ACTA's Must-Reads
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Donor intent at Yale
In an article in today's Yale Daily News, president Richard C. Levin discussed the Bass gift debacle, when the University was forced to return a $20 million gift in 1995. He said, "The main lesson learned from Yale's return of Lee Bass's gift in 1995 is that we must be diligent in complying expeditiously with the specified terms of a donor's gift. It was a painful and embarrassing episode for me and for the University, and we have since made major improvements to the processes we use to ensure good stewardship of any restricted gifts that we do accept."
This is a good start. However, the buck ultimately stops with the Yale Corporation. They--and the trustees of every other university in their roles as fiduciaries--should be closely monitoring large gifts. ACTA recommends that boards supervise incoming restricted gifts to ensure that all funds are spent responsibly and in accordance with the donor's wishes. Furthermore, a reasonable threshold should be set by each board above which gifts would receive continued oversight.
Posted by Noah Mamis on February 23, 2010 at 06:08 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Higher education's tunnel vision
Our friend Daniel Bennett of the Center for College Affordability and Productivity has published an excellent piece on Forbes.com in which he hits all the right notes: "Out of control tuition inflation leads to vast expenditures but produces a watered-down educational product that fails to teach graduates the skills they need... Colleges engage in excessive hand holding -- with grade inflation, deteriorating degree requirements, a growing number of non-academic degrees being offered and ever-increasing student services... Before we sink more of our limited resources into this bottomless pit, we must acknowledge that the current policies aren't working."
One point which particularly stands out is the reminder that employers and grad schools, the "consumers of college graduates" as Bennett calls them, are "interested in the skills and abilities that graduates bring to the table." Hence, if we may chime in, the need to have rigorous general education requirements.
On this note, we are pleased to announce that we have further expanded WhatWillTheyLearn.com. ACTA's online college guide now features upwards of 170 colleges and universities than together enroll more than 2 million students.
Posted by David Azerrad on February 19, 2010 at 05:14 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Teaching should also count!
Ohio State University president Gordon Gee thinks it's time to pay more attention to teaching in awarding tenure. In an interview with the Associated Press, Gee describes as outdated the currently prevailing formula -- which rewards the quantity of publications, not matter what their quality, over excellence in teaching. As the head of the largest university in the country, others will surely be paying attention. And so will we. Students should always come first and making them the priority entails bumping up teaching a few notches on the academic totem pole.
Some professors on campus are already grumbling. "There's a feeling, I think, that good teachers are a dime dozen," says one English prof at OSU. Having spent more than decade in university classrooms and has taken classes from at least 75 different professors, I would like to politely disagree. I can count the really good teachers I've had on one hand. Ultimately, they are the ones who really make a difference. Once the answers to the multiple choices exams have been forgotten and the essays one has written have become but a hazy memory, the persona and insights of the great teachers are what leave a lasting imprint.
Posted by David Azerrad on February 12, 2010 at 04:35 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Grading the university
In our report card on public higher education in Missouri, we praised the University of Missouri's Board of Curators for putting a premium on transparency and accountability. A recent article on a new accountability system being implemented shows why the board deserves our praise. By the end of this year, a color-coordinated report card will track whether each campus is meeting its goals in the four core areas of the university's mission: teaching and learning, research, service, and economic development. Each will be graded according to some 80 measures.
The first Accountability Measurement Systems report is already available online. As board member David Wasinger noted when it was originally announced in August, "This is what I have been looking for for a long time." Other universities should take note -- and other trustees should take the lead, as he and his colleagues have.
Posted by David Azerrad on February 11, 2010 at 05:13 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Responsible giving to higher education
Yesterday morning, ACTA hosted a conference on protecting donor intent in college giving, in conjunction with the Federalist Society and the Philanthropy Roundtable. First we heard from directors of three programs across the country: the Tocqueville Forum at Georgetown, the James Madison Program at Princeton, and the Academy on Capitalism and Limited Government at the University of Illinois. The panelists discussed how their programs successfully separated their fundraising from their host universities, as well as how these sorts of programs can serve as outlets for donors seeking to improve their alma maters.
Our second panel consisted of a quartet of lawyers who all have unique expertise in advising clients on ensuring that the intent of their gifts is respected. Some of their suggestions included avoiding making gifts in perpetuity, considering donating to a legally distinct "supporting organization," and appointing an outside ombudsman. Other suggestions can be found in ACTA's Intelligent Donor's Guide to College Giving.
Posted by Noah Mamis on February 04, 2010 at 01:37 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
How Mr. Carey aced college
ACTA friend Kevin Carey has an absolutely masterful piece in the Chronicle of Higher Education on his undergraduate experience. After commenting on the kinds of problems in general education made clear on WhatWillTheyLearn.com, he delves into his political science concentration, where he now sees similar problems:
But the poli-sci department didn't exactly enforce a rigorous, coherent curriculum. You had to take political philosophy, for example, but you could take it at any point during your undergraduate career. I waited until my final semester, when, despite a carefully planned strategy of non-course-taking, I still needed eight credits to finish. I signed up for "Gender, Policy, and Law" because I figured there would be a lot of women in the class. (There were, but not the kind I had hoped for.) It also met in the middle of the afternoon on Tuesdays, perfect for a lifestyle centered on four-day weekends and the 2 a.m. broadcast of ESPN SportsCenter.And I took that pesky philosophy course, where I read The Republic, On Liberty, and a number of other great books that colleges have traditionally required students to read in their first semester, not the last, in that they pretty much lay the groundwork for everything else.
Who's to blame for this? First and foremost, I am. I was an adult at the time, technically, and I could have chosen to work much harder. Plenty of other students did, and do. As time goes by, my squandered undergraduate education stands as one of my bigger life regrets. The more the demands of career and family build, the more wistful I become when I look at the pile of unread volumes on my nightstand and linger in the philosophy and literature sections of my favorite bookstore--knowing with more certainty each year that you can read only so much in life, and that some of my chances to experience great artistic and intellectual beauty are simply gone and won't return.
At the same time, this kind of wisdom tends to accumulate with age and experience, things I had in short supply when I pulled up in front of my freshman dorm two months shy of my 18th birthday, stereo system and Pink Floyd posters in hand. That's why colleges are run by people who are more than technically adults.
The link above will allow you to read the whole piece. Don't miss it.
Posted by Charles Mitchell on February 04, 2010 at 01:33 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack