Times are tough all around these days. However, at schools like mine, a large public university with a population that includes a significant number of students who are older than traditional college age, are the first in their families to go to college, and/or were in economically precarious situations before the current economic crisis, the situation feels especially dire.
Category Archives: Teaching and learning
What not to do to a public university in the face of a budget shortfall.
You knew the California budget shortfall was going to have an impact on higher education in the state. But maybe you didn’t know that the pain will not be distributed evenly. Last weekend, John Engell, a colleague of mine from San Jose State University (and currently chair of the Department of English & Comparative Literature), examined the pain that may be visited on our university in an opinion piece he wrote for the San Jose Mercury News:
President Obama on education.
In last night’s address to the joint session of Congress, President Obama said:
The third challenge we must address is the urgent need to expand the promise of education in America.
In a global economy where the most valuable skill you can sell is your knowledge, a good education is no longer just a pathway to opportunity – it is a pre-requisite.
Right now, three-quarters of the fastest-growing occupations require more than a high school diploma. And yet, just over half of our citizens have that level of education. We have one of the highest high school dropout rates of any industrialized nation. And half of the students who begin college never finish.
This is a prescription for economic decline, because we know the countries that out-teach us today will out-compete us tomorrow. That is why it will be the goal of this administration to ensure that every child has access to a complete and competitive education – from the day they are born to the day they begin a career.
Already, we have made an historic investment in education through the economic recovery plan. We have dramatically expanded early childhood education and will continue to improve its quality, because we know that the most formative learning comes in those first years of life. We have made college affordable for nearly seven million more students. And we have provided the resources necessary to prevent painful cuts and teacher layoffs that would set back our children’s progress.
But we know that our schools don’t just need more resources. They need more reform. That is why this budget creates new incentives for teacher performance; pathways for advancement, and rewards for success. We’ll invest in innovative programs that are already helping schools meet high standards and close achievement gaps. And we will expand our commitment to charter schools.
It is our responsibility as lawmakers and educators to make this system work. But it is the responsibility of every citizen to participate in it. And so tonight, I ask every American to commit to at least one year or more of higher education or career training. This can be community college or a four-year school; vocational training or an apprenticeship. But whatever the training may be, every American will need to get more than a high school diploma. And dropping out of high school is no longer an option. It’s not just quitting on yourself, it’s quitting on your country – and this country needs and values the talents of every American. That is why we will provide the support necessary for you to complete college and meet a new goal: by 2020, America will once again have the highest proportion of college graduates in the world.
I know that the price of tuition is higher than ever, which is why if you are willing to volunteer in your neighborhood or give back to your community or serve your country, we will make sure that you can afford a higher education. And to encourage a renewed spirit of national service for this and future generations, I ask this Congress to send me the bipartisan legislation that bears the name of Senator Orrin Hatch as well as an American who has never stopped asking what he can do for his country – Senator Edward Kennedy.
These education policies will open the doors of opportunity for our children. But it is up to us to ensure they walk through them. In the end, there is no program or policy that can substitute for a mother or father who will attend those parent/teacher conferences, or help with homework after dinner, or turn off the TV, put away the video games, and read to their child. I speak to you not just as a President, but as a father when I say that responsibility for our children’s education must begin at home.
I’m generally heartened by these remarks, but of course, I have some thoughts of my own to add.
For better communication in lab groups, clearer expectations.
I’ve been watching an interesting discussion unfolding at DrugMonkey, prompted by a post at Science Bear’s Cave, about whether not irritating your lab group’s principal investigator ought to be your highest priority. As DrugMonkey notes, such a strategy can have bad consequences:
If there is a scientific trainee who fears to mention to the Boss that the printers aren’t working, this trainee sure as hell isn’t going to mention “Oh gee, I think that figure you are so amped about from that other postdoc is totally faked”. And who knows how far this PI-pleasing attitude might carry one.
Is the desire to keep the boss PI happy greater than any affection for, say, genuine data?
The discussion in the comments covered some familiar ground about the general unpleasantness of the experience of science as gladiatorial combat, the relative powerlessness of the scientific trainee relative to the PI or even the most favored postdoc, the need to believe in your own results (even if, objectively, you should not) in a climate of shrinking funding, whether science is or is not a tea party peopled with Care Bears (and if so, what exactly that would entail) …
For some reason, reading this exchange, I slipped into my committee-chair mindset. (Of course, this is very odd, seeing as how my current sabbatical has included a break from committee service. Could it be that I miss it?) I thought to myself, “The people here have rational reasons for the ways they’re behaving, even if those behaviors lead to predictably bad results. Are there any easy-to-implement changes that would make it rational for them to behave in ways that probably bring about better results?”
Then, I slipped into pedagogy mode (since I’m also on a hiatus from teaching) and thought, “Students focus on learning the things you test them on, not the things you say are important for them to learn. And when you don’t give them any sensible information about what you’re evaluating, or about the basis for evaluation, they will become bundles of hate, fear, and frustration.”
At this point, I had a flash of insight to a change that I think has potential. I can’t guarantee that it would work, but I think it would be foolish not to try it.
Another science fair idea
We’re back at the Monterey Bay Aquarium today. Shortly after our arrival, the kids are up to their elbow in touch-tank water. Then, the younger Free-Ride offspring gets critical.
“The decorator crabs here aren’t very decorated.”
Celebrating the Year of Science.
I’ve been derelict in my duty to inform you that 2009 has been declared the Year of Science, which is, of course, just an excuse to celebrate science-y goodness every day. Each month has a theme and a variety of options for exploring that theme.
Is cheating the kind of thing we do?
Or is it the kind of thing those other people do?
In the car yesterday, I caught a story on Marketplace that was looking for insight into why people on Wall Street cheat. In the piece, host Kai Ryssdal interviewed Duke University behavioral economist Dan Ariely about research conducted (with college students, of course) on cheating.
Faculty unions: organizing when your day-job is a labor of love.
In spring of 2007, after nearly two years without a contract, the faculty of the 23 campuses of the California State University system (of which my university is a part) voted to ratify a contract. Among other things, that contract included raises to help our salaries catch up to the cost of living in California. (Notice the word “help” in that sentence; the promised raises, while making things better, don’t quite get the whole job done.)
The negotiations for this contract were frustratingly unproductive until my faculty union organized a rolling strike that was planned as a set of two-day walkouts at each of the 23 campuses in the system. For most classes, this would have meant losing one instructional day, which would minimize the impact on individual students. As well, a two-day rolling strike would make it pretty pointless for the administration to try to bring in replacement workers. Even with syllabi in hand, our courses are not easily staffed with subs on short notice. (Reasonably, someone would need my notes — some of which are pretty darned cryptic — and if I’m walking a picket line, I’m not going into my office to dig out my notes and hand them over to a scab.)
When strike dates were announced (and, we are told, with some serious political pressure behind the scenes to avert a strike that would have garnered national and international media coverage), the administration came back to the bargaining table with a contract the negotiating team deemed reasonably good (a judgment with which the faculty showed its agreement by voting to ratify the contract).
The staggering thing to me is that we went almost two years without a contract before we could bring ourselves to the point where we were ready to strike.
Now, because California is in the throes of yet another budget crisis, the Chancellor’s office is making noises about revisiting the contract currently in force and renegotiating those promised raises. (Apparently, the state might not be able to afford them, even though we seem to be able to afford raises for administrators.) So the faculty may find themselves in the position of having to fight to get what was promised in the last round of fighting.
There are certain features of a good many faculty members that seem to make it hard for us to embark easily on a job action. Because we’re back in negotiation mode a lot sooner than expected, I think it’s worth examining them.
Students plagiarize, professor publicizes.
… and the university, in turn, fires the professor.
You’ve probably already seen this story. Loye Young, an adjunct professor at Texas A&M International University in Laredo, warned his students (as we all do) against plagiarism. Indeed, as reported by Inside Higher Ed, he included this statement in his fall course syllabus for his management information systems course:
No form of dishonesty is acceptable. I will promptly and publicly fail and humiliate anyone caught lying, cheating, or stealing. That includes academic dishonesty, copyright violations, software piracy, or any other form of dishonesty.
While grading an assignment, Young discovered (at least) six students taking the course had committed plagiarism. Then he followed through on what he had promised in his course syllabus and publicized the names of the six on his (public) blog for the course.
Scientific literacy: a comment on Revere’s rant.
Over at Effect Measure, Revere takes issue with a science educator’s hand-wringing over what science students (and scientists) don’t know. In a piece at The Scientist, James Williams (the science educator in question) writes:
Graduates, from a range of science disciplines and from a variety of universities in Britain and around the world, have a poor grasp of the meaning of simple terms and are unable to provide appropriate definitions of key scientific terminology. So how can these hopeful young trainees possibly teach science to children so that they become scientifically literate? How will school-kids learn to distinguish the questions and problems that science can answer from those that science cannot and, more importantly, the difference between science and pseudoscience?
Revere responds: