ACTA's Must-Reads

It's well known that you can ask a bunch of leading questions and get pretty much whatever response you want. I'm somewhat sympathetic to the concerns of ACTA but my experience has been that the students and public, at least those connected with the large state university where I work, could hardly care less about these issues. I've seen this with the supposed issues of political bias in the classroom, "diversity", and legislative attempts such as the David Horowitz "academic bill of rights" (which got absolutely nowhere in my state) and ACTA's intellectual diversity legislation (which has gotten attention from a small group of pretty marginal legislators, and is going absolutely nowhere).

Are low standards an issue? Maybe, but the legislature seems more concerned to up graduation rates, and they aren't talking about doing it by raising standards. If anything, the modest attempts to raise standards where I work has gotten heat over charges of "elitism".

Is tenure among college faculty an issue? I've never heard it raised locally in any public discussion where it could possibly make a difference.

If anything, the Republican losses in my state, which didn't begin in 2006 but which reached critical proportions then, have destroyed at least for now whatever faint chances there were for something to happen with ACTA-type issues.

The link to the AAUP poll is dead. I am surprised to hear that it posed a bunch of leading questions that resulted in responses unfavorable to the academy. What leading questions did it ask?

Does anyone have a working URL for that poll?

Addendum: I looked over the question asked by the Public Agenda for the National Center for Public Policy and Higher Education. Which ones are the objectionable leading ones?

DELUSIONAL

Whoever "Mike" is, he ought to visit public colleges before popping off.

He'd deny, there are third-tier, fourth-tier, fifth-tier, and ??-tier levels of quality?

Students apparently addicted to ESPN, the 'Net (and porno), beers four days a week, academic work so awful, even Fidel wouldn't accept it?

Mike, get real. There are too many marginal colleges, chasing a finite number of students.

They are hurting those kids, by propping up the notion "college guarantees you a good job" -- not helping them. When you face the facts, you grow stronger, not weaker.

Buzz, I happen to have taught in both private and public universities over quite a few years. I work at a public university right now.

Your post has little to do with what I actually wrote. Re standards, I said:

"Are low standards an issue? Maybe, but the legislature seems more concerned to up graduation rates, and they aren't talking about doing it by raising standards. If anything, the modest attempts to raise standards where I work has gotten heat over charges of 'elitism'."

It's not I who opposes higher standards. And since I work at what is supposedly the "elite" public university in my state, I wouldn't mind seeing less emphasis on propping up the smaller, more marginal public colleges. But if anything, the tendency of the legislature is the opposite in my neck of the woods.

Your description of students may be apt for some students in some places, but it doesn't describe the students I deal with very well.

Re leading questions from the Public Agenda survey, here's just one:

"(Read statement): We should not allow the cost of college education to keep students who are qualified and motivated to go to college from doing so."

88% strongly agree! Duh!

The question before that asks if students have to borrow too much money to go to college. Strong agreement! Few disagree!

Is that a leading question? Well, do a survey on whether the cost of gasoline is too high, or the cost of auto insurance, or the interest rate on credit cards. I wouldn't hold my breath waiting for the respondents who think prices are just fine, or too low.

The questions that made the news -- about bias in the classroom and especially about tenure -- seemed comparably loaded to me. And the spin that was put on this story by a person who I believe was one of the sponsors, seemed very one-sided to me.

Though I share Mike's concern about tendentious survey questions that continue all too often to bedevil social and psychological "science" methodology, I think the above surveys do fairly indicate a steady erosion of public confidence in academic institutions' self-regulation and cost-effectiveness. And rightly so.

Probably there is considerably less erosion of public confidence in Mike's natural science area than in the humanities, law and social sciences, where I think the chief problems lie. But the surveys convince me only because I know first-hand as a veteran college teacher that faculty indoctrination, intimidation and propagandising for dubious social and political causes in so-called humanities and social science courses is rife in not a few faculties and unchecked by craven administrators more concerned with public relations and occasional damage control than with correcting routine abuses of academic privilege.

In addition, radical antinomian political and social enclaves, AKA ethnic and gender "studies" departments, try to pass themselves off as legitimate academic disciplines, but have difficulty in convincing even deferential colleagues in traditional ones of this.

One issue I'd like to see ACTA address more is the ongoing debate on (I'd say "scandal of") intercollegiate athletics (e.g., the current debate on the NCAA's tax-exempt status), which to my perverse turn of mind, has no justifiable role in furthering any legitimate higher education mission known to me. I'm not sure, however, how this seedy, corrupt and wasteful campus entertainment industry stands in the public eye. . . .

How would you rephrase the questions? Are the questions the problem, or the responses so obvious that the questions are unnecessary?

And what about the AAUP? What are you complaining about there? It would be helpful if you did not complain in a void.

To Jacques: I would like to see some data collected over time before I believe that public confidence is eroding. I'm not saying there isn't an erosion, I'm just skeptical that a snapshot at one point in time demonstrates it.

To Federal Dog: I don't believe I have access to the AAUP survey. That's why I went to the Public Agenda survey (which seems to have gotten the most publicity, including self-publicity).

I don't have an answer to how I would rephrase the questions. I'm no expert on how to make "honest" surveys. I've seen people, including myself, deceived by polls that were designed, consciously or not, to get the desired answers. I've been surprised at studies that show that relatively minor differences in wording, which I would think are trivial, can get vastly different responses.

To both of you: I agree with the position that each of you seems to have taken at different times, that the "crisis" is mostly in the humanities and social sciences (and allied fields like law and even business). I think that estimate of public concern is exaggerated, and that the public to a large extent even shares some of the positions that groups like ACTA are trying to counteract. Try convincing the public in my parts that the ridiculous overemphasis on athletics is a bad thing. Try convincing them that studying Shakespeare is more valuable than learning how to hustle for money, more valuable even than film studies. Try selling them on a core curriculum, or any kind of serious general education, especially if it lowers rates of degree attainment. (I have a bit of experience with the joys and sorrows of science education for non-science students.)

To a very great degree, the "crisis" in the humanities/social sciences is one that we science/technology types would just like to stay away from. To be blunt and crass, it's not our fault if these fields have ruined themselves. We would rather the trouble just leave us alone, and we certainly don't want any "fixes" for their problems to edn up ruining things for us.

Unfortunately, I don't think we can insulate ourselves, not completely. That's one reason I'm somewhat interested in goings-on at places like this website. But I'm very wary. I don't want to have to teach that "The big bang never happened" or that the Earth really might be only 6000 years old or that global warming is real (or not real) when you're forced to teach the truth about communism, or whatever.

TRUTH-TELLING

So "Mike" and the tenured crowd are going to use the defensive weapon of tenure to tell state legislatures that many fourth-tier colleges are a waste of money? Can't wait to see that -- especially if their spouses and friends teach there.

If "Mike" and the tenured crowd really want the "truth" from students and their parents -- give up tenure.

Then listen. You're not going to like what you are about to hear. Words like "stale, pompous, self-rightous, incapable of acknowledging a broad scope of thinking, authentically open to debate," etc.

Any other claims to listening are just jejune.

The public knows what it talking about. It is the tired old tenured crowd that needs to listen and understand.

Buzz, thanks so much for the career advice. And I take it you're not a fan of tenure.

Any time the legislature wants my advice, on fourth-rate schools or anything else, I'm ready to give it to them. Having tenure enables me to do that without too much fear of losing my job.

As it happens, I've interacted with legislative members, and the press, in the past, at considerable risk to myself. Or so people without tenure said. I didn't feel that way myself, but even so, I have to admit to having felt a great deal of discomfort. There are not too many jobs in which you can publicly excoriate your boss and get away with it.

So "Mike" and the tenured crowd are going to use the defensive weapon of tenure to tell state legislatures that many fourth-tier colleges are a waste of money?

Where I live and work, community colleges and such are loci for vocational instruction. The liberal arts programs therein are generally not disciplinary degree programs but

a. required filler for the receipt of associates' degrees; or

b. means for attaining liberal arts credits and preparation for subsequent attendance at four-year colleges.

If the vocational programs are doing a satisfactory job of training young people to work as bookkeepers, practical nurses, and mechanics, there is no reason to condemn them. (The salient question is how well these youths are being trained for work). It is regrettable that the decay in primary and secondary education (among other things) and the vested interests of the education industry have conspired to delay utile vocational education to such a degree and to require it be padded with irrelevant course work.

Art: interesting that you bring up the community colleges. I never think of them as "fourth-tier" or a "waste of money". The legislators in these parts certainly look favorably on them. Occasionally some really good students come up through them. As you say, they play a very important role in vocational education. I wonder sometimes if they wouldn't be better than our big intro courses, at least for some students. For the bottom third of the class, I think they would be at least as worthwhile, because of their smaller class sizes.

I'm less inclined than you to think that the liberal arts requirements at CC's are irrelevant or padding, if they are done well (often dubious). They often are the last gasp of non-utilitarian learning for many students. On the other hand, older students sometimes take these classes and seem to get a lot out of them, often more than the callow 18 years olds at 4 year colleges.

NOT C.C.

Hey -- the "fourth-tier" that I'm talking about, are the four-year kind. Where you suspect students' mothers are writing their papers, because in-class exams show very poor thinking skills. When math skills are so poor, 37/100 is a passing score. Freakin' grim.

Before you go off the edge -- make sure it is the right one.

Now, if someone is so great, all-knowing, wise and brave that they can replace the Great Oz -- leave public academia's payroll.

Start up your own college -- the College Board says 47 were started last year. Show the dean that he's an idiot.

Please don't do the public, any more favors -- you can go. Qualified replacements will be found. Show us that courage of which you speak of -- you don't need to be the dean's puppet. You're better than him -- just leave and show him how great you are.

Buzz -- I don't know why I bother with you -- but let me tell you, the dean already left, involuntarily, I mean he's no longer dean, because he was on the same side as I was, and deans don't have tenure as dean.

SO -- LEAVE

Frankly, chip-on-the-shoulder academics are a dime-a-dozen. So predictable -- like today's self-entitled college graduate.

Tired of answering to academia's funders? Then start your own educational institution -- perfection is so rare. I can hardly wait, for a visible symbol of your brilliance.

Otherwise -- how about sucking it up and doing your job without whining? Before the funders decide to defund your department?

Or replace it with a UoP program? UoP couldn't be any worse, frankly.