Faculty at San Jose State University have signed a letter opposing the administration’s decision to use online courses developed by faculty at Harvard, MIT, and other eastern universities. The San Jose professors see the adoption of online courses as a deliberate strategy to replace them and downsize their departments. The professors of the humanities are especially incensed.
Their letter was addressed to Harvard professor Michael Sandel, whose course on social justice was offered online to San Jose State.
An excerpt:
- “In spite of our admiration for your ability to lecture in such an engaging way to such a large audience, we believe that having a scholar teach and engage his or her own students in person is far superior to having those students watch a video of another scholar engaging his or her students.”
- “We fear that two classes of universities will be created: one, well- funded colleges and universities in which privileged students get their own real professor; the other, financially stressed private and public universities in which students watch a bunch of videotaped lectures and interact, if indeed any interaction is available on their home campuses, with a professor that this model of education has turned into a glorified teaching assistant.”
- “We believe the purchasing of online … courses is not driven by concerns about pedagogy, but by an effort to restructure the U.S. university system in general, and our own California State University system in particular.”
- “At a news conference (April 10, 2013, at SJSU) … California Lieutenant Governor Gavin Newsom acknowledged as much: ‘The old education financing model, frankly, is no longer sustainable.’ This is the crux of the problem. … The purchasing of (online courses) from outside vendors is the first step toward restructuring the CSU.”
- “Let’s not kid ourselves; administrators at the CSU are beginning a process of replacing faculty with cheap online education.”
- “Professors who care about public education should not produce products that will replace professors, dismantle departments, and provide a diminished education for students in public universities.”
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Online education is a siren’s song in that it sounds good until you get into it and find that it really is a shipwreck.
How? It takes an already academically proficient and very motivated individual to profit from online courses and if one is not, then the isolation will cause significant problems with mastering the course materials.
I know because I have taken courses in all formats and am currently in an mainly online course of study. I hold a MA in history where I had to write an original thesis of some length. I would not have fared as well as I did if it were not for my relationship with my thesis advisor at a brick and mortar university. I know now how to write a dissertation and am now in a position to profit from an online course–most are not.
A caveat though–online course can be beneficial to the right kind of student or learner. Thus, it should not be dismissed entirely. I believe it can be beneficial in that it democratizes learning IF the learner or student is a motivated and already adequately prepared individual.
Unfortunately, the corporate hucksters will try to flip this reality and many ill-prepared students with insufficient motivation will be discouraged and probably damaged by online learning. There is probably going to be a lot of money made at the expense of an unwitting public.
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Does no one worry that having one national teacher for these courses really narrows viewpoint?
Surely there’s more than one way to look at this material. We’re going to set up a system where one person drives the whole discussion for thousands (or millions) of college students?
They know that’s nuts, right? That they’ll end up that individual’s views dominating and defining a given subject area or reading?
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I think you have hit on a very important point, one that we cannot afford to ignore. There is a widespread attempt to homogenize learning with a small group of self appointed messiahs leading the way to utopia. I see a rather Orwellian outcome where social and economic policy is designed for the benefit of an overclass not the welfare of society. As much as such a path may appeal to those who see themselves among the favored few who are destined to lead, such a direction cannot end well for anyone. I would rather skip the consequences of such arrogance. I don’t believe history has ever treated such conceits kindly. Unfortunately, as in the past everyone pays deeply for ignoring the warning signs.
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I think there is a place for online learning – when it is offered to the public for free and for no university credit.
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Good Point…but…there must be human contact…very important unless you want education to be an assembly line with no quality control.
Education is about more than a course.
It involves..Mind-Spirit and Body…
ONLINE SHOULD BE AN ENHANCEMENT …NOT THE COURSE ITSELF!!
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Look at this article!
This principal had the top salary in the county and his teachers called him DR…when he BOUGHT his diploma….from a Diploma Mill in Gulfport Mississippi!!!
Resigned on a Friday…announced on tv at 6:pm….Why?..Had taken illegal moving funds so the article says..
http://greensboro.rhinotimes.com/1editorialbody.lasso?-token.folder=comm/2013/04/17&-token.story=215475.112113&-nothing&-token.disearea=2
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It reminds me a little of the early charter promoters, 20 years ago.
We’ll never replace public schools, it will never be for-profit, it’s about “empowerment” for lower classes.
I think they’re kidding themselves if they’re ignoring the money angle, but carry on!
in ten years we’ll have an enormous, powerful higher-ed reform “movement” just like we have an enormous K-12 for-profit lobbying machine.
It’ll be different in higher ed, right? They’re WELL-INTENTIONED. Just like the original charter promoters were well-intentioned.
Welcome to Chile, folks.
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A couple of weeks ago, I met another so-called DR who is going to be a principal.
Asked him where he got his diploma.
Northwestern University…but he cut the conversation short after finding out there are PHD’s in my family who received them from some of the most prestigious universities in the USA.
Amazing..Now he will get paid beaucoup monies for his online PHD…..I remember him saying.to another person..You remember when all of the administrators were getting degrees from so and so.
I quit listening as I know for a fact he will use his DR whatever to intimidate..
Glad not to work for some haughty online degree holder..
Online should enhance a course…not take the place of the physical human beings!!
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The only people who should be addressed as “Doctor” are MDs.
I immediately lose respect for anyone with a PhD who insists on being called “Doctor,” since they have conclusively proven themselves to be a pompous ass.
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So agree!
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Dave Barry once asked, “Have you ever noticed that those who have a PhD who insist on being called Doctor, even though those degrees are as rare a air molecules, tend to be self-important weenies?” Dave Barry is hilarious, partly because he speaks the truth.
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Nothing is “free.”
When the “free” online courses are used by states to justify cuts in higher ed funding (and they will be) people in those states will then find out the real cost of the “free” courses. Online ed for the state schools, live teachers for the elite private schools.
Not that Harvard will care.
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Some of the wealthy elitists will never leave a single stone unturned in their quest to gain more power and money while pushing anyone in their way into the nearby ditch.
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The chickens are coming home to roost. After decades of spewing the mantra of neo-classical economics in its colleges and business schools, the professoriate is about to get hoist on its own petard! Just look at what’s going on at UVa.
The best way to defeat this is not by whining to the professors at Harvard who are recorded, but by offering truly different scholarship that challenges the conventional wisdom that is getting channeled by the establishment. Teachers as these schools need to start getting the students involved too, by pointing out that soon they’ll all have hand-me-down degrees based on hand-me-down lectures.
And of course this will one big charlie foxtrot. First radio was supposed to be the revolution that would remake education, then movies, and then television. Now it’s the computer. None of those worked, and this won’t work either for the same reason–Watching remote lectures is just boring and disengaging.
But it’s cheap and brings a big profit to those who run the scam. When the public starts demanding quality from its schools, teachers, and politicians, then we’ll start to break this choke hold on our culture. But until then, join a Great Books reading group near you. You’ll learn more anyway.
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When dealing with HUMANS…….or anything that breathes and eats…we must remember the SOUL!!!
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Brutus, I too hold an MA in History and wrote a thesis composed of original research 215 pages worth). I did it through UNK’s online History MA program and had a tremendous experience. However I am much more motivated than the avg student so it worked well for me and my classmates. The ideas about quality etc were non issues in my program but have seen others where quality was lacking and unmotivated or poorly prepared students struggle tremendously. While I think there is a place for online educ, it must be done slowly and carefully or we will get garbage masquerading as quality instruction.
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I am glad for you and your classmates.
I took my MA at a brick and mortar university and my experience was wonderful primarily because I was lucky to chose and be chosen by my thesis advisor who himself had John Higham as an advisor. So, in a way, I am part of that progeny going back to Merle Curti! How’s that for good fortune?
I am currently working on a JD mainly online and it is a rigorous program. The State Bar of California requires us to take a First Year Law Students Exam after our school qualifies us after successfully completing our first year final exams. This “baby bar” or FYSLE is proctored in or around Los Angeles twice a year and ensures that those JD candidates who progress are vetted for learning whatever a ABA approved law school students are accountable for knowing. And of course we all have to pass the bar exam after the JD programs so its conceivable that I could pass on my first try and a graduate from Yale Law might not. So yes, the stereotype that all online programs are “bogus” is simply not based in fact.
Anyway, I agree, it takes a competent program plus the right learner for online courses to be really beneficial.
Good luck!
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brutus2011: you are quite right that the “corporate hucksters” will try to “flip this reality” you are describing.
For example, I can easily imagine one of their spinmeisters selling online eduproducts to initially reluctant customers using the following spiel: even on websites that carry comments highly critical of online education, naysayers are still forced to admit that [to quote just one individual—YOU!] people can “profit from online courses” and that said courses “can be beneficial” and in fact such an approach to education “democratizes learning.”
And to top it all off: the above quotes are unsolicited endorsements by the holder of an actual M.A. who is going “mainly online” for his JD! Honest! You can’t make this stuff up!
Case closed. Signed, sealed, and delivered. Will that be check in the mail, credit card over the phone or paypal?
Who could doubt the veracity of the above statements—especially since every word is quoted accurately? Probably the same sad tired defenders of the education status quo who don’t believe that teachers overwhelmingly support the Common Core. You know, the same glum crowd heedless of Dr. Steve Perry’s exceptionally incisive use of a citation from numbers guru Jay-Z that “Men lie and women lie but numbers don’t.”
Then again, there’s no accounting [go figure!] for some people’s opposition to deserving edupreneurs reaping the bountiful rewards of $tudent $ucce$$…
🙂
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It’s a particularly Orwellian touch to have an online class about “social justice” be a wedge to help re-configure higher education, bust the faculty unions, and put the universities at the complete and unquestioning disposal of the Overclass.
It’s also fitting that it should be a Harvard – where much so-called education reform emanates from – professor’s class, since one hundred years ago Ivy League schools and their students were used to bust unions.
nyceducator.com/2010/09/ivy-league-union-busters-then-and-now.html
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For the record, I don’t mean to suggest that Professor Sandel himself is involved in this process of social vandalism. I have not observed his class, and assume it is excellent; I merely wanted to point out the insidiousness of the choice.
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I think we end up with flagship.public colleges, one per state, for research and the top students plus the elite private schools and the rest get the cheapo online crap.
Because obviously wealthy people aren’t sending their sons and daughters to State School Online. We’ll preserve some schools for those folks.
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Perhaps our society no longer has the will to fund services properly, but those promoting it shouldn’t call it reform. Once all this wonderful stuff is in place I am sure real educators will be able to make it work, but nobody should embrace this kind of change without a discussion of the real reasons it is being foisted on the public.
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Online college is no substitute for the genuine experience. These privatizers are only operating via greed if they haven’t the sense to realize that “cheap” does not equal “cost effective.” Invest wisely from the outset or pay dearly later.
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In my area, we keep getting all of these commercials about online education from another nearby state. The commercials insist that these courses “personalize” learning, unlike large lecture classes. Nothing could be further from the truth, but people buy this garbage.
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Even now the Louisiana legislature is attempting to fund vouchers by taking funds from higher ed to do so. Foolishness.
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This is about $$$$$ and control, not learning.
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“California Lieutenant Governor Gavin Newsom acknowledged as much: ‘The old education financing model, frankly, is no longer sustainable.'”
This confirms what we’ve known about Gavin Newsome for quite some time: He’s another one of these neo-liberal “Democrats” who will almost always be pro-gay marriage, pro-choice, and often pro-gun control and pro-marijuana decriminalization, but vote and think like REPUBLICANS on almost everything else.
Such duplicitous politicians—like Gavin Newsome—think that they can snow us into looking at the “Big Shiny SOCIAL ISSUES PROGRESSIVE Ball over here, on my left!” with the hope that we won’t notice the Smelly Big Ball of Manure, directly on my right.”
Newsome, is part of a deceitful fringe of “Democrats” who talk “left” but vote “right-wing” on any and all economic issues.
Newsome is very close, both politically and personally, to Michelle Rhee and her ethically-challenged husband, Kevin Johnson.
Watch this Gavin Newsome guy and take everything he says about education with a very large grain of salt.
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Before online learning, and still true today, one could go to the public library and access the same material. Especially in a major city, like the NY public library. For a highly motivated individual the materials are available.
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Does anyone object to movable type?
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FYI
http://engineering.stanford.edu/press/stanford-collaborate-edx-develop-free-open-source-online-learning-platform
Stanford University will collaborate with edX, the nonprofit online learning enterprise founded by Harvard and MIT, to advance the development of edX’s open source learning platform and continue to provide free and open online learning tools for institutions around the world.
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