Although I think there is a research role for Boise State in the Northwest, I agree with the author that we cannot afford graduate programs that are not fully enrolled and academically robust in every way. Just last year, we had this conversation and dedicated ourselves to assuring that our graduate programs are indeed producing the students to justify the investment.

Click to read article: “Fixing College” by Jeff Selingo

I mentioned this video in today’s State of the University address. I encourage you to take time to watch this video presentation featuring Daphne Koller. a professor at Stanford University and one of the founders of Coursera, an online education platform.

Click here to access video: “What We’re Learning from Online Education“

Click to read article: Public Universities See Familiar Fight at Virginia

John E. Roueche

What makes this move so newsworthy is the fact that the reputable University of Texas at Austin is the victim of this “desertion.”  Here we have a veteran faculty member in the UT College of Education going over to the “dark side” with the usual and predictable mention of the inability of UT to respond to moves like this given the cutbacks in higher education budgets in Texas.  Could it be that the “dark side” is the “enlightened side”, unencumbered by traditions of faculty and department control of curriculum that has been known to slow things up when universities are responding to rapid changes in the marketplace and community of ideas? Can we always assume that all of the obstacles preventing a fine university like the University of Texas from competing with the private sector is about a declining state appropriation.
I doubt it.

Click to read article: To Train Community-College Leaders, a For-Profit University Hires a Leader in the Field

Click to read article: College Students Spending Less Time Studying

Thomas L. Friedman

For those of us who read the daily bible of higher education-that would be the Chronicle of Higher Education–reports of reform and change in higher education are nothing new.  We have entered a new era of dramatic change and across the industry there is talk of throwing out the old business model and creating a new one.

What surprises me are the almost daily reports from the mainstream press about the revolution underway in higher education.  The article linked below is not the first one Thomas Friedman has written in recent months on this subject and I’m sure there will be more.  This is the guy who taught us how ” the world is flat” and his most influential columns on higher education reform will also have an impact on the conventional wisdom.

Friedman shows in his NY Times column today that employers and these open-source course developers are in the process of figuring out how to validate these courses and programs.  Once that happens, you have to ask how we’re going to keep our students down on the farm or, more appropriately for higher education, how are we going to keep them on the campus and signed up as our students?  What value will our degrees have once employers ask for and receive a Stanford certificate vouching for the course or program of the prospective employee?  The answer:  fight fire with fire.  There is no reason why we cannot tailor our own traditional courses into online offerings that carry our brand and use our faculty who have reputations among our students and community as effective teachers and scholars.

Click to read article: Come the Revolution

In the middle of this article, Ohio Governor Kasich weighs in on just why higher education has become so expensive and he questions why every state college and university must have the same majors and programs instead of distributing programs across the state to avoid unnecessary duplication.  We can make a strong case for a university’s English department, for example, but there are many specialized degrees that do deserve to be placed under a statewide microscope to examine how many the state truly needs.

Ohio may be an excellent place to start.  At last count, I believe Ohio has 16 public universities.  Even higher education insiders would comment over the years that Ohio overbuilt its universities.  Now in these new economic times, it is more difficult than ever to justify the business model that has been in place since these universities were built.

Some State Board members have questioned whether Idaho can afford three research universities in a state with 1.5M people.  Perhaps the more accurate question is whether we can justify all undergraduate and graduate academic programs across the state’s public university campuses.  I can think of at least two prerequisites to any successful program review of university degrees and programs.  First, there must be a strong staff with the analytical tools to lay out the options for board members.  Second, there must the political will among the board members to implement the recommendations of the staff and be willing to take the political heat when a program is terminated and the alumni and political supporters of the university turn on the board.  Good luck with that one!

Click to read article: Degrees of Debt: A Generation Hobbled by the Soaring Cost of College

For that reason, I am always on the lookout for leaders in the academy who can capture the essence of the reform message and do so from a position of authority and responsibility that faculty can respect, in this case from a peer and colleague who speaks the language and embodies the values of the academy while at the same time recognizing the need for change and innovation.

The University Dean of the William E. Macaulay Honors College at the City University of New York, Ann Kirschner, has done just that in a recent article she wrote for The Chronicle of Higher Education.  I implore anyone who managed to get this far on the blog to click on Dean Kirschner’s article below and read it to the very end.  No matter where your responsibilities are on the campus, I am confident there are messages relevant to your work and to our collective goal of improving the quality of  higher education in changing times. Enjoy and please feel free to weigh in by email if you have a comment on the subject.

Click here to read article: Innovations in Higher Ed? Hah!

As all of this unfolds, one cannot help but compare these very early developments in online course development to the athletic universe in higher education where the B.C.S. controls post-season play and reserves revenue distribution to the chosen few.  A professor who teaches online courses in Canada may have summed up what has concerned me as the titans extend their influence across the globe.  His quote: “But if I were president of a mid-tier university, I would be looking over my shoulder very nervously right now, because if a leading university offers a free circuits course, it becomes a real question whether other universities need to develop a circuits course.”  

Exactly!  It makes little sense to me for the mid-tiers such as Boise State to attempt to replicate the work of the titans.  Nor does it make sense to sit idly by as more and more free courses offer our students alternatives to our more expensive offerings.  Instead, we should be reviewing our curriculum and its offerings very carefully and identifying ways our students can access these free online courses, with the appropriate oversight and mentoring by our faculty, thereby reducing the time and effort that is required to offer the same courses in the traditional, labor-intensive and more expensive fashion on our campus.  At a time when governing boards are questioning tuition increases and state legislatures are cutting back on appropriations to higher education, here’s a way for universities and colleges to benefit from the open source coursework movement and save significant resources for other priorities in keeping with our missions and roles.