ACTA's Must-Reads
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Trustees you can trust?
The plot continues to thicken in the University of Illinois "clout scandal," in which several students with subpar academic records were admitted to the university and the law school because of connections to influential people, including former governor Rod Blagojevich and influence-peddler Antoin "Tony" Rezko. The unfolding drama has put the trustees of the University of Illinois certainly front and center, with evidence that they were considerably involved.
Today The Chicago Tribune reports that trustee Lawrence Eppley has announced his resignation from the Board and implored his fellow trustees to step down as well. As he wrote in the letter, "the public's confidence in the University must be restored, and one way to begin to restore that confidence is to make a clean start." Eppley rightly recognizes that trustees, as their name implies, are bearers of the public trust--and when they lose that trust, it is appropriate to step down for the good of the university.
Posted by Sandra E. Czelusniak on July 29, 2009 at 05:49 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Look what we found!
The American Association of University Professors' 1915 Declaration of Principles on Academic Freedom and Academic Tenure is now on the AAUP website! We are glad to see that it has made an appearance there--from which it has long been absent--as it is one of the most important documents to outline the importance of faculty independence, while also detailing the ways faculty should use their independence to promote better teaching and the free exchange of ideas. Cary Nelson, president of the AAUP--and ACTA's pledged partner in fighting against oppressive speech codes--also links to the statement in an interesting piece in the July/August issue of Academe discussing what he sees as the tension between the academic freedom of institutions and the academic freedom of individual professors to teach their classes as they see fit. We hope the prominent reappearance of the 1915 statement presages a greater focus by the AAUP on academic freedom as a right with a "corresponding duty."
Posted by Noah Mamis on July 29, 2009 at 04:57 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Out to lunch?
It's news to no one that many students leave college heavily in debt. But what about colleges themselves being in debt? From North Carolina comes the news that Greensboro College has rung up a $19 million debt since 2001 and has been forced to pledge its entire campus and endowment as collateral to secure bank loans. The real shocker, though, is that the Board of Trustees was, in the words of the Greensboro News & Record reporter who broke the story, "mostly removed from financial decision-making." The majority of the 40 trustees, according to the newspaper, had little idea what was really going on. As one former trustee said: "If you're told, 'Everything's running OK,' and you're not told about problems, you don't go looking for them."
This is, needless to say, not quite the right understanding of governance. Trustees' fiduciary responsibility to make sure the finances of their university are in order entails asking questions and getting answers -- particularly when the administration goes on a spending spree to acquire more than $10 million worth of nearby property and double the size of the campus, as enrollment stagnates and the endowment tumbles.
Posted by David Azerrad on July 28, 2009 at 04:59 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Work not so hard, play harder?
Our friend Rich Vedder has written a splendid blog post about the new Princeton Review rankings, addressing the "Work hard, play hard" maxim that is often trotted out with regard to substance abuse on campus. The idea there, of course, is that college students scramble so much to accomplish their schoolwork that they need a little release, and we shouldn't worry about it. But after comparing the new list of top party schools to his own Forbes rankings, Vedder concludes, "Schools where students play hard do not necessarily work hard as well." He adds:
This, more broadly, is a big problem for American higher education. Over 40 percent of students do not graduate within six years, a majority are doing academic pursuits less than 30 hours per week (if surveys are at all accurate), but they receive what historically are perceived to be good grades (B average or better) with little work.
We couldn't agree more. The best way to cut down on substance abuse at our colleges and universities would be to have academic standards, well, get high. One way trustees can get started is by cutting down on grade inflation; a rigorous curriculum, along with more challenging classes and demanding assignments, would also help.
Posted by Charles Mitchell on July 28, 2009 at 04:15 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Alexander Heard and the free exchange of ideas
By Evan J. O'Brien
Alexander Heard, the fifth chancellor of Vanderbilt University (1963-1982), passed away on July 24. One of the most enduring parts of his legacy was his decision to support the creation of the Impact Symposium, the guest lecture series still running today. Since the symposium's founding in 1964, Vanderbilt students have invited distinguished guest speakers of all perspectives, including Martin Luther King, Jr., Margaret Thatcher, Robert F. Kennedy, and U.S. presidents of both parties. These lectures have fostered free inquiry, lively debate, and students' engagement with issues of intellectual, social, and political importance.
The Impact Symposium is just the kind of forum that we have often praised for broadening students' intellectual horizons. In our recent report on Protecting the Free Exchange of Ideas, we encourage universities to set up visiting scholar programs or guest lecture series as a way to "enhance intellectual diversity and re-introduce various scholarly perspectives that are lacking in the university's own academic departments."
Evan J. O'Brien is ACTA's Robert Lewit Fellow in Education Policy and a recent graduate of Harvard University.
Posted by David Azerrad on July 27, 2009 at 04:15 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Beyond "access"
Today's Washington Post features a column by Jay Mathews on the oft-noted problem of bright, motivated, poor students denied the opportunity to attend a four-year college for financial reasons. Mathews is skeptical of this claim, arguing instead that inadequate preparation at the high school level in many an inner city is far more responsible for the lack of potential academic stars entering college--and that a high-achieving but economically disadvantaged student will typically be singled out for all manner of scholarships and need-based financial aid.
Mathews deserves credit for highlighting the issue of poor quality in many K-12 programs--and it's one that doesn't go away once the student steps onto the ivy-walled campus. After all, an exclusive focus on access and affordability does not answer the question of why only a little over half of American first-time, full-time freshmen graduate within six years, or why large numbers of employers report that recent college graduates do not have adequate skills in writing, mathematics, or analytical thinking. Access and affordability are important, but so is what actually goes into those four years of college. That is why ACTA devotes so much attention to the state of the general education curriculum. Stay tuned for a brand-new study from us on this critical topic.
Posted by Sandra E. Czelusniak on July 27, 2009 at 04:05 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Demystifying "shared governance"
In today's Chronicle of Higher Education, Gary A. Olson, provost and vice president at Idaho State University, tries to shed some light on one of the oft-repeated phrases in higher ed-speak: shared governance. Shared governance in higher education refers to the inclusion of the various constituent parties of the university--trustees, administration, faculty, staff, and students--in the decision-making process of the university. However, as he points out, there is often not a shared understanding (so to speak) of what it means in practice.
Olson, unlike many, does not leave trustees out of the picture. In fact, he points out that "the legal right and obligation to exercise authority over an institution is vested in and flows from its board." The board may grant the day-to-day oversight of the institution to the administration, or give faculty and student groups the right to give input on student or academic affairs, but trustees have the final word. As Olson notes, "genuine shared governance gives voice (but not necessarily ultimate authority) to concerns common to all constituencies as well as to issues unique to specific groups." This ultimate authority lies with boards--which makes it all the more important that they know how to do their job well.
ACTA research fellow Erin O'Connor has further thoughts.
Posted by Sandra E. Czelusniak on July 24, 2009 at 10:42 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
The potty-trained trustee
In today's Inside Higher Ed, ACTA president Anne D. Neal cuts through the latest Association of Governing Boards report to reveal the philosophy that underlies it: Trustees should keep to their place and do as they are told by administrators -- "call it the potty-trained trustee, the board member who shows up at football games, cuts a few big checks, and doesn't meddle in university affairs." This view, which in many ways is the reigning governance model, cannot continue. The rising costs and declining quality that we see today in higher ed make it high time for trustees to wake up to this mindset and reassert their central governing role.
Posted by David Azerrad on July 23, 2009 at 11:13 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Keep the baby. Throw out the bathwater.
As the scandal at the University of Illinois continues to unfold and the allegations against the Board of Trustees grow more serious it is only natural that some are calling for broad changes to the governance structure. This is, after all, Illinois, which has had some fairly notable experience with "down and dirty" politics and where the last two governors who appointed these trustees were disgraced.
But is there something fundamentally wrong with the governance system? Far from it.
Trustees who are derelict in their duties deserve our reproach and should be reprimanded or dismissed. But any changes to the existing governance structure would be like throwing the baby out with the bathwater. As a single elected official, the governor can be held accountable. If gubernatorial appointees fail, the governor bears the responsibility. That is why the current governor has already called for an independent commission to examine the scandal. That is, in turn, why the Illinois constitution already gives the governor the authority to remove trustees "for incompetence, neglect of duty, or malfeasance."
Throwing out the bathwater makes sense. But the baby too? Absolutely not.
Posted by David Azerrad on July 21, 2009 at 05:15 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Bureaucrat U
Our friend Daniel Bennett from the Center for College Affordability and Productivity has published in Forbes an insightful piece linking administrative bloat to the vertiginous and seemingly unstoppable rise of tuition costs. One line particularly stands out: "If the employment trends of the last decade are sustained, then administrative employees will outnumber instructors at four-year colleges by 2014."
We could not agree more with Bennett's call "for higher education to go on a diet." In Asking Questions, Getting Answers -- the guide we send to boards across the country -- we impress upon trustees the importance of keeping costs under control by "reducing administrative staff" and by not "simply rubberstamping administration proposals." It is worth stating the obvious: the focus of a university is education and budgets should reflect that.
Posted by David Azerrad on July 17, 2009 at 03:45 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
This student gets it
Yesterday, the New York Times ran this refreshing dose of common sense from an MIT student on its letters page:
The solution to binge drinking problems on campuses is simple: college curriculums need to be more rigorous. If college programs required their students to put in a significant number of hours per week doing work related to their classes, campus drinking would soon find itself limited to one or two nights a week.Furthermore, those few nights a week would be more moderate, since the students would drink knowing that they needed to get up in the morning and keep hacking away at that thermodynamics problem set.
I suspect that one of the main reasons students who aren't in college drink less than college students is that they have to get up in the morning and go to work at a real job, where they are accountable for their behavior.
We couldn't have said it better ourselves. If universities were demanding more from their students, we wouldn't have half of the college freshmen who drink reporting having spent more time drinking than studying. One place trustees can start is cracking down on grade inflation, and as the student points out, the curriculum also deserves attention. ACTA will release a brand-new report on that issue this fall.
Posted by Sandra E. Czelusniak on July 09, 2009 at 05:11 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack
Ward Churchill: What is clear, and what is not
Much has changed with regard to Ward Churchill in the last 24 hours, as this morning's New York Times or Chronicle of Higher Education will tell you. But the real lesson of his case remains the same: Boards of trustees must ensure that their institutions have in place sound rules governing faculty tenure and promotion, and that those rules are followed. In the case of Churchill, those rules were not properly applied until quite late in the game, as complaints about his scholarship went uninvestigated. That failure gave birth to the interminable and costly saga that continues to play out.
The judge's decision? It gets some things right, but is also problematic. Yes, peer review is critical to shared governance, academic autonomy, and professional standards. Yes, to reinstate Churchill would send an awful message to students -- that academic standards don't matter. But is the authority of trustees in fact comparable to that of judges here, as the opinion says? I am not so sure.
The case has, regrettably, offered a venue for unending bombast (and falsehoods) by Churchill and his lawyer. So it's surely no surprise that both lay people and lawyers are mighty confused as to the legal matters under review and the import of the various findings by judge and jury. With this in mind, we will wait and watch for further developments.
That said, for trustees, there is no time to wait. Boards everywhere ought to respond to this sorry tale with immediate and appropriate preventative action. They should -- as we outlined in Academe, the magazine of the American Association of University Professors -- ensure their institutions have rigorous post-tenure review policies that combine "carrots" and "sticks," conduct regular assessments of whether the process is working, make any necessary improvements, and publish both their policies and their assessments.
As the old saw goes, an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure. Watching this spectacle, that should be very clear to all trustees.
Posted by Anne D. Neal on July 08, 2009 at 12:34 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
The dean's list, part 3
ACTA continues to recognize and commend those institutions taking action to protect the free exchange of ideas on campus--and to urge others to follow in their footsteps. Among other actions, we recommend that colleges and universities review and amend student grievance policies to ensure that students are graded only on the basis of their academic performance, rather than on differences of opinion. One institution to take such a step was Oklahoma State University, whose provost wrote to us about how OSU has strengthened its dispute resolution processes for students and faculty. In particular, the relevant policy states that the "grading system can be subjective but not arbitrary, capricious, or personally biased." OSU also adopted an academic integrity policy that places intellectual freedom as one of "the values of honesty and responsibility that preserve our academic community." This is an example trustees and administrators at other institutions should emulate.
Posted by Sandra E. Czelusniak on July 07, 2009 at 12:36 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
The revenue-to-cost spiral -- and how to stop it
From our friends at the Pope Center comes a new and timely paper about why tuition and fees at our universities rise so quickly. The Revenue-to-Cost Spiral, written by Centre College professor emeritus Robert E. Martin, examines the incentives and governance structures that lead to higher education inflation. Martin's essay is of interest to the stakeholders in higher education--trustees, donors, parents, taxpayers, and students -- who are often unaware of how why higher revenues in higher education can lead to higher costs, which are then used to justify a never-ending quest for more revenue. But in addition to shedding light on the problem, Martin also proffers some solutions that board members can use to break the "revenue-to-cost spiral," specifically the increasing of financial transparency and better engagement of the trustees in cutting costs. His paper is well worth a read.
Posted by Sandra E. Czelusniak on July 06, 2009 at 05:25 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Illinois trustees at the center of scandal
The Chicago Tribune has reported that trustees and administrators at the University of Illinois are at the center of a scandal regarding the admission of politically-connected students who were less qualified than the general pool of applicants. After the newspaper ran an investigative piece several weeks ago that sparked outrage, Governor Pat Quinn created an independent Admissions Review Commission to investigate allegations of preferential treatment.
Examination is surely in order. As ACTA has long argued, trustees must be more than just fundraisers, boosters, or rubber stamps. Board service is an honor, and it is also a responsibility. As ACTA noted in its guidebook for governors, it is vital that governors "appoint thoughtful, active trustees" who have "a clear sense of their responsibilities to the public." Trustees do not serve for the benefit of friends or special constituencies; they are stewards of the public interest -- appointed to safeguard the academic and financial integrity of the university -- for the benefit of the entire community.
Posted by Heather Lakemacher on July 02, 2009 at 03:55 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
And you thought health care was the priciest thing going
One of today's most e-mailed Chronicle of Higher Education articles (bearing the provocative title "Will Higher Education Be the Next Bubble to Burst?") contains a rather jarring statistic, particularly given current debates here in Washington:
According to the National Center for Public Policy and Higher Education, over the past 25 years, average college tuition and fees have risen by 440 percent -- more than four times the rate of inflation and almost twice the rate of medical care.
It also contains a characteristically interesting idea from ACTA friend Rich Vedder:
The economist Richard Vedder of Ohio University, a member of the federal Spellings Commission, offers more radical solutions. He urges that university presidents' salaries include incentives to contain and reduce costs, to make "affordability" a goal. In addition, he proposes that state policy makers conduct cost-benefit studies to see what the universities that receive state support are actually accomplishing.
Posted by Charles Mitchell on July 01, 2009 at 05:10 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
The dean's list, part 2
As ACTA's new report Protecting the Free Exchange of Ideas shows, many colleges and universities across the country have been taking concrete steps to advance intellectual diversity and the free exchange of ideas on campus. One such is Governors State University, a public university near Chicago whose strategic plan, Strategy 2015, reaffirms the university's mission of "creating an intellectually stimulating public square." In a letter to ACTA, GSU's provost indicated she had placed the American Council on Education Statement on Academic Rights and Responsibilities on her website, as well as distributing copies of the statement to all faculty members. The provost's letter also informed us of GSU's commitment to reviewing syllabi to ensure that grades are only based on considerations intellectually relevant to the course material, and to implementing a more rigorous, trustee-monitored program review system.
GSU is an example of how universities can protect the free exchange of ideas via their strategic planning processes and mission statements. Kudos to the administration and trustees there for working to improve students' educational experience.
Posted by Sandra E. Czelusniak on July 01, 2009 at 05:01 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Accountability in the states
Today's Inside Higher Ed has an article about a new report from Education Sector that shows varying levels of accountability in public higher education on the state level. According to the report, 38 states have little or no way of measuring learning outcomes, while 36 have not developed a system of linking funding to performance. Forty states have accountability efforts--which include affordability, the "use of assessment tools," and publicizing the information--that were rated as "less complete" or in need of improvement. Education Sector has done all of us who are interested in higher education reform a great favor in highlighting the need for greater accountability and transparency--something that is especially valuable now that state appropriations and expenditures are coming under sharper scrutiny.
ACTA has also been working to increase accountability and excellence on the state level, most recently in our report cards on public higher education in Georgia and Missouri. These reports analyze the "big picture" of a state's public higher education--the curriculum, the intellectual climate, the governance, and the system's cost and effectiveness. And there will be more like them in the near future that will hopefully act as catalysts for reform in other states.
Posted by Sandra E. Czelusniak on July 01, 2009 at 02:56 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Who's minding the store?
By Jeremy E. Schiffres
Minding the Campus has just run a review by ACTA research fellows Erin O'Connor and Maurice Black of a new book by John C. Cross and Edie Goldenberg entitled Off-Track Profs: Nontenured Teachers in Higher Education. The review highlights the book's sobering data -- shrinking budgets, stalled hiring rates of tenured professors, and exploding student enrollment -- and the growing reliance on adjuncts that has followed. More striking, however, is the finding that most institutions have little understanding of the role adjuncts actually play -- ignorance on questions as basic as how many adjuncts there are, what they do, and how they do it? This ignorance is surely surprising, particularly given the highly-wrought discussions that tend to occur around this topic. But it's also cause for action. University administrators need to have a firm understanding of how adjuncts actually operate. And as this book suggests, it's high time trustees insisted on it!
Jeremy E. Schiffres is an ACTA intern and a rising junior at Yale University.
Posted by Noah Mamis on July 01, 2009 at 10:40 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack