-model” higher education to identify and administer one high-stakes test for all students? And then use those results to reward or punish faculty?

    Let's all hope that's not the case. Ignoring the individuality, the unique gifts, of each of our students, would be antithetical to education at any level.

    c. Should not faculty/administrators be more concerned what students did not know/could not do when they first entered college ? (the so-called “value-added” effect )

    Perhaps not more concerned, but certainly as concerned. To add value, we must know what the starting-point is.

    d. If assessment of student learning is here to stay, how can we increase faculty interest and expertise in the assessment process?

    Allow more individuality here too. Teaching is as much art as it is science; an artist's eye could offer as valuable or more valuable a set of observations as can any table, graph, or formula.

    e. Are all faculty presently capable and willing of making informed judgments about curriculum and academic standards? (These duties do fall under the auspices of faculty)

    In my opinion, absolutely.

    h. Are learning goals in the liberal arts diametrically opposed to the culture of assessment (as some have proposed)?

    Again in my opinion, traditional liberal arts learning goals should be the standard against which all academic achievement is measured.

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  3. These are good questions; but I think it is best to focus on a few and, also, provide some answers or suggestions to be discussed. I think that is the goal or intent of the Socratic instructional technique.

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  4. As a lover of Chinese restaurants, I am going to choose one from column A, one from column B and one from column C.

    iD: College Rankings: Are not “high-scoring” SAT students likely from “high-earning” parents? Yes. In the writing field, the saying is that the most positive correlation to student future writing grades is the number of bathrooms in the student's home.

    2E: Teaching: Should not new faculty be mentored in educational assessment, classroom management, curriculum development, and student advising? I think not only new faculty should be so mentored but us old timers as well. I wish we could come up with some system of sitting in on one another's classes and discussing what we saw--the good and the bad. Maybe TLE can come up with some sort of voluntary program like that.

    3H: Assessment of Student Learning: Are learning goals in the liberal arts diametrically opposed to the culture of assessment (as some have proposed)? No, I don't think so, although they are opposed to a reductionist view of such a culture. The liberal arts are dedicated to self inspection, continuous improvement, openness to change, etc. So a true culture of assessment (not the "give me a set of numbers for every SLO in every course whether the numbers mean anything or not" type)is perfectly aligned with the liberal arts philosophy.

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