Derek Bok, former president of Harvard University, has some concrete suggestions to improve higher education. His most prominent suggestion is that Ph.D. Candidates should be trained to teach, not just to compete their dissertation.
But the most interesting comment occurs near the end of the article when he writes:
“A more plausible reason for the sluggish pace of reform is the scanty preparation given to graduate students for their role as educators. Lacking such training, newly minted Ph.D.’s naturally begin their teaching by trying to emulate the professors they respected most during their student days. While there is something to be said for this practice, it hardly encourages innovation in the classroom. Rather, it tends to produce an uncritical, conservative attitude toward teaching, quite at variance with the way most faculty members go about their research.
“Continuing this approach is likely to prove even more costly in the future than it has been in the past. President Obama has called for a significant increase in the number of Americans graduating from college by enrolling hundreds of thousands of new students every year. Many of these young people will be less prepared for college work than the average student today and, hence, more difficult to teach.
“Even if colleges manage to meet the president’s goal (and that will be a tall order indeed), America will never regain the huge lead in educational attainment that helped to make it the world’s most prosperous nation from 1870 to 1970. Now that a dozen or more countries have made the transition from an elite to a mass or nearly universal system of higher education, it will be all that we can do simply to keep up.
“If the United States is ever to regain a significant economic advantage from the education of its people, it will have to come through the quality of instruction that our undergraduates receive and not just from the quantity of college degrees being offered. Such instruction will surely be slow to arrive without a faculty trained to bring to its teaching the same ample store of background knowledge, the same respect for relevant data, and the same questioning, innovative spirit that professors have long displayed in carrying out their research.”
Diane Ravitch's blog 
My son was working on PhD at Temple U in Philly. He enjoyed the teaching aspect of his fellowship there. Students loved him. He enjoys helping people. Of course, his PhD project was not something for which he could in good conscience pursue. They told him teaching didn’t matter. Research was more important. Money for projects and research matter so much more than teaching to them.
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I had the same experience during my Ph.D. Program. I loved teaching, but was told it didn’t matter. The university even would impose additional teaching as a penalty got professors who didn’t publish enough. I quit in mid- dissertation and became a high school teacher instead.
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Good luck with that. Look at the comments. Professors will have to start seeing teaching as a profession, rather than as something superfluous that anyone can quickly pickup on the job. And they will have to start valuing education, education research and people who have been formally trained as educators –strange as that may sound.
My PhD program encouraged doc students to develop and teach their own courses, not seminars for full professor’s courses, but that was in Educational Psychology, which highly values education, teaching and learning.
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“President Obama has called for a significant increase in the number of Americans graduating from college by enrolling hundreds of thousands of new students every year.”
This is the first problem: A president is telling people what to do with their futures.
“Many of these young people will be less prepared for college work than the average student today and, hence, more difficult to teach.”
Why will students “less-prepared for college” actually be in college again? Not everyone should go to college. We need vocational workers with their own expertise and skill-sets. If schools change their entry standards because they need to meet some quota, they are going to change the academic landscape.
In regard to the teaching quality of college professors, I have some first-hand experience. As an in-service teacher with 15 years of teaching experience just finishing up an advanced degree in music with an emphasis in music education, I can honestly speak highly of the professors I’ve had. They inspire their students to be active participants in the learning process. They guide their students through in-class discussions to not only hone thinking skills but to find new ways of framing positions in the continuum. Their assignments require students to be seekers and analysts of the information needed to bring purpose and understanding of the topic at hand, yet never were there complete foregone conclusions, even in my theory classes. There was always room for more research or self-teaching on the topic or for different ways and approaches of thinking about the topic.
These activities are tenets of brain-training and self-awareness for which adult brains have the cognitive capacity, and those students coming into under-graduate scenarios with these skills do not need a professor holding their hands every step of the way. If this is necessary, those students should never have been accepted by the colleges in the first place, or at least until they have acquired some of the skills necessary to be self-learners. Community colleges are great places to bridge the gap, but the bottom line is that colleges and universities cannot lower their entry requirements simply because the President requests that more people should be going to college than the number of people who actually do.
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LG,
You miss a crucial shift in the college paradigm. With the vast increase in numbers, the colleges will increasingly shift to online learning and each student will “learn at his own pace.” Only the students at the most expensive, most selective colleges and universities will have the interaction with their professors that you valued.
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Diane, that shift is under way, absolutely. It follows on the heels of the economically-driven “lowering of standards” that has been going on for decades in post-secondary education. When the baby boomers all left college to make their way in life, there was a void in the college-aged population, yet colleges and universities had already built their economic structure on serving this large population. How does a post-secondary institution keep the revenue stream to support its infrastructure? Keep their numbers up. That paradigm shift started a whole new swath of economic issues in this country–issues that ended up becoming academic ones, as well.
As with online learning–something I adamantly cautioned my university about when completing a survey about a new initiative to accept private funding to increase online course offerings–the paradigm shift is closely tied to economics. If the powers-that-be want to attach a “professors do not teach” message to justify this, they need a push-back from those professors who actually do teach. I can enlist a whole army of profs who regularly create an environment of strong academic curiosity and apprenticeship in this fight. If they are a dying breed, I will fight for their conservation.
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I work hard to interact with the 250 to 500 students in my large lecture, but there is a limit to how much interaction can be done. Of course tuition at my in university is 9,000 a year instate while tuition at elite liberal art schools are more around $40,000 to $45,000 a year. If your going to require the small class size and quality of the faculty at, say Harvey Mudd, you will have to pay the cost.
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LG,
Would you care to share with us the name(s) of the institution at which you attended?
Gracias.
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I am about to exit the program at the Mason Gross School of the Arts at Rutgers University, a state institution. I had the pleasure of taking an elective at the Graduate School of Education where I studied with a colleague of Bruce Baker. My GSE professor gave us the bad news that the university has slowly become a hybrid of private and public funding with the majority of funding now coming from private sources. He cautioned us on the shifts in public education and actually (inadvertently) led me here to this blog.
In my music history, theory, performance and education methodology, philosophy, and research coursework, I was incredibly fortunate to have the guidance of some fine teachers in the academic world. I can tell you, I was extremely skeptical at first of university professors and their ability to teach having been an in-service teacher myself and remembering how much of an independent learner one needs to be as a student in college. I have found that, though their methods differed, they each had a unique way of piquing the academic interest of their students. I have learned a great deal from them, not only in subject matter, but in teaching and learning methodology. College students must be self-starters who seek to learn, not students who were brought up on test reviews and spoon-feeding. Yet, so many students who are accepted to colleges lack these skills. They end up dropping out, but why were they accepted in the first place?
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Thanks for the info. You are truly lucky to have experienced that. But then again they say that luck comes from preparedness!! Congrats and good luck!!
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Thanks, Duane. I have to take my comprehensive examination this coming Monday in order to graduate. I’m pretty exhausted from the intense study, but this will be the culmination of coursework that took 6+ years to complete. This preparation is also a bit cathartic especially since my courses were taken piecemeal while teaching full-time. I am truly grateful for the experiences and the relationships I’ve had while in the program. Rutgers has truly given me great opportunities to learn from amazing minds who happen to be incredible people, too. This, to me anyway, is the ideal situation.
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Well double and triple good luck!! I’m sure you’ll do fine!
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Diane:
Bok writes:
“America will never regain the huge lead in educational attainment that helped to make it the world’s most prosperous nation from 1870 to 1970.
Do you know the basis for this assertion? Of all the myriad reasons to explain America’s material prosperity, this never struck me as being near the top.
To my knowledge most of America’s leading industrialists during the pre-electronics era, e.g., Edison, Westinghouse, Ford, Carnegie, Rockefeller, were self taught and had little if any college education.
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One might argue that with Steve Jobs and Bill Gates that it has not changed in electronics era!
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GE2l2R:
Perhaps, but Paul Allen and Steve Wozniak were college graduates and both played significant roles as partners in these endeavors. The majority of the main hardware guys were college trained engineers, scientists or mathematicians. (The history of Fairchild Semiconductor illustrates the emergence of the industry around a core of exceptionally, entrepreneurial college trained engineers, physicists and mathematicians.)
I am still perplexed by the notion that the supply of education is somehow more significant than the source and nature of the demand for education. One of the hallmarks of US education in the earlier period was the importance of technical and scientific education as opposed to less focused disciplines. The great land grant universities started as technical institutes. I recall reading Ira Magaziner’s The Silent War and recognizing that the desire for technical education on the part of ordinary factory workers in the Tiger economies (a) mirrored what happened in the US in an earlier epoch and (b) indicated the drive and initiative that would sustain the competitiveness of these emerging technical competitors. Without the drive and initiative, expanding the supply and/or changing the skill sets of college instructors will have little effect.
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. . . that it has not changed in the electronics era!
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That quote caught my eye, also.
My response is that Bok has just reworded the age old lament in desiring the “good ol days”. (not to mention the inane America’s #1 meme)
“The gooddle days”: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XCbS859-L7s
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Duane:
It is far too early in the day to find you somewhat agreeing with me!! ;D
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Bok catches up to Hutchins, 80 years too late.
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First thought: We may be coming upon the twilight of the he arrogant idea of ‘American Exceptionalism’. Bok makes a fine point about emphasizing the need for doctoral students acquiring both research and teaching skills. I think there is a huge fly in the ointment of Bok’s prescription.
Where does Bok expect a newly minted PhD to find a job doing what she was trained to do? Higher education has, for its part, responded by rapidly expanding the use of contracted service Adjuncts, rather than adding full salaried staff. There is no need to elaborate on the consequences of this apparently functional approach to the problem of “What colleges and universities so with with the newly minted Ph.D”?
There are several possible solutions: with a nod to the ‘free market’, admit fewer graduate students; shut down (phase out) graduate school education in glutted specialties; develop formal connections with community colleges and provide them with skilled and educated teachers; or, perhaps, far more creatively, create the aforementioned relationships with schools of education and high schools: provide deep training in the subject area; and formal teacher training and job placement.
Oh yes, I forgot that subject area teachers in secondary schools will be poorly evaluated if they utilize more than one teaching strategy, This misbegotten approach was ‘beat to death’, in an earlier blog thread. To paraphrase what has rapidly become an aged slogan: “It’s the text, stupid, not the context”. This value judgement lead me to a final thought:
Never,in my wildest dreams, would I changed my mind about the worth of my high school education ( in the stone age early ’60s): I detested every moment at Forest Hills High School (located in Queens, NYC); and now, in the wake of educational reform, I feel damn lucky. to have negotiated, really ‘zombied’ my way to an academic diploma, via the NOT archaic demands of taking Regents Exams. Thank the lord for thos pink colored Amsco Regent Review books. 🙂
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John A:
Alexis de Tocqueville had it right, IMHO. The idea of “America” as a land of liberty and opportunity still has a strong hold over many, especially on those of us who came from class riddled societies in Europe. I always think it is sad that so many seek to decry the freedom and opportunities they have access to rather than making the fullest use of them.
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You’re kidding yourself if you think that America is a classless society:
“At least five large studies in recent years have found the United States to be less mobile than comparable nations. A project led by Markus Jantti, an economist at a Swedish university, found that 42 percent of American men raised in the bottom fifth of incomes stay there as adults. That shows a level of persistent disadvantage much higher than in Denmark (25 percent) and Britain (30 percent) — a country famous for its class constraints.
Meanwhile, just 8 percent of American men at the bottom rose to the top fifth. That compares with 12 percent of the British and 14 percent of the Danes.
Despite frequent references to the United States as a classless society, about 62 percent of Americans (male and female) raised in the top fifth of incomes stay in the top two-fifths, according to research by the Economic Mobility Project of the Pew Charitable Trusts. Similarly, 65 percent born in the bottom fifth stay in the bottom two-fifths.”
“Harder for Americans to Rise From Lower Rungs”
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“. . . it hardly encourages innovation in the classroom. . . ”
Yep, gotta innovate, innovate and then innovate some more. You know “continuous improvement” yadda yadda yadda!!! (that’s one exclamation point for each yadda)
After twenty years of teaching I believe that I have pretty much settled on what can and does work in my teaching of Spanish. Not that I won’t tweak things from time to time but for the most part this concept of “innovation” in the classroom doesn’t hold much water for me. Many younger teachers, hell, even older ones, are enthralled by the latest, shiniest, fastest and bestest “innovations” that come along, only to discard them as soon as the next sexiest and bestest comes along, much like a philanderer does with women.
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The assertions by President Bok are most interesting to me. In our school system years ago it was asserted that lecturing was a very inefficient form of teaching. Interaction with students took precedence. In evaluating teachers we had a form: teacher talk, student talk, interaction etc. It has been years so cannot recall with precision exactly but that was the gist of it. Education was distinct from academic achievement. Education included MANY important areas: integrity, love of learning, many of the humanistic areas, what it means to be a human, who are we as a person, where are we going, what are the most important things to be a human being, not a widget prepared to worship at the feet of the corporate CEOs.
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Gordon:
50% of private sector employees work in companies with less than 500 employees.
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Bernie,
Interesting statistic.
Do you have a source? Does this number include all private sector employed persons( for example; part time, self employed, contract employes, seasonal, etc.)?
Thanks.
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Ang:
Here is the source.
http://www.census.gov/econ/smallbus.html
It does not include public sector employees.
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Thanks for the link.
As I asked, does this number represent all private sector employees?
For example, a person who workers for, say mollie maids, works for a franchise. The corporation is very large, but the individual franchise may be quite small. There are many other similar type set ups. Are they included in this 50%?
Also, how about part time or seasonal employees? Do they also count toward this 50%?
Since you referenced the 50%, I was hoping you could fill in some more information.
Thanks
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Ang:
Good questions. Given that I believe that these numbers are filled out by owners and HR folks and are linked to actual $$ payroll numbers, the numbers will refer to actual employees on the payroll. Therefore, franchisees will be separate firms since they are responsible for their own $$ payrolls.
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Ang, It’s not likely to include the people that companies hire as independent contractors, because they are not considered to be employees. This is a common practice in many firms these days, including large ones, as with the numerous adjuncts that private colleges hire to teach courses and the guys who tow your car for AAA. It’s often done to save money precisely because they are not considered employees, so the company won’t have to pay payroll taxes for them, etc.
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CT:
The IRS is pretty strict on who you can call an independent contractor. They must have other sources of income. The penalties for trying to avoid payroll taxes are serious. Some employers probably do try to do this. However, the underground economy is much, much larger with people and their pay completely off the books.
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MANY employers have been getting away with misclassifying employees as independent contractors for years and I’ve worked for several of them over the past two decades. Whether people have another source of income is not amongst the criteria the IRS uses to determine who is an employee and who is an independent contractor. It is based on how much autonomy workers have in determining how they do their jobs. “The general rule is that an individual is an independent contractor if the payer has the right to control or direct only the result of the work and not what will be done and how it will be done.” http://www.irs.gov/Businesses/Small-Businesses-%26-Self-Employed/Independent-Contractor-Defined
I’ve worked for employers that had no intention of giving independent contractors such autonomy and told us precisely what and how to do our jobs. It’s just another scam that the government has been turning a blind eye to and letting businesses get away with, to the disadvantage of workers who have virtually no rights –including no right to minimum wage or unemployment compensation. And it’s not under the table. It’s very blatant at many places, such as at a college where I’ve worked that has exactly ONE full time faculty member and HUNDREDS of independent contractors serving as the rest of the faculty.
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CT:
You are correct as to IRS definition of an independent contractors. I am sure some try, but it is a dangerous game and undermine your credibility with clients if it gets out. Colleges and public sector employers may operate differently and may be looked at differently by the IRS. We got audited specifically around who we were using as sub-contractors – because a sub-contractor tried avoiding his taxes and he had a 1099 from us. Ours all had Taxpayer Ids (W9s) and received 1099s.
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There are no exclusions for certain kinds of employers.
The colleges that I’ve worked at that do this are all private and they have been getting away with it for decades. I know of instances where the IRS has gone after teachers at those schools, who happen to make a very meager income, but the IRS did nothing about the employers who misclassified them.
Workers in other fields I’ve spoken to, like at AAA and people in the tech industry, have been just as disturbed as adjuncts are about their being misclassified as independent contractors. We have a lot of double standards being implemented in this country, where private businesses and the wealthy are favored over workers and the poor.
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I am amazed that I am still reading posts bashing online learning, especially from people I hold in such high regard. Online learning, with appropriate student to student and teacher to student communication and collaboration is very effective and can be just as effective as face to face. Canned “study as you will” courses in which there is little to no communication and collaboration along with higher ed administrators who think online learning is their “cheap” saving grace is the reason online learning has a bad rap. Distance learning has been successful for years, including online learning. I am concerned current reform agendas are grooming unskilled teachers in a matter of weeks to facilitate classes in which students will complete online modules, thus continuing to confuse quality online teaching and learning with canned, “unmanned” webbased courses. Teaching is the key in any environment.
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I agree that online courses generally do not scale as well as folks (including administrators in several colleges at my university) would like. I think there are some kinds of courses that work very well on line, some students for whom online courses are the best option they have.
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I agree completely. Education is rarely all or nothing, except in new ed reforms:-p
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I really like your avatar. Despite the kinds of learning you can achieve using e-learning (theory drills and access to a knowledge base), one cannot truly learn the skills of nuance and performance practice necessary to play the double bass online.
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Bahahaha! I agree totally. Online learning has its place. Just like bassists. We have our place.
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That reminds me if the Beethoven joke where it’s the bottom of 9th, the score is tied and the basses are loaded… 😉
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I just watched the full episode last night…..here is the transcript as well
http://www.axs.tv/ui/inc/show_transcripts.php?ami=A9779&t=Dan_Rather_Reports&en=808
Dan Rather – PhDon’t
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I agree that candidates need to learn how to be both educators and researchers. Anyone can gain knowledge but it takes a different understanding to deliver content that results in genuine, long lasting learning. However, being the educator is not encouraged. I experienced this disregard when I decided to obtain my PhD in Science Education instead of Biological Science. It’s been very difficult to find opportunities that allow me to teach biology and conduct educational research. I’ve found a home in a college learning center where I provide science teaching and learning consulting to students and some faculty. Unfortunately, we spend a great deal of time convincing administrations the importance of faculty valuing professional development in teaching and learning strategies.
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