In a blog over at the Washington Post today, Daniel de Vise raises an interesting question: Does the public want lower (or higher) tuition? He engages with this issue mainly in the context of private institutions, discussing anecdotal evidence from a recent meeting with college presidents.
In a nutshell, here are the highlights of his findings:
1. There is some evidence that the public wants a deep discount on a more expensive product. In other words, families are happier when they get a lot of merit-based financial aid at a high-priced college. Some colleges have found that when they cut tuition, applications drop too, and families complain they aren't getting much aid.
2. There is also some evidence that the public embraces -- even demands-- lower tuition, even thought it means getting less aid. At Sewanee, The University of South, which de Vise highlights, cut its (very high) tuition by 10% and focused efforts on need-based aid, resulting in an increase in applications. de Vise also notes that Sewanee took a key step, first done by George Washington University, freezing tuition for returning students. This prevents surprising hikes in cost from year to year, something that my own research (forthcoming) suggests can alarm students and even induce some to drop out of college.
So what's going on here? How can college presidents say that they must raise tuition because that's what the public wants, while others work to lower tuition, because it's what the public wants?
The answer is quite simple, actually. The "public" doesn't exist. It's an averaged American, comprised of heterogeneous individuals.
Some people equate the price of college with quality. Those are likely the same people who will buy a Lexus, thinking they're getting a better car, even though Lexus and Toyota use the same components. They're thrilled with a discounted Lexus, and have the cultural capital to know that if they go to a dealer and haggle, they might get one.
Other people have negative connotations associated with high prices. They see expensive things as "elitist", "snobby" and most importantly out-of-reach. They don't want to haggle for an affordable price, since they know that when people like them (who don't wear Banana Republic, look white, or speak formal English) walk into a dealership or admissions office, they aren't likely to get a deal. They want the price low, period. Discounting doesn't work for them.
Both types-- and there are nuanced versions of each-- are now part of higher education. But the pricing model, advocated by so many college presidents and backed by evidence produced by economists, is built for the first group-- the We Like Deep Discounts on Expensive Things group. Why? Because it suits the needs of institutions, who want to have more cash on hand, it seems "realistic" given budget cuts from governments and declining endowments, and it's said to be more efficient.
Ok. Let's say that's true (and I worry about the evidence, since much of it is based on studies of students from the 70's and 80s, before tuition went through the roof and disadvantaged students became a large part of enrollments). It doesn't necessarily make it effective policy. The relative effectiveness of the two strategies depends on who's in higher education (who dominates enrollment), what goals are sought, and whose outcomes are more affected by the pricing strategy. If first-generation students are in the I Want It Cheap camp, and they begin to comprise a sizable fraction of enrollment, if the primary outcomes measured are college graduation rates of at-risk students, and if first-generation students are most price-sensitive, then I'm sorry but hiking prices and discounting simply isn't effective.
Thus, the question we ought to be asking is not the one de Vise posed -- Is higher tuition what the public wants?-- but rather, Is higher tuition going to achieve the goals America has set for higher education? If we want to make progress, that's the one we have to get focused on answering.
Tuesday, January 10, 2012
Remaking Academia: Disclose Your Funders
In my first post on remaking academia, I recommended that authors disclose the funders of their research--as well as the costs of the work. The recommendation had twin aims: to expose any potential influences (positive or negative) on the research, and to allow others to make more accurate cost-benefit calculations when planning how to conduct their own research. Unless you know what good research really costs, it's hard to realistically plan for it-- and to fundraise to support it. If you know it'll be expensive, you have to seek outside support, and that will lead directly to the decisions you'll make that will eventually require that you name your funders.
This week, the national association of economists adopted similar standards. Given the extent to which economics is alpha dog in social science research, capturing headlines and exerting disproportionate influence on public thinking, this is the right move-- just long overdue. Said one economist in the Chronicle of Higher Education, "Economics is in the harm business but we don't wrestle with the ethical implications."
Admittedly, sometimes naming funders is easier said than done. For example, I have been supported by a foundation that stipulates in a contract that it is not to be named in publications. I have difficulty with this, and pondered the reasons for it, but ultimately abided by the request. I do this only because I feel certain that receiving funding from that source has had no other influence on my actual research other than making data collection (which I designed and conducted) possible. The foundation is extremely low-touch, especially compared to others which I do name-- those that provide professional development and other supports which could shape the direction of my thinking and research.
It can also be unclear when a funder must be named. Academics often have multiple sources of support from our time, and our time is blurry-- summers can be funded from 3-4 sources and who knows who's paying for the time you spend on a given Fridsy writing an article. In those cases, I recommend acknowledging them all.
Finally, we have to check our propensities to overreact to the naming of funders-- and not too quickly presume untoward influence, while maintaining a healthy skepticism. It's very common, for example, to see the Gates Foundation listed as a funder of education research-- but the role the Foundation plays in each piece varies tremendously, according to both authors and program officers. Sometimes the idea started with the Foundation, and other times it was the last funder in-- hardly influential.
The main goal should be honesty and transparency. Don't wring your hands over it-- just do it.
This week, the national association of economists adopted similar standards. Given the extent to which economics is alpha dog in social science research, capturing headlines and exerting disproportionate influence on public thinking, this is the right move-- just long overdue. Said one economist in the Chronicle of Higher Education, "Economics is in the harm business but we don't wrestle with the ethical implications."
Admittedly, sometimes naming funders is easier said than done. For example, I have been supported by a foundation that stipulates in a contract that it is not to be named in publications. I have difficulty with this, and pondered the reasons for it, but ultimately abided by the request. I do this only because I feel certain that receiving funding from that source has had no other influence on my actual research other than making data collection (which I designed and conducted) possible. The foundation is extremely low-touch, especially compared to others which I do name-- those that provide professional development and other supports which could shape the direction of my thinking and research.
It can also be unclear when a funder must be named. Academics often have multiple sources of support from our time, and our time is blurry-- summers can be funded from 3-4 sources and who knows who's paying for the time you spend on a given Fridsy writing an article. In those cases, I recommend acknowledging them all.
Finally, we have to check our propensities to overreact to the naming of funders-- and not too quickly presume untoward influence, while maintaining a healthy skepticism. It's very common, for example, to see the Gates Foundation listed as a funder of education research-- but the role the Foundation plays in each piece varies tremendously, according to both authors and program officers. Sometimes the idea started with the Foundation, and other times it was the last funder in-- hardly influential.
The main goal should be honesty and transparency. Don't wring your hands over it-- just do it.
Saturday, January 7, 2012
Remaking Academia: Improve the Hiring Process
The latest entry in a continuing series here at The Education Optimists
Have you ever sought a job as a professor? Depending on your field and where you’ve applied, it goes something like this:
(1) You send in a letter of interest, a CV, and some publications. Maybe some letters of reference too, or perhaps just contact information for those people. If it’s a teaching institution or a school of education, maybe you’ll also send in a statement of teaching philosophy and some student evaluations.
(2) If the search committee likes what they see in the file, they get in touch. This typically means you’ve published a fair bit, demonstrated that you have some interesting ideas, come from a good graduate program, have very solid letters that say you’re among the very best, can attract grant funding, etc.
(3) Then you either meet with the committee via phone or Skype, or at a conference, or more commonly go to campus. (Sometimes it’s a two-step or three-step sequence, sometimes you just go right to campus.) During the visits, you’ll do a talk about your research (to show how you approach questions, theory and evidence), talk with lots of academics who will ask you about your future research plans and what you like to read and discuss (mainly to see if they think you’re smart and they like you), meet with an administrator or two, talk to students, and maybe give a demonstration of your teaching (e.g. a pedagogical talk).
(4) At the end of the evaluation period, a search committee, or even the entire department, together with the dean, has a set of information about you. It includes a written record of what you’ve done, thoughts about what they’ve heard, some student evaluations on a set of metrics, etc. Then they make their decisions.
Often this results in the offer of a job at a pretty good salary with decent benefits, with a three-year contract, and the possibility of tenure. Or, if you’re lucky, it’s a tenured position—in which case they’ve committed (after a tenure committee does their own review) to hire you “for life.”
This process has long puzzled me for what it omits. And as I listen to heated discussions of ineffective professors and teachers, and watch the advent of a strong debate from k -20 over using metrics to decide who to fire, I have to wonder: why can’t we start instead by using data and standard human resources practices to improve our effectiveness at hiring?
Before I list some suggestions for improvement, let me admit that I have held one academic job for my entire career (which admittedly is just 8 years long). And this area—hiring and evaluation—isn’t the topic of my own research. So I don’t know about every practice used in every college or school, and it’s quite possible some of what I think should be done IS being done—in which case we should get a good census of practices and start evaluating their effectiveness. This is a blog I really hope to get constructive feedback on (yes, more so than usual).
(1) Rethink who does the hiring. Right now prospective colleagues primarily do it. This is good, since they are whom you’ll end up working with and spending time with. They should and must have a role. But those peers were hired because they are talented researchers and teachers, not because they know how to evaluate large numbers of prospective applicants and make terrific judgment calls. Professionalization of this hiring practice is needed, and it must include very experienced people who’ve done hiring in academia for decades. Ideally, they’d be systematically trained in identifying expertise in the competencies academics need to do their jobs very well (see next point).
(2) Bring some additional competencies into the mix. Being a good professor or teacher requires strong time management skills, grit, resilience, ability to respond under pressure, communication skills, drive, ability to implement feedback, performance orientation, inquisitiveness, and cultural competencies as well. Where/how are these being assessed now? Primarily in terms of how much you’ve managed to publish in X time (which doesn’t necessarily tell you how well time was managed since other activities are often sacrificed). There are instruments for measuring such things, and we’re often ignoring them. That’s not good enough. What other competencies predict success in academia? We need to know, and we need to integrate them into hiring.
(3) Lengthen the process. My colleagues will hate me for saying this, but spending only a total of maybe 2-5 days evaluating whether a person should be allowed to teach large numbers of students, enjoy limited campus resources, etc, is far too quick. You need more data and more time to analyze it.
(4) Systematize the evaluation process. We use very superficial forms and often don’t consider the data that result in any sophisticated way. The process of reference and background checks is too personal, political, and idiosyncratic, mainly because people who were never trained to do these checks are in charge!
There’s got to be even more we can do. Sure it has to be a flexible process that can be adapted to public flagships or private liberal arts colleges, as well as community colleges, etc. It also can’t be so expensive as to prevent scaling. And it will need revision and improvement. When’s the last time your department changed how it recruited and evaluated applicants?
The current process skips key steps and fails to assess competencies that when not present, lead to failure and turnover in academia (and k12 teaching). Instead of researching who we should fire, why not focus our attention on improving the hiring process? It seems far more efficient, not to mention equitable and ethical.
Have you ever sought a job as a professor? Depending on your field and where you’ve applied, it goes something like this:
(1) You send in a letter of interest, a CV, and some publications. Maybe some letters of reference too, or perhaps just contact information for those people. If it’s a teaching institution or a school of education, maybe you’ll also send in a statement of teaching philosophy and some student evaluations.
(2) If the search committee likes what they see in the file, they get in touch. This typically means you’ve published a fair bit, demonstrated that you have some interesting ideas, come from a good graduate program, have very solid letters that say you’re among the very best, can attract grant funding, etc.
(3) Then you either meet with the committee via phone or Skype, or at a conference, or more commonly go to campus. (Sometimes it’s a two-step or three-step sequence, sometimes you just go right to campus.) During the visits, you’ll do a talk about your research (to show how you approach questions, theory and evidence), talk with lots of academics who will ask you about your future research plans and what you like to read and discuss (mainly to see if they think you’re smart and they like you), meet with an administrator or two, talk to students, and maybe give a demonstration of your teaching (e.g. a pedagogical talk).
(4) At the end of the evaluation period, a search committee, or even the entire department, together with the dean, has a set of information about you. It includes a written record of what you’ve done, thoughts about what they’ve heard, some student evaluations on a set of metrics, etc. Then they make their decisions.
Often this results in the offer of a job at a pretty good salary with decent benefits, with a three-year contract, and the possibility of tenure. Or, if you’re lucky, it’s a tenured position—in which case they’ve committed (after a tenure committee does their own review) to hire you “for life.”
This process has long puzzled me for what it omits. And as I listen to heated discussions of ineffective professors and teachers, and watch the advent of a strong debate from k -20 over using metrics to decide who to fire, I have to wonder: why can’t we start instead by using data and standard human resources practices to improve our effectiveness at hiring?
Before I list some suggestions for improvement, let me admit that I have held one academic job for my entire career (which admittedly is just 8 years long). And this area—hiring and evaluation—isn’t the topic of my own research. So I don’t know about every practice used in every college or school, and it’s quite possible some of what I think should be done IS being done—in which case we should get a good census of practices and start evaluating their effectiveness. This is a blog I really hope to get constructive feedback on (yes, more so than usual).
(1) Rethink who does the hiring. Right now prospective colleagues primarily do it. This is good, since they are whom you’ll end up working with and spending time with. They should and must have a role. But those peers were hired because they are talented researchers and teachers, not because they know how to evaluate large numbers of prospective applicants and make terrific judgment calls. Professionalization of this hiring practice is needed, and it must include very experienced people who’ve done hiring in academia for decades. Ideally, they’d be systematically trained in identifying expertise in the competencies academics need to do their jobs very well (see next point).
(2) Bring some additional competencies into the mix. Being a good professor or teacher requires strong time management skills, grit, resilience, ability to respond under pressure, communication skills, drive, ability to implement feedback, performance orientation, inquisitiveness, and cultural competencies as well. Where/how are these being assessed now? Primarily in terms of how much you’ve managed to publish in X time (which doesn’t necessarily tell you how well time was managed since other activities are often sacrificed). There are instruments for measuring such things, and we’re often ignoring them. That’s not good enough. What other competencies predict success in academia? We need to know, and we need to integrate them into hiring.
(3) Lengthen the process. My colleagues will hate me for saying this, but spending only a total of maybe 2-5 days evaluating whether a person should be allowed to teach large numbers of students, enjoy limited campus resources, etc, is far too quick. You need more data and more time to analyze it.
(4) Systematize the evaluation process. We use very superficial forms and often don’t consider the data that result in any sophisticated way. The process of reference and background checks is too personal, political, and idiosyncratic, mainly because people who were never trained to do these checks are in charge!
There’s got to be even more we can do. Sure it has to be a flexible process that can be adapted to public flagships or private liberal arts colleges, as well as community colleges, etc. It also can’t be so expensive as to prevent scaling. And it will need revision and improvement. When’s the last time your department changed how it recruited and evaluated applicants?
The current process skips key steps and fails to assess competencies that when not present, lead to failure and turnover in academia (and k12 teaching). Instead of researching who we should fire, why not focus our attention on improving the hiring process? It seems far more efficient, not to mention equitable and ethical.
Wednesday, January 4, 2012
What Happens When You Remake Academia? Rick Hess Looks Your Way
What I like most about him is that he takes seriously the idea that academics should bring their research to the public, and in an effort to prod that along, last year he began ranking us. He uses a set of metrics that even he admits are pretty darned flawed, but are at least an ATTEMPT in the right direction. I like it not because I'm ranked (ok, I like that too) but rather because Hess is a prominent guy doing whatever he can to provide incentives to professors to do more than what tenure requires of them. He wants us to use all 5 tools in our work--"disciplinary scholarship, policy analysis and popular writing, convening and quarterbacking collaborations, providing incisive media commentary, and speaking in the public square." And that I can appreciate.
So here are the rankings this year. And here's the methodology.
Monday, January 2, 2012
Remaking Academia: 12 Ideas for 2012
What follows is a summary of a Twitter thread I started a few days ago. Feedback suggested it might be useful to compile it here.
Here are 12 rough, off-the-cuff ideas about how we might collectively remake academia. Just to get the party started. Please throw yours in too!
1. Hey professor: Ask yourself "What new knowledge does this article contribute to the world? Does the method actually address the research question?" If the answer is no or it does not, for pete's sake please don't be so self-serving as to submit it for publication.
2. Publish for the sake of knowledge dissemination, not in the pursuit of tenure. There should be penalties for publishing bad work!
3. At least 1 out of every 5 publications should contribute a lesson for policy or practice at some level.
4. For every three articles placed in academic journals, write at least one executive summary for public dissemination. For those of you at UW, consider this part of the Wisconsin Idea. You could ask your department to host a site where you post these summaries collectively with your colleagues-- no need for a special outlet. Or, consider this bit of info from Julia Savoy- "you might consider depositing your work or summaries of pubs in Minds@UW, an institutional repository that offers a number of benefits, such as long-term archiving and permanent URLs. The outlet is already set up and indexed by Google and other search engines.
5. Blogging and writing op-eds and letters to editor, based on evidence not anecdote, should count for tenure.
6. The full costs of research, and all funders, should be disclosed in a standard statement at the end of articles.
7. It isn't "mixed methods" if you simply add anecdotes in the discussion section to "explain" your statistical findings.
8. Write about what you actually did not what you wished you'd done. Be honest, share tradeoffs and lessons learned.
9. The discussion section of a paper should be INTERESTING and worth reading, not a throwaway.
10. People with controversial opinions should be prized for bravery, not shunned for rocking the boat. Academic freedom & all.
11. Syllabi should include readings from competing perspectives, and varied political ones too.
12. There needs two be a "professor 101" course for all new faculty, helping socialize them to whatever "standards" are expected.
Here are 12 rough, off-the-cuff ideas about how we might collectively remake academia. Just to get the party started. Please throw yours in too!
1. Hey professor: Ask yourself "What new knowledge does this article contribute to the world? Does the method actually address the research question?" If the answer is no or it does not, for pete's sake please don't be so self-serving as to submit it for publication.
2. Publish for the sake of knowledge dissemination, not in the pursuit of tenure. There should be penalties for publishing bad work!
3. At least 1 out of every 5 publications should contribute a lesson for policy or practice at some level.
4. For every three articles placed in academic journals, write at least one executive summary for public dissemination. For those of you at UW, consider this part of the Wisconsin Idea. You could ask your department to host a site where you post these summaries collectively with your colleagues-- no need for a special outlet. Or, consider this bit of info from Julia Savoy- "you might consider depositing your work or summaries of pubs in Minds@UW, an institutional repository that offers a number of benefits, such as long-term archiving and permanent URLs. The outlet is already set up and indexed by Google and other search engines.
5. Blogging and writing op-eds and letters to editor, based on evidence not anecdote, should count for tenure.
6. The full costs of research, and all funders, should be disclosed in a standard statement at the end of articles.
7. It isn't "mixed methods" if you simply add anecdotes in the discussion section to "explain" your statistical findings.
8. Write about what you actually did not what you wished you'd done. Be honest, share tradeoffs and lessons learned.
9. The discussion section of a paper should be INTERESTING and worth reading, not a throwaway.
10. People with controversial opinions should be prized for bravery, not shunned for rocking the boat. Academic freedom & all.
11. Syllabi should include readings from competing perspectives, and varied political ones too.
12. There needs two be a "professor 101" course for all new faculty, helping socialize them to whatever "standards" are expected.
If you want someone to remember something, tell them a story.
As I have mentioned in this space before, when I am in Florida, I play in a couple of old guy’s softball leagues most weekday mornings. I have been playing in one league for about four years but the retired Marine drill sergeant who runs the league (and picks the teams every day) has never learned my name. Now there are more than 100 guys playing so this is understandable but last week I decided to fix the problem.
I decided to tell him the story of my name.
My parents were both Army Air Corps (now the USAF) officers during World War II. Pilots speaking over the radio on US planes when given an order always respond “Roger Wilco” which means “understood, will comply.” My father thought it would be a laugh riot to call me Roger Wilco Schank. My mother didn’t think that was all that funny. But he called the New York Times anyway and told them two air force officers had a son called Roger Wilco. He said if the Times printed the story on the front page, it stayed. I was told that they did print it, but not on the front page, so I got a more normal middle name.
The ex-Marine team picker loved this story and, this morning, he called me by my name when he picked me, muttering “RW” as he selected me.
I am telling this story because it has an important educational message. I have been talking about story telling for more than 20 years (since I wrote “Tell Me a Story.”) And, I am tempted to say, that the schools haven’t been listening, but it is not true.
Propagandists always knew the power of story telling for getting people to remember a message, which is why we all know the story of George Washington who never told a lie, but fail to remember the George Washington who married a rich widow to get her money and her 300 slaves.
If you want someone to remember something, tell them a story.
2012: A Year for Big Ideas
2011 was a terrific year in some ways, and a horrible one in others. Watching many national leaders attack the rights of working families was devastating, but watching those families fight back was awe-inspiring. What Time magazine called the year of the protestor, I'd call the year of the working class reawakening.
Personally, 2011 was a critical turning point, as I finally earned tenure and thus the distinct privilege of having the freedom to speak my mind and keep my job. Wow. I can't tell you how GOOD that feels. Watch out world.
My hope is that in 2012 we'll see many people bring fresh ideas to old problems, with a willingness to float trial balloons on thoughts they typically might've withheld for fear of reprisal. I've been endeavoring to do this a bit on Twitter, and at Liam's suggestion I'm next reposting my latest stream-- on Rethinking Academia.
We are welcoming guest bloggers in 2012, following the remarkable success of Robin Rogers, and encourage you to write to us if you'd like to speak out on an issue facing k-20 education. Don't get me wrong--we don't post anything that's simply advertising your product or work, and we will stick at least initially to bloggers we have some sense of. We want to keep the discourse on this blog stimulating, thought-provoking, and at least modestly snarky. Send us good stuff!
All the best for a fabulous 2012!
Personally, 2011 was a critical turning point, as I finally earned tenure and thus the distinct privilege of having the freedom to speak my mind and keep my job. Wow. I can't tell you how GOOD that feels. Watch out world.
My hope is that in 2012 we'll see many people bring fresh ideas to old problems, with a willingness to float trial balloons on thoughts they typically might've withheld for fear of reprisal. I've been endeavoring to do this a bit on Twitter, and at Liam's suggestion I'm next reposting my latest stream-- on Rethinking Academia.
We are welcoming guest bloggers in 2012, following the remarkable success of Robin Rogers, and encourage you to write to us if you'd like to speak out on an issue facing k-20 education. Don't get me wrong--we don't post anything that's simply advertising your product or work, and we will stick at least initially to bloggers we have some sense of. We want to keep the discourse on this blog stimulating, thought-provoking, and at least modestly snarky. Send us good stuff!
All the best for a fabulous 2012!
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