ACTA's Must-Reads

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Active Boards and Presidential Review: News from Virginia Commonwealth University

ACTA has consistently counseled boards to be proactive managers -- though not micromanagers -- of their institutions. We issued "Assessing the President's Performance" to encourage all boards to recognize that presidential evaluation is a critical part of their fiduciary role: boards must not hesitate to intervene if they believe that presidential leadership might be going off-track. At Virginia Commonwealth University, where tension and controversy suddenly surround VCU's popular new president, Michael Rao, the Board of Visitors has taken the unusual, though completely appropriate, step of calling at once for an independent, external review of the president's performance. This attentive management is not an indictment of the president; it is simply good board practice. Strong and successful college presidents, moreover, are comfortable with such a relationship. They encourage board members to visit the campus and to share their discoveries and insights as part of their legitimate role in campus governance. To President Rao's credit, he has supported the Board in this review. We wish Virginia Commonwealth University success in its commitment to evaluation and improvement.

Posted by Michael Poliakoff on November 24, 2010 at 11:55 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

U.S. News Can't Answer This Question

"What Will They Learn?" That's the question ACTA asks, but it's not one that U.S. News does. And we're not the only ones to notice. Inside Higher Ed reports that the National Association for College Admission Counseling members find U.S. News' "America's Best Colleges" unhelpful and misleading. We know that college counselors find What Will Learn Learn? helpful, though, because they tell us: the most common response is "add more schools!" We invite more Americans to join the 100,000 who have visited the website and the thousands more counselors, parents, and college trustees who have turned to the print version to answer the question about college students that matters: what will they learn?

Posted by Michael Pomeranz on November 23, 2010 at 02:39 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Spacing Out in South Carolina

In South Carolina, ACTA is helping reduce costs and improve quality by creative thinking about capital projects and resource utilization. Back in September, ACTA Policy Director Michael Poliakoff spoke to a higher ed summit about ways education leaders could do more and better with less. Now, in an article published Sunday in the South Carolina State, ACTA and the South Carolina Policy Council call on trustees and administrators at state institutions to improve existing space utilization before calling for more -- and more expensive -- capital projects.

Posted by Anne D. Neal on November 22, 2010 at 06:52 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Changing the Agenda

Sunday's Washington Post features this piece that credits ACTA, "a Washington-based advocacy group," with igniting a "debate over core requirements." And so we are. From Congress to counselors to curriculum-crafters, ACTA advocates works with alumni, donors, trustees, and education leaders across the Untied States to support liberal arts education, uphold high academic standards, safeguard the free exchange of ideas on campus, and ensure that hte next generation receives a philosophically rich, high-quality college education at an affordable price.

Posted by Michael Pomeranz on November 22, 2010 at 11:28 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Bayou Breakthrough & Indiana Innovation

ACTA is pleased to be working with policymakers in Louisiana, Indiana and South Carolina who are determined to increase productivity, reduce costs and deliver high quality education for students. A number of positive efforts are underway in these states—some of which were showcased at Lumina's recent National Productivity Conference—and they offer excellent lessons and ideas for policymakers and trustees around the country.

Louisiana. In 2009, ACTA was pleased to provide testimony to the Louisiana Postsecondary Education Review Commission, calling for higher admissions standards in the four-year colleges and improved vitality in the two-year community colleges. https://www.goacta.org/publications/downloads/ADN%20to%20LA%2012-14-09.pdf

There's already some good news: To promote greater community college attendance, the state is now offering a low cost option for aspiring students: statewide transfer guarantees. Louisiana's higher education system created a fully transferable associate's degree in less than a year. The new program offers a common core of courses that will create a clear pathway to graduation. While the core is currently too large to ensure students actually study the key subjects they will need after graduation, the framework is an excellent step forward to ensure greater student success.

Hoosier Ingenuity. In August, ACTA was pleased to address the Trustees' Academy cosponsored by the Governor, the Indiana Chamber of Commerce, the Indiana Commission for Higher Education and the Lumina Foundation exploring fiscal stewardship for college and university trustees.

ACTA and Indiana's CHE have outlined multi-pronged plans showing the way that trustees and their institutions can do better with less.
http://www.in.gov/che/files/091222_pr_-_Higher_Ed_Cuts_(RELEASE).pdf;
http://www.in.gov/che/files/Anne_Neal_-_Indiana_Trustee_Academy_-_w_appendices_08-2010.pdf

Through the leadership of Gov. Mitch Daniels, Indiana is also now offering a higher ed option directed to working adults who want to pursue a bachelor's degrees in business, information technology, teacher education, and the health professions. WGU-Indiana is part of the Indiana higher ed system and is the first online nonprofit competency based university functioning in the state. Addressing what is too often a roadblock to college attainment—seamless transfer credit—WGU Indiana pledges generous transfer privileges to graduates of the two-year Ivy Tech to ensure adult Hoosiers can attain the college degrees they've wanted and needed, on a schedule they can manage.

We'll have more to say about South Carolina on Monday.

Posted by Anne D. Neal on November 19, 2010 at 05:23 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

In Memoriam - Lovett Peters

97 years. Our friend and colleague Lovett Peters lived 97 years. They were years of energy, innovation, and thoughtfulness. A Phi Beta Kappa graduate of Yale, a veteran, a lover of books, an innovator -- Lovett was living proof of the kind of creativity, vibrancy, and thoughtfulness that a rigorous liberal arts education makes possible. How fitting that at age 75 he founded a think tank and non-profit in Boston called the Pioneer Institute. And pioneering it was, too, offering and continuing to offer expert research eloquently explained on the benefits of choice and economic liberty in a free society. A scholarship student at Phillips Andover and at Yale, Peters always supported education. He and Pioneer led the way in reforming Massachusetts' schools.

Lovett Peters was a great man, with a great family -- and someone ACTA admired greatly for his gutsy challenge to the various orthodoxies of the day. His support of ACTA's efforts -- and wise counsel over many years -- were deeply appreciated and we will miss him.

Posted by Anne D. Neal on November 18, 2010 at 06:43 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Shining a Light on Productivity, Part II

Yesterday we discussed the Lumina Productivity conference and mentioned its report.
The report offers the following ideas - and more! - for policymakers and university trustees:
- Flatten the organizational structure by reducing the administrative layers. (North Carolina did this: recommendations are projected to save more than $150 million called for the university to centralize procurement operations and information technology functions.)
- Condition financial aid on actual completion of at least 24 credits and four-year on-time graduation. (Florida)
- Require students to repay scholarship money for dropped courses. (Florida again)
- Deliver small majors jointly with other institutions: ACTA's suggested this before
- Charge in-state students with "excessive" credits out-of-state tuitions. (Texas)
- Increase teaching loads in research universities
- Pare back the menu of extracurricular activities.
Tracking ACTA's work, the report finds that "many institutions would do well to find savings through strategic restructuring of the curriculum beginning with required general education courses. A good first step: Compile data on course-taking, and then eliminate courses that relatively few students sign up for. In the long run, colleges and universities should aim to construct focused academic programs that offer clear pathways for students to earn degrees. This can improve retention and completion. Researchers have found that students get tangled up when there are too many course choices; lacking guidance, they take too many nonessential courses and prolong the time it takes to get a degree."

Tomorrow we'll take a look at what's happening in Indiana, South Carolina, and Louisiana where ACTA has been active.

Posted by Anne D. Neal on November 18, 2010 at 10:49 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Shining a Light on Productivity, Part I

Where there is a will, there is a way. The folks at the Lumina Foundation are surely helping to build that will -- and to point the way -- thanks to their Productivity Initiative and a terrific National Productivity Conference in Indianapolis this week. ACTA is pleased to be a national partner in their effort to improve student success. And we were heartened by the creativity and commitment of legislators, administrators and state policymakers at the conference. As ACTA has been saying for some time, the "same old" is simply not good enough if we are going to ensure greater student attainment of high quality postsecondary education. In the next few days, I'll be outlining just a few of the superb take-aways from this conference, of real interest to policymakers and trustees who are going to be navigating the "new normal."

Lumina offers a brand new publication called "Navigating the 'New Normal'" which includes recommendations and ideas based on studies undertaken by the National Center for Higher Education Management Systems in conjunction with the Delta Project on Postsecondary Education Costs, Productivity and Accountability. As the report's conclusion says: "After centuries of excellence and decades of cyclical recessions, higher education has developed some bad habits. . . . Today the need for fundamental changes is inescapable."

We'll explore some of the reports recommendations soon.

Posted by Anne D. Neal on November 17, 2010 at 04:19 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

New Leadership for Higher Ed?

At the Chronicle of Higher Education on-line, ACTA Policy Director Michael Poliakoff considers the so-called Leadership Alliance .

He asks: "The alliance offers a four-point plan for presidents to gather, use, report and publicize student learning outcomes. What's been stopping all institutions from doing this long before now?"

Read the whole piece here.

Posted by Michael Pomeranz on November 17, 2010 at 11:32 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Anne Neal in Career Education Review

ACTA President Anne Neal sat for a wide-ranging, very sharp interview with the Career Education Review.

The Review asked good questions like this one: A year ago, at my daughter's graduation from a small private college, a shocking number of people graduated with what they call a Communications: Mass Media major, and I wanted to stand up and yell, "Education malpractice!" Parents invested $100,000 in this! So back to your question, what did they learn?

Read the whole article.

Posted by Michael Pomeranz on November 16, 2010 at 06:51 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

A Time for Leadership and Honor

In its state report cards, ACTA grades public institutions pass-fail according to whether administrative costs or instructional costs increased at a greater rate. Sad to say, many more schools have received an "F" than a "P." Not surprisingly, given overall administrative bloat at colleges and universities, the Chronicle of Higher Education's annual report on executive compensation shows that 30 college presidents or chancellors received total compensation that exceeded $1,000,000. That number is up from 23 last year. The ranks of public university CEO's whose salary tops $500,000 have burgeoned as well from 6 in 2006 to 58 in 2010. On Halloween, appropriately, ACTA noted that the $50,000 club (schools whose tuition, room, and board exceeds $50,000) has expanded its membership to 100 schools, up from 58 the year before. Thus, as median household income falls, both tuition and upper-level administrative salaries climb. However difficult the job, however talented the college president, these compensations are unconscionable during the economic crisis facing higher education. Key academic programs have been cut at SUNY Albany, Louisiana State University, Florida State University, and more terminations are in the works. Even more destructive are the tuition increases, like the 32% jump in the University of California System, with other double-digit increases common elsewhere. As college and university presidents seek public and private funds in this crisis, they need to walk the walk of making students, not administration, their budgetary priorities.

Posted by Michael Poliakoff on November 16, 2010 at 01:42 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

In Memoriam - Frank Turner

ACTA mourns the passing of Yale Professor Frank M. Turner. Professor Turner's career was distinguished by outstanding scholarship, teaching, and service, and he exemplified the highest principles of university life.

Among his many works, Turner wrote about John Henry Newman, author of Idea of the University. He also contributed a chapter to a new edition of The Idea of the University, called "Newman's University and Ours." Turner also served Yale as provost, director of the Beineke Rare Book and Manuscript Library, and as University Librarian. He was a trustee of Connecticut College. His scholarship, experience, and wisdom rendered him one of our generation's most insightful observers of higher education. ACTA was fortunate to have him speak on "Trusteeship and the Pursuit of Excellence" at our 1997 ATHENA conference. He looked for principles and purpose in all things: on philanthropy, for example, he observed, "[d]onor restrictions can call institutions of higher education to fulfill their highest ideals . . . ."

Of Turner, current Yale Provost Peter Salovey said: "Although his profession was History, his vision was focused on the future, especially new ways of thinking about how knowledge and information could be gathered and disseminated." Famously fond of Yale history, Frank Turner was a man deeply aware of the past and its lessons. Professor Turner was that extraordinary historian who practiced the most rigorous historical scholarship while envisioning the future. Among his many lessons were those in the hugely influential textbook he co-authored with Donald Kagan and Steven Ozment, The Western Heritage, which opened the Western Civilization to countless thousands of high school students across the country.

And, of course, Turner touched hundreds as a teacher at Yale. In 1981 he received the Yale College Prize for Distinguished Undergraduate Teaching. He understood that, in his words, "[s]cholarship is an exercise in friendship." ACTA joins his many friends who will miss him. Requiescat in Pace.

Posted by Anne D. Neal on November 12, 2010 at 03:47 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

ACTA in the News!

In today's Inside Higher Ed, ACTA President Anne Neal challenges Congress to reform the accreditation system.

That's not all! Also in today's Inside Higher Education is Steven M. Cahn. Author of Saints and Scamps: Ethics in Academia and CUNY Philosophy Professor Cahn will join ACTA Policy Director Michael Poliakoff and Ohio Universities College of Medicine Professor Walter Horton on tomorrow's panel Safeguarding Academic Freedom through Academic Ethics at the AAUP Shared Governance Conference. If you are there, do stop by the 4:15 session!

Finally, yesterday's Inside Higher Education profiled Robert C. Dickeson, who spoke convincingly at our ATHENA conference. These pieces show once more that at the heart of the higher education reform discussion are ACTA and our friends!

Posted by Michael Pomeranz on November 12, 2010 at 12:17 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Teacher Prep and Illinois

A recent report by the National Council on Teacher Quality (NCTQ), commissioned by Advance Illinois, has alerted Chicagoans to the dirty little secret of teacher preparation: virtually all education schools are terrible. This is not a "little" issue. It means that teachers in classrooms far and wide are unprepared to teach. Students suffer.

You're hearing the howls of protest from education school deans. They fault the study for focusing on what the ed schools expect their students to study - rather than outputs. They apparently didn't notice the report's finding that the Illinois State Board of Education has had to limit the number of times aspiring teachers take the basic skills exam - to five! Not to mention that fact that a mere 22 percent of test takers in September passed all four subjects: reading, math, language arts and writing.
To their credit, the NCTQ and Advance Illinois have a history of caring more about students - the ones ultimately punished by poorly prepared teachers - than about headlines and honchos.

The good news is that trustees can improve the quality of teacher education on their campuses. ACTA's Trustees for Better Teachers Project has published Educating Teachers: The Best Minds Speak Out and Teachers Who Can: How Informed Trustees Can Ensure Teacher Quality. ACTA also reproduced and distributed former Teachers' College head Arthur Levine's talk, "Educating School Teachers," part of ACTA's Essays in Perspective, a series of essays by higher education experts.

Posted by Michael Pomeranz on November 10, 2010 at 03:20 PM | Comments (2) | TrackBack

Live Blog: ATHENA Summary

Anne Neal's closing remarks summarized the conference neatly:

"We need to return to first principles. That, in fact, is what ACTA is all about, returning to first principles. We want to prepare students for, to quote Bill McClay's felicitous phrase: 'participation in an electric circle of shared meanings.' We want all Americans to participate in that common conversation, so that they can be informed citizens and efficient workers."

Gordon Gee asked, 'Shall we be architects of change or shall we be victimized by it?' ACTA believes that alumni and trustees can be agents of change. Many people spoke today about changing the incentives on campus. What Will They Learn? is ACTA's attempt to change the incentives so that colleges focus on outputs, not inputs. We look forward to taking the information we have and sharing it with governors and legislators, who are, very often, paying for mediocre education. Tell your friends look at WhatWillTheyLearn.com. If your alma mater is getting a D or an F, write your president and your school magazine. Let them know that you're not happy, and that you think your degree is getting diminished."

"There is an obsession with the coasts, with the so-called elite institutions, but in fact, 80% of students go to state institution. That is what motivates our report card program. We believe that focusing on the state institutions can have the greatest influences. And that's why were grading on gen ed, cost and effectiveness, and so on. And we've had trustees respond to us, 'Well, I'm glad you haven't done a report card on us, but I'm glad to have these criteria, because I can go back to my board room, and say, how would we do on structure and governance? How would we do on general education? How would we do on cost and effectiveness?'

"We publish reports on cost cutting, how to implement a core curriculum, how to deal with grade inflation: literally how to books to help trustees figure out how to know what to do. We heard from Jim Kurth that trustees need to have an accurate sense of the landscape. That's what we're trying to do. It's important to have faculty pointed out who share their values. That's what we're trying to do. At the end of this year, we're issuing another intelligent donors guide, and we will point out some remarkable oases of excellent. We have put out a book called Protecting the Free Exchange of Ideas. It is example after example after example of what institutions are doing to protect intellectual diversity.

"The bottom line is, you are the ones you make this all possible. Thank you thank you thank you!"

Posted by Michael Pomeranz on November 05, 2010 at 05:26 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Live Blog: Michael Poliakoff Ends Panel on Biblical Note

"The word is very nigh unto you: we simply have to follow best practices that are already modeled."

The panel with Elizabeth Capaldi, Robert Benjamin, and Robert Dickeson has moved into questions and answers. Their arguments were thick with ideas and argument, which I won't try to record here, but I'll offer some pearls of wisdom that we heard:

Get to know your Provost.

Teach, Assess, Improve.

Evaluate Existing Programs.

Beware the Priorities of U.S. News and World Report

Notice Tutition-Discounting
ACTA is about optimism. We can make things better.

Posted by Michael Pomeranz on November 05, 2010 at 03:23 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Live Blog: Get to Know Your Provost

"You want to know your provost. When Condi Rice was Secretary of State, they asked her, what did you think about being Provost of Stanford? She said, 'I loved it, it was so much power.' Provosts control the money, they control the Deans, and I have tenure. Get to know your provost.

Like Gordon Gee said, publics are the future. If you think you don't know about the Midwest, think about Arizona - it's the bottom left hand corner. Harvard is not a good model for anything anymore." -- Elizabeth Capadli.

Posted by Michael Pomeranz on November 05, 2010 at 03:01 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Live Blog: Just Joining Us?

We've been blogging live from the ATHENA conference all morning. We talked about the need for a purposeful university and, being that we're in Philadelphia, what the Founders thought the purpose of education was. Gordon Gee Jackson Toby, Peter Berkowitz, and James Kurth. Next, current administrators will talk about what has and hasn't worked in terms of reforming education.

Posted by Michael Pomeranz on November 05, 2010 at 02:43 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Live Blog: French Revolution?

An attendee asked whether Professor Kurth really meant to compare the academy to Revolutionary France (with estates, and so on). His reply:

"When you have a decadent nobility with offices beyond their capabilities, desperado politics, indeed, may follow. In the French Revolution, there was the feckless monarch - and that we recognize that parallel in academics - and the sans coulettes, and that may be the students. There was one group in France that represented the France of the future, not the France of the Revolution, and that was the commercial and industrial bourgeoisie. That, I believe, are the college trustees."

Posted by Michael Pomeranz on November 05, 2010 at 02:10 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

The Purpose of the University

Peter Berkowitz proposed a compromise core curriculum. James Kurth spoke about the historical reasons why faculties oppose strong general education (or core curricular requirement). This puts us, Kurth pointed out, in the following situation:

The first three estates of the university are unable to correct the curriculum - the students because they lack the experience, the faculty because their interests oppose it, and the presidents and provosts because they are by and large responsible to the first two. That leaves two estates, who are represented in the purpose of the this organization.

Posted by Michael Pomeranz on November 05, 2010 at 01:49 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

The State of the Liberal Arts College

"It was earlier today said that smaller institutions are more conservative and less likely to change than large ones: that is true. It was also said that elite schools are less likely to respond to needed changes and that is also true. Having taught for a third of a century at Swarthmore, I perfectly represent both of those things. Moreover, I represent that estate of the realm least friendly to change, the faculty. Further, I am from a discipline, so called, Political Science, which both in its political sense and its scientific sense is part of the problem. And so my message is one of doom and gloom." - James Kurth

Posted by Michael Pomeranz on November 05, 2010 at 01:35 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

The Purpose of the Liberal Arts

"The purpose of a liberal education is fairly easy to state. One element of that is transmitting and imparting information about what's been thought and said. And not only the best that's been thought and said but also the worst. That's part: who we are and where we've come from. We want to furnish the mind. And, we want to cultivate students' capacity to think for themselves. That's connected to a third part: liberal arts are connected to freedom and free society. Liberal education presupposes that it's good to have citizens whose minds have been furnished and who have the ability to think for themselves" - Peter Berkowitz

Posted by Michael Pomeranz on November 05, 2010 at 01:24 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

What is the Purposeful University?

Peter Berkowitz and James Kurth now will engage in Colloquy -- I'm very much looking forward to it. We'll follow with gems and thoughts, but Anne Neal's introduction just told me something I didn't know: James Kurth taught Peter Berkowitz at Swarthmore. In introducing then, Anne Neal reminded the attendees that not all is bad on college campuses: the conversation between the teacher and the student can be vital and exciting. The conversation that follows is sure to be.

Posted by Michael Pomeranz on November 05, 2010 at 01:10 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Lunch Break

In case you're just joining us, let me say that I've been live blogging this the ATHENA conference this morning and will continue to do so this afternoon -- after a brief break for lunch. We're looking forward to more; stick around. If you haven't seen the earlier posts, do scroll through and review them; we've had terrific conversation so far, and we're only getting warmed up!

Posted by Michael Pomeranz on November 05, 2010 at 12:09 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Liveblog: "By Failing to Prepare, You are Preparing to Fail," Part III

Liveblog: "By Failing to Prepare, You are Preparing to Fail," Part II

Jackson Toby suggests that we think about how to encourage students to want to learn, say, Shakespeare. And Donald Drakeman suggests that schools, as they have since the Greeks, we need to teach students how to tell true information from bad: a wiki-paideia.

Now we're on to the questions and answers, and, of course, a top-notch answer from Gee:

"At Ohio State we have 15 trustees. I have asked them to engage with me in thinking about the institution. In turn, they have made me thinking myself. Many of my colleagues view trustees as a pain in the neck. They want to bring you in, show you a few new buildings, have you talk to a couple of students, watch a football game and get you out of there. If you hire someone who views himself as a gate keeper, a house keeper, or someone who just wants to keep the ship afloat, you’ve hired the wrong person."

Posted by Michael Pomeranz on November 05, 2010 at 11:37 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Liveblog: "By Failing to Prepare, You are Preparing to Fail."

The current panel features Gordon Gee, who, as I mentioned, is President (for the second time) of the Ohio State University, Jackson Toby, now speaking, who is a professor at Rutgers, and Donald Drakeman, who is a trustee of Drew University and used to be trustee of the College of Charleston. We'll get a presidential, professorial, and fiduciary view of what institutions must do to prepare students to succeed. Coming on the heels of Professor McClay's call to revisit the purpose of an education, and his suggestion to use the Founders' curriculum as a model, the attendees are eager to know how to do it.

Posted by Michael Pomeranz on November 05, 2010 at 11:20 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Gordon Gee, con't

"I have a Department of English bigger than Swarthmore."

Regarding Brown's open curriculum, "I gave my first speech as President saying, 'Any institution that calls a 40-year-old curriculum The New Curriculum is an institution out of step.' That's why I left after three years."

"80% of our people are educated in our public university. A New York Times writer who went to Brown and has never left Manhattan except to go to Providence cannot understand the nobility of our great public colleges and universities."

"The most important institutions we have in this country in terms of higher education are our community colleges, far and away." This gets a murmur of agreement from the audience.

"Our economies are dependent on our ability to out-think. Universities are the smokestacks of the 21st century. Our students have to be able to out-think."

"The American institution is organized vertically. We are not a university. We are 18 colleges connected by a heating plant. As one institution we will succeed. As many we will not."

"Try re-organizing the way you reward and recognize faculty -- it will make an enormous difference. The secret to changing the curricular structure is changing the recognition structure. Provide the opportunity for people to re-think and they will. If you treat students like adults they'll act like adults. That is true of the curriculum. We live with students 168 hours a week if they're on campus. They're in class 18 hours a week. What about the other 150 hours? The most important responsibility we have is to create the intellectual and cultural environment to allow them to teach themselves."

Posted by Michael Pomeranz on November 05, 2010 at 11:07 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Gordon Gee

We will introduce the current panel in one minute, but the Ohio State University's famous, witty president Gordon Gee is on now, and boy is he on. I won't elaborate, I'll just quote.

"I just came from the the AAU [American Association of Universities -- the top 61 research universities in American] meeting, which I call the "College of Cardinals" -- they always make me sit in the corner, because I'm already bringing up radical ideas."

"I'm the President of the Ohio State University. We have a bigger economy than in Rhode Island's and in better shape, too, I might suggest."

"We do have a football team. For three and a half hours on a Saturday afternoon, that's your budget running up and down the field."

More to come.

Posted by Michael Pomeranz on November 05, 2010 at 11:03 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Liveblog: McClay, Q + A

Q: What about endowed chairs for professors who will teach general education, including courses using the books you discuss? Is that a way?
A: I think it is. It's not an accident that universities tend towards the accumulation of specialized knowledge. There's a lot of good in that. Institutions within institutions can help -- think of them as alternatives in the pluralistic mix (of the university). That's one good thing of the multiversity. I also follow David Reisman in thinking that one of the main strengths of American education is the diversity of institutions -- colleges built around different principles: single-sex colleges, religious colleges, and so on.
Anne Neal interjects: What Will They Learn? is ACTA's response to the question posed. There is an answer and ACTA is providing it.

I should note that every participant has received What Will They Learn? in a book form.

Q: Can you address the Founders' study of language?
A: The people I mentioned generally could not be read in the original languages. The Founders learned classical languages -- Greek and Latin -- and Jefferson was fluent in modern languages as well. Language study in particular has been increasingly de-emphasized, but your question goes towards the loss of Greek and Latin, and Latin in particular. This is not only a loss in the sense of a connection to a heritage, but there is a kind of logic and organizational felicity that Latin imparts that other languages don't. They certainly saw the study of these languages as important.

Q: How do we address the open curriculum, for example at Hamilton College? The last three valedictorians of Hamilton graduated without an English or History class. Of history majors, one third graduated without one American History course. Admissions sells it to high school students -- "if you're weak at math, you don't have to take a math course!" and they come to Hamilton --, public relations uses it to brand it, and then the President and Deans use it to look good to the Board. Isn't the purpose of an education to acquaint students with different approaches to knowledge? (The audience applauds at this line.)
A: I can't improve on that. I taught at Tulane, and I sat on the curriculum committee. It's more Chinese-menu-ish than Brown, but it's like that. The committee had various people who agreed on the need to approach more towards a core. A tentative agreement was submitted at a faculty meeting, and it was one of the more appalling meetings: "Will I have to do any more work because of this?" A few years later, we had a very good dean -- he was tough, and good -- he got the idea that the Departments needed to have some sort of exit criteria. For example, what did a history major know? It was like pouring gallons of water on a herd of cats: the commotion was just enormous. Many, many of our history majors did not share a course in common. No discipline specific course: historiography, that is, what we do when we do history. Someone has to ask the faculty -- respectfully of course, to answer the question, what does a history major learn? We need an answer so when outside groups like ACTA ask, we have an answer. That's why what you do is so important.

Now seems as good a time as any to note that I am typing this more or less as it's happening, so if I accidentally elide a speaker's statement, or mis-quote, the fault is mine and mine alone. This blog is not a verbatim transcript.

Posted by Michael Pomeranz on November 05, 2010 at 10:21 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Liveblog: Professor McClay, Part III

The Founders saw the civic importance of education: education is about the good life in common. Education is preparation for citizenship. What does this mean? Well, McClay asks, let's look at the subjects they studied: history, particularly that of ancient Rome and post-Elizabethan Great Britain - which allows them to cite the historical events in contemporary political debates - and political philosophy, from Aristotle to David Hume to Thomas Gordon to John Locke. (Locke, Bacon and Newton were Jefferson's Trinity - which gets a laugh from the crowd.) Also law and literature, both ancient and contemporary and in between (like Shakespeare). Their education was "rigorous and classical."

"They were active people - they were activists. They were involved in a time of great political and social upheaval." These books weren't just a diversion, McClay says; they consulted the works of the past, "to help make sense of their present tribulations." McClay quotes Nash: "They tended to regard books not as ornaments but as tools."

The Founders, McClay said, built a government not from abstract reason but from experience. However, experience to them included all of history: "The past was real for them."

The lesson for today, McClay says, is that we often imagine the past to be much more distant and useless than it is. We need a new Renaissance.

"Ordering the minds of students in such a way. . . to equip them to be wise and responsible leaders, offering them a sustaining, even loving experience with the same books of history, law, and literature that the Founders knew."

"I know this concept of education will sound hopelessly idealistic and nakedly elitist, and maybe it is." But McClay offers the example of Harry Truman, who cherished the books that the Founders did and read them with the same intense interest. He was fortunate to grow up in a time when even the commonest public school taught the same books. He was fortunate to have that education even though he never went beyond high school.. . . It introduced him to the great conversation of the ages. It pushed him. . . to civic education. I see no reason we can't teach the same to students today."

Perhaps this education awaits us on the other side of the current and coming woes."

McClay opens the floor to "questions and improvements."

Posted by Michael Pomeranz on November 05, 2010 at 10:12 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Liveblog: Professor McClay, Part II

McClay: "I think of the keynote in the musical sense - the note to which the rest of the orchestra will tune."

And: "My talk will follow the pattern of a sermon - which may indicate to some of you that you can nod off to sleep right now. But I mean. . . that we have to be honest about the bad news. . . before we get to the good news."

The bad news, he says, is like the housing bubble. In a market awash with easy credit, there's incentive for sellers to raise prices. McClay quotes Herbert Stein, the economist: "Everything that can't go on forever, won't." (That gets a big laugh from the audience.) He compares it to higher ed - the other thing middle class families worry about on a scale with their worries about their houses, and a good assumed to have an imperishable price - higher education, people assume, will always allow people to pay it off. Student debt approaches $1 trillion, exceeding credit card debt, and not counting "shadow debt," i.e., loans (and other debt devices) taken out to pay for college but not called student loans.

McClay points out that just as prices are getting really out of control, the reputation of higher ed got "a kick in the teeth" from authors such as Andrew Hacker, Mark Taylor, Craig Brandon, and others. The AFT magazine has an article called "Beyond One Size Fits All College Dreams: Alternative Pathways to Desirable Careers," and Camille Paglia has "gone all the way with this, as she tends to go all the way with everything she does" in the Chronicle of Higher Education: "we need a sweeping re-valorization of the trades." The point, McClay says, is that the assumption that higher education is always and necessarily good, a good that will always go up in value, is being challenged. That's his sermon’s "bad news."

McClay rejects some solutions, such as Paglia's call to pure vocationalism. "True education cannot be oblivious to jobs, but education's value shouldn’t be measured solely by [jobs.]"

So, McClay says, we need to recover the purpose of education - and he recommends that we look back to the views of the Founders.

The good news in a minute.

Posted by Michael Pomeranz on November 05, 2010 at 10:02 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Professor Wilfred McClay

Having reviewed the historical importance of Philadelphia, Dr. Lewit is introducing WIlfred McClay right now, .

Dr. Lewit notes that Professor McClay helped with the Bradley Project -- and I'm sitting next to representatives from the Bradley Foundation, who are proud of that very important project.

More from Professor McClay's keynote in a minute.

Posted by Michael Pomeranz on November 05, 2010 at 09:43 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

"The Purposeful University"

Anne Neal is giving her keynote right now: "Debates about size of government, individual liberty, -- I'm not talking about this week! I'm talking about the debates over the U.S. Constitution, in Philadelphia, 300 years ago. It's not serendipity that all the founding fathers believed in the importance of a strong education." But, she continues, Americans today don't have a strong education -- despite the fact that students today will have many, many jobs in their careers, and so need a strong general education. But people here - at ATHENA - are committed to restoring universities to first principals.

She outlines the day: First, the keynote address from Professor Wilfred McClay; second, a panel with Ohio State University President Gordon Gee, Rutgers Professor Jackson Toby, and Drew University trustee Donald Drakeman; (then lunch;) then, third, a colloquy between Peter Berkowitz and James Kurth; and a final discussion with Arizona State University provost Elizabeth Capaldi, Council for Aid to Education Robert Benjamin, and University of Northern Colorado former President Robert Dickeson.

Now she introduces ACTA Board Chairman Dr. Bob Lewit, who decided, she says, that "in his retirement, he'd save Western Civilization."

Posted by Michael Pomeranz on November 05, 2010 at 09:37 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Live Blog: Welcome to ATHENA!

Good morning from the Union League Club in Philadelphia! Our conference attendees have gathered, and the room is buzzing with conversations about higher education: colleges, curricula, reform. We are looking forward to Anne Neal's opening remarks in a few minutes, to be followed by Professor McClay's Keynote Address: "Back to the Future: Recovering the Founders' View of Education." We'll try to keep you up to date all day long!

Posted by Michael Pomeranz on November 05, 2010 at 09:15 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

The Ant and the Grasshopper and Program Termination

The news from Louisiana State University is sad indeed. Fourteen veteran foreign language instructors to be discharged in January and plans for the termination of the major in German and Latin. This follows grim news for foreign language programs from SUNY Albany. These are subjects that are at the heart of a liberal arts education. Yet, the cost issues faced by LSU and SUNY Albany, and a host of other institutions are dire indeed, and the expedient of putting the burden of budgetary woes on students with yet more increases in tuition is unethical and ultimately self-defeating. LSU's trustees and boards throughout the nation must brace themselves to make cuts that will be unpopular with faculty constituencies. As Robert Dickeson showed so clearly in Prioritizing Academic Programs and Services, academic program restructuring and reduction is inevitable, painful as that is. (Dickeson will speak at Friday’s ATHENA conference.) Governor Bobby Jindal had no reasonable alternative to the deep cuts in higher education he has ordered. LSU Chancellor Michael Martin generally had it right in making the difficult decision of these terminations, "That is the tragedy of the economic condition we live in." But all states should take note: there are better and worse ways to do it. Prudent institutions, especially those in university systems, have been forming consortia. The California Legislative Analyst's Office recently urged the state to follow the examples it provides in the report of cost-savings academic program partnerships and collaborations. ACTA previously noted how the Pennsylvania State System of Higher Education was able to maintain and indeed expand its low-enrollment foreign language programs through inter-campus consortia and interactive video classes. Difficult times are ahead for all, but a terrible, sad winter of program terminations and fewer opportunities of students awaits the academic grasshoppers who cling to an unaffordable status quo. Time is running out rapidly.

Posted by Michael Poliakoff on November 03, 2010 at 02:03 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Benno Schmidt, Merrill Award Winner

This Friday, the American Council of Trustees and Alumni will award the 6th annual Philip Merrill Award for Outstanding Contributions to Liberal Arts Education to City University of New York Board of Trustees Chairman Benno Schmidt. The ceremony will take place at the ATHENA Roundtable Conference, as The American Council of Trustees and Alumni celebrates its 15th anniversary. (Remember, we're liveblogging the conference!)

Benno Schmidt’s contributions to education and to First Amendment law have been truly extraordinary. Under his leadership, CUNY has undergone an academic renaissance. Previously, as chair of the task force appointed by Mayor Rudolph Giuliani to review CUNY, Mr. Schmidt showed the dynamic leadership that has characterized his career in education: he recommended an end to open enrollment, raised academic standards and helped craft a blueprint for making the CUNY system more competitive on a national level. CUNY's renaissance in turn has been an engine of New York's resurgence in the last two decades and of its national leadership in K12 education reform. In 2005, Mr. Schmidt led a blue ribbon task force in Kansas City to develop recommendations to advance higher education and research, through partnerships among business, philanthropists and civic organizations. Benno Schmidt also has been active in developing the Collegiate Learning Assessment, a tool of ever-widening impact on higher education. CUNY Chancellor Matthew Goldstein will offer a tribute to Benno Schmidt at the awards dinner.

Famed first Amendment lawyer Floyd Abrams also will offer a special tribute to Schmidt, who is widely recognized as an expert on the First Amendment and academic freedom.

The tributes and Mr. Schmidt's acceptance speech will be published and distributed widely.

Posted by Michael Poliakoff on November 03, 2010 at 12:44 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Halloween Nightmare, Part II. (Or, What $50,000+ Can't Buy)

Yesterday, we noted the rapid expansion of the "50K Club," those colleges and universities whose bill for tuition, fees, room, and board exceeds $50,000 per year. (And note, following our Halloween theme, that that hefty sum does not include transportation, books, and incidentals.) But how good is the education members of the "50K Club" provide? ACTA's WhatWillTheyLearn? survey recently reviewed the core curricula of 718 institutions to see how many of the following key subjects were required of undergraduates: English composition, foreign language at the intermediate level , economics, college level mathematics, natural science, literature survey, and survey of American history or government. These we deemed necessary conditions of a quality education, and we assigned grades to the schools based on how many of these seven core subjects they required. Of the 100 schools in the "50K Club," there were 35 Fs and 14 Ds. Trick or treat.

Posted by Michael Poliakoff on November 03, 2010 at 12:10 PM | Comments (2) | TrackBack

College Costs: A Halloween Nightmare

This Halloween, the Chronicle of Higher Education released its list of colleges and universities in the "50K" club, schools whose tuition, fees, room, and board exceed $50,000. In the case of Sarah Lawrence, at the top of the list, the sum is $57,384. Two years ago, only five schools earned this dubious honor. Last year saw 58 institutions joining the "50K" club. This year, even as median family income declines, this elite society stands 100 strong, including, for the first time, a public university, the University of California-Berkley. (The total is lower for in-state student tuition.) ACTA dissented last week when giddy headlines reported that the net cost of tuition and fees went down, due to increased scholarship money. The grim fact is that tuition is still going up, built upon years and years of over-the-top higher education spending. Three decades ago, economist and former president of Grinnell, Howard Bowen, noted that colleges raise as much money as they can and spend all that they raise. When donations don't suffice, colleges borrow to the hilt to build buildings they don't need and raise tuition to maintain programs students don't want. The system is broken, and time is running out. ACTA shares some ideas for balancing the college budget, strategies that don't involve devouring family and taxpayer resources, in "Cost Cutting." And look for more from us soon.

Posted by Michael Poliakoff on November 02, 2010 at 05:50 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

ATHENA Live Blog!

Can't make it to ATHENA this year? Follow the latest in higher education reform live from our blog at www.goactablog.org. We will update the blog regularly from Philadelphia with highlights from the panels, discussions and more!

Speakers will include Gordon Gee, president of Ohio State University; ; historian Wilfred McClay; Elizabeth Capaldi, Provost, Arizona State University; Jackson Toby, Rutgers University professor; Robert Dickeson, former president of University of Northern Colorado; Peter Berkowitz, columnist, Wall Street Journal; and James Kurth, professor of political science at Swarthmore College. We hope to 'see' you there!

Posted by Michael Pomeranz on November 02, 2010 at 09:49 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

ACTA in the New York Times

Be sure to check out Anne D. Neal's letter to the editor of the New York Times, published today, in response to Professor Diane H. Mazur's column, "The R.O.T.C. Myth."

As she did in a letter to trustees of Brown, Columbia, Harvard, and Yale, Anne Neal notes that trustees can and must lead their universities, right now, in taking up the President's challenge to recognize ROTC as a student activity. Read the whole letter below:

To the Editor:

It's no myth; the R.O.T.C. has been de facto banned for years. Trustees have invoked "the military," Congressional rules and faculty opposition for decades to avoid their obligation to formally recognize the R.O.T.C.

It's time to acknowledge the R.O.T.C. as an important student opportunity for national service.

The next step is to call upon faculty to develop intellectually rigorous classes in military engineering, ethics, history and science -- classes that are so good they will merit both university and R.O.T.C. credit. It's no myth that most of our colleges and universities have all but eliminated the opportunity to study military history and science at all.

Isn't it time for the nation's elite students to learn about these critical subjects and, if they choose, prepare to defend our country in future conflicts?

Anne D. Neal
President, American Council
of Trustees and Alumni
Washington, Oct. 25, 2010

Posted by Michael Pomeranz on November 01, 2010 at 09:24 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack