Market Power

"More Blistering Criticism of U.S. Higher Education"

Craig Newmark has links to several very interesting pieces on what's ailing U.S. higher education.  Each link is worth a careful read by anyone who cares about the direction of colleges and universities in the US.

College Test Scores Show Little or No Improvement - Again

It looks like I picked a good year to go on sabbatical.  From the WSJ:

Only about a quarter of the 2009 high school graduates taking the ACT admissions test have the skills to succeed in college, according to a report on the exam that shows little improvement over results from the 2008 graduating class.

The Iowa City, Iowa-based ACT said 23% of this year's high school graduates had scores that indicated they were ready for college in all four ACT subject areas, or had at least a 75% chance of earning a grade of C or better in entry-level courses. Last year, a similar ACT analysis found that 22% of the class of 2008 was college-ready.

While a 1 percentage point increase is shown, that's probably not statistically different from 0.

If the trend were to continue, a college education today for the average student would be equivalent to a high school education 25 years ago.

HT Bob Simonson

Introducing the World's Lowest Grade

According to basic economic theory, when you raise the marginal cost of an action, you make people less likely to take that action.  Applying this theory to fighting academic dishonesty, Simon Frasier University introduces the grade FD:  failure with dishonesty.

Dr. Rob Gordon, director of criminology at SFU and acting chair of the senate committee on academic integrity, says the new grading is intended to curtail cheating using the internet.

"What used to be a lot of cheating in libraries has changed quite significantly," he told ctvbc.ca.

"We now have to be concerned about cheating during exams with high-tech devices and the inappropriate use of internet sources and downloading, including online companies offering services to students that promote academic dishonesty."

This seems reasonable to me.  The marginal costs of cheating have come down of late because it's easier to get the information needed to cheat in the first place.  What this does is tip the decision back towards being a non-cheater.  And it's not that heavy-handed because it doesn't stay on the student's record forever.  Don't cheat and you won't have to worry about it at all.

Update:  I neglected to note that the link was via Ming Lo.

What Do Academia and "It's a Wonderful Life" Have in Common

Here is the text from a Glenn Reynolds post about his father's retirement dinner.

YEAH, LIGHT BLOGGING TONIGHT. Went to a retirement dinner for my dad, who closed out 40 years as a professor of Religious Studies, and only had a couple of posts scheduled for the evening. Lots of reminiscences about his confrontation with Billy Graham and Richard Nixon (more on that here), his founding of the Journal of Religious Ethics, and an amusing message from Stanley Hauerwas. Plus, more affectingly, lots of people talking about how he started or boosted their careers in academia. As an academic, your life is like George Bailey’s affecting people in ways you often don’t fully realize, except, on rare occasions like a retirement dinner, when they tell you.

That is so true.  It reminded me of a chance meeting I had with one of my father's former students.

We talked about Morningside and realizing that he would have been there when my father was an assistant professor, I asked him if he knew Dr. James Miller.  He asked me why I asked and I told him Dr. Miller was my dad.  He leaned towards me, took my hand again, gave it a big shake and said, "That man taught me how to think."  John told me a story of the first test my father gave to students in John's class.  It was a very hard test and many students did poorly, but John said that it was that test and the way my dad encouraged students to think about history that taught John how to think.

Here is another of my old posts about teaching and why student evaluations are poor ways of judging the ability of teachers.

8 O'clock Classes

From the Sioux City Journal:

In a longstanding practice, most colleges have classes that begin at 8 a.m., but they frequently have less than stellar attendance. WIT nursing students Rachel O'Keefe of Kingsley, Iowa, and Jeanne Chamberlain of Hinton, Iowa, said in general education courses, it's common for one-fourth to one-third of the students to be missing.

"You always see people walking in late at 8 a.m.'s. You won't see that at 10," O'Keefe said.

...Lillian Lopez, a Morningside College political science professor, said the 8 a.m. classes are among the quickest to fill up, since they conflict the least with other time slots.

"There is a traffic jam at 9 (a.m.) and 3 (p.m.) classes," Lopez explained. "So the 8 a.m. classes are packed."

Kitty Green, a Morningside history professor, has taught 8 a.m. classes for about seven years straight. "I always have 30-plus students in class. A lot of them show up. I have pretty good attendance, I would argue," Green said.

Green said there are a lot of students participating in sports at Morningside, which spurs picking the earliest classes. She said swimmers and other athletes have practices about 6 a.m.

"They are already up, had breakfast and ready to go. There is a constituency on this campus that has no trouble with 8 o'clocks. Now, a lot of other people are not happy with them. Some kids will avoid 8 o'clock classes at all costs."

At my school, 8 o'clocks are generally not popular. This creates a scheduling problem for classes because most students want classes between 9:00 and 3:00 and, frankly, most professors want to teach at these times as well.  The scheduling problem could be alleviated by charging lower rates for 8 o'clock classes and/or by giving professors bonuses for teaching early classes.

I have voluntarily taught 8 AM sections for the last several years and I used to volunteer to teach before 8:00 AM in "labs" at Mizzou when I was a grad student.  Given the parameters in which I work, I prefer to teach 8 AM's because that gives me a deadline to meet each morning I teach.  Teaching the 8:00 AM sections gets me out of bed and to the campus.  In addition, if I have to teach late in the day, my thinking gravitates towards the upcoming lecture and away from other pressing projects. 

In addition, although teaching can be physically draining at times, it does sharpen my mind, which leads me to be more productive later in the day.  But that's just me.

Tales from Academia - A Project That is The Stuff of Legend

Captain Capitalism gives his tale of woe from academia.  Fed up with underachieving students and a dean who blame him for their underachieving, comes up with a project for his statistics students that is, simply, the stuff of legend.

Well, If You Want Better Evaluations...

Paul Caron:

Texas A&M faculty are protesting plans to give $2,500 - $10,000 bonuses to the Top 15% of faculty solely on the basis of student evaluations:

The chancellor of the Texas A&M University System wants to give bonuses worth up to $10,000 to some instructors, but so far, many aren't interested. "I've never had so much trouble giving away a million dollars," Chancellor Mike McKinney said, laughing. ...

But faculty members have voiced concern about the program's fairness, worried that it relies on a single evaluation method and could become a popularity contest that wouldn't serve students. Many instructors haven't signed up to participate; the faculty senate passed a resolution opposing the program. ...

"I don't think faculty are going to pander to students for a few thousand dollars," said Traci Carte, an associate professor of management information systems.

I could probably score 4.8 out of 5 if I promised everybody A's and cupcakes regardless of their test scores.

Still, it's heartening to see that the A&M faculty aren't buying the bonuses.

First Grade Assignment

Two years ago when Eldest was in first grade here in southern Minnesota, here was one of his homework assignments.

I guess I should be happy one of the responses wasn't "sharing heroin needles" or "having unprotected sex."  Maybe they'll get to that by 5th grade.

Flowchart for Academics

Craig Newmark posted this flowchart for academics at his door today.

I think I can go one better.

This is especially the case if there is no merit pay involved.  Even trivial merit pay will add to my chart. 
But if the person is an untenured tenure-track academic, then the flow becomes more complicated.

Professor Fired in Mooning Incident

From the Chronicle of Higher Education:

Fort Hays State University fired a professor and debate coach on Friday, just weeks after video surfaced on YouTube of his dropping his shorts in front of judges at a national tournament. The university also suspended its debate team, one of the best in the country, over concerns that the collegiate-debate circuit had become too uncivilized.

The coach, William Shanahan III, a professor of communication, got into a shouting match with a judge—and at one point briefly dropped his shorts and exposed his underwear—during the national tournament this past spring of the Cross Examination Debate Association.

Officials at Fort Hays State said they did not hear of the incident until video of it was posted on YouTube in early August and people began complaining to the university. The clip, which was replayed by local and national news media and has since been removed from YouTube, shows Mr. Shanahan swearing and gesturing violently with his head and hands before the mooning.

From the president of FHSU:

"Our concern is that debate has evolved into something other than an act that really supports our educational principles and values," said Mr. Hammond. He said that the university would still honor all scholarships given to its debaters but that no students would represent Fort Hays State at the debate association's tournaments this year.

Here's my previous post on the subject.