ACTA's Must-Reads

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The higher education community debates the drinking age

Anyone following the higher education press lately has surely noticed the buzz surrounding the Amethyst Initiative, a joint statement of the presidents of over one hundred colleges and universities throughout the country urging a reconsideration of the 21-year drinking age. The proponents of the Initiative argue that the ban on consumption of alcohol by those under 21 promotes a "culture of dangerous, clandestine 'binge-drinking' -- often conducted off-campus."

As one might expect, the Amethyst Initiative has generated its fair share of controversy. There are forceful arguments on both sides, as articles from the Chronicle of Higher Education, the Pope Center, and the Los Angeles Times demonstrate. However, both sides can agree -- and ACTA wholeheartedly concurs -- that the drinking culture that pervades many of our campuses is a problem that needs to be addressed in a constructive way. ACTA encourages trustees to engage in a dialogue with administrators and faculty about how to approach this issue, with academic rigor in mind. Many students are dedicating so much time to partying that it is extremely difficult to believe they have enough substantive work to do -- a problem that is surely linked to the curricular decline chronicled in ACTA's studies on academic excellence. Addressing this would reinforce the university's primary mission as a place of teaching and learning -- rather than, to borrow a phrase from ACTA's president, "beer and spectacle."

Now that is reform to which we each can raise our glass!

Posted by Sandra E. Czelusniak on August 29, 2008 at 09:57 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Forbes gets into the college ranking game

For years, the U.S. News and World Report ranking of the best colleges and universities in the United States has been the dominant barometer of higher education quality in most people's minds. But it has drawn criticism for its evaluation methodology, which focuses primarily on "inputs" such as admissions selectivity, alumni giving, and financial resources -- which tell little about students' actual educational experiences. A new Forbes list, tabulated by ACTA friend Richard Vedder and his colleagues at the Center for College Affordability and Productivity, takes a different route by attempting to evaluate the schools based on educational outcomes and student satisfaction.

There is much to recommend this list; four-year graduation rates and the number of students receiving Rhodes and Fulbright fellowships are more likely proxies for educational quality than endowments and alumni gifts. However, as the authors themselves admit, the criteria are not perfect. For example, 25 percent of the ranking is determined by student evaluations of instructors on the website RateMyProfessors.com. Student ratings of professors, as ACTA discussed in our publication Degraded Currency, are not always an accurate method for evaluating instruction, as students often favor lenient graders and entertaining teachers.

Ultimately, as ACTA's studies on academic excellence demonstrate, a numerical ranking is no substitute for a thorough examination of general education and academic rigor. But students and parents looking for a number now have a notable new resource!

Posted by Sandra E. Czelusniak on August 20, 2008 at 09:29 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Sen. Gregg on the Higher Education Act

In today's New Hampshire Union Leader, home-state Sen. Judd Gregg writes about some provisions he authored in the recently reauthorized Higher Education Act. As his mention of the Bradley Project report E Pluribus Unum (coordinated by ACTA) and our study Losing America's Memory show, Sen. Gregg has long shared ACTA's interest in protecting the free exchange of ideas and promoting the teaching of American history in the academy, and those areas are precisely what these sections of the new law address.

Of course, ACTA believes it is ultimately up to colleges and universities themselves -- not Congress -- to make certain that the marketplace of ideas on campus is healthy and that the next generation of American citizens are properly learning their history. But it is surely noteworthy that Sen. Gregg and his congressional colleagues have underscored the importance of these issues -- and troubling that it was necessary for them to do so.

Notably, back in 2003 Sen. Gregg chaired a Senate hearing on intellectual diversity where ACTA president Anne D. Neal (click for her testimony), City University of New York professor KC Johnson, FIRE president Greg Lukianoff, and then-University of Virginia student Anthony Dick testified. We appreciate the Senator's passion and leadership.

Posted by Charles Mitchell on August 19, 2008 at 05:25 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Degrees of impropriety?

Today's Inside Higher Ed reports that a Carnegie Mellon University dean has resigned on account of a degree that appears to have been wrongly awarded to a student who hadn't earned the requisite number of credits. As the article notes, this is the third such controversy in recent months, following similar incidents at West Virginia University and Virginia Commonwealth University. But to CMU's credit (no pun intended), its response seems to have been notably quicker than that of WVU and ODU. The details are still crystallizing, but given the number of cases that are now surfacing, the review CMU has undertaken to see if this was "an isolated case" might be a model for boards of other institutions looking to nip such problems in the bud.

Posted by Charles Mitchell on August 19, 2008 at 09:48 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Just academicize it

The current edition of Policy Review has an article based on Stanley Fish's new book, Save the World on Your Own Time. Fish argues -- and ACTA would most certainly agree -- that too often, university classrooms have become platforms for advocacy rather than places where students are exposed to a wide body of knowledge and equipped with the analytical skills necessary to evaluate ideas and concepts.

That isn't to say that Fish advocates shutting debates about current social and political controversies out of the classroom. Rather, he recommends that professors "academicize" such topics -- "to detach [them] from the context of [their] real world urgency, where there is a vote to be taken or an agenda to be embraced, and insert [them] into a context of academic urgency, where there is an account to be offered or an analysis to be performed." This can effectively de-politicize an issue by examining the historical and philosophical ideas that underlie current public debates -- and the classroom can be a more intellectually vibrant place because of it. University trustees would be wise to encourage their institutions to heed this advice from Fish.

Posted by Sandra E. Czelusniak on August 14, 2008 at 12:14 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

At CU, strong leaders raise the bar

Earlier this week, The Gazette of Colorado Springs took time to reflect upon the notable reforms that have occurred at the University of Colorado in recent years. After a series of high-profile scandals, the CU Board of Regents put a strong leader in charge, appointing former U.S. Senator Hank Brown as president in 2005 and thereby initiating a cycle of wise decision-making. In just three years, Brown addressed an array of challenges ranging from academic misconduct to athletic issues, restoring CU's reputation -- and helping alumni donations to double during his tenure. He also provided a case in point for why trustees should look for broad leadership experience -- and not just from within the academy -- as a key indicator of successful university leadership, a point made in ACTA's trustee guide on presidential searches. As CU -- now headed by philanthropist and businessman Bruce Benson -- shows, when trustees exercise their fiduciary responsibilities and expect much of their presidents, much can be achieved.

Posted by Amy Averell on August 07, 2008 at 12:40 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Georgia Tech, the First Amendment, and candor

The Georgia Institute of Technology has been under fire for a number of years in light of a First Amendment lawsuit filed by two students who have now graduated. In a series of rulings, a federal judge has ordered Georgia Tech to eliminate parts of its "tolerance training manual" and its system of "free speech zones," both of which were used to silence and intimidate certain viewpoints. And perhaps even more notably, the judge has also charged Tech administrators with a "lack of candor" about the case, as an op-ed in the Atlanta Journal-Constitution recently detailed. The turn of events ought to be instructive, not just to the regents of the University System of Georgia -- which got an "F" for intellectual diversity in ACTA's new report card -- but for trustees across the country, who have a fiduciary obligation to see that the marketplace of ideas is healthy and that administrators are acting with integrity.

Posted by Sandra E. Czelusniak on August 05, 2008 at 05:38 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Speaking of hollow cores...

Today in Inside Higher Ed, Union College physics professor Chad Orzel writes about the often willful ignorance of basic math and science among students and faculty in the humanities and social sciences. Science and math majors don't expect much sympathy when they grouse about having to take humanities courses, yet according to Professor Orzel, some humanities professors take a perverse pride in not having gone beyond "Rocks for Jocks" or "Math Made Easy." This is undoubtedly a product of the nationwide gutting of the core curriculum, as fewer and fewer students are required to take rigorous coursework in all of the major areas of academic inquiry -- including math and science. ACTA documented this phenomenon in our 50-college study The Hollow Core, which demonstrated the decline of general education and its ramifications. Professor Orzel's lament is just the tip of the iceberg.

Posted by Sandra E. Czelusniak on August 04, 2008 at 03:35 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack