What can you do to help with troublesome knowledge? Librarians and Threshold Concepts

August 3, 2011, 6:12 pm

This summer I’ve really been into Game of Thrones, Mineral, Simon Sinek, Curriculum Mapping, and Threshold Concepts.

I have to thank Steven Bell and Char Booth for their conversations at ALA11 that helped shape my thinking on Curriculum Mapping and a related instructional strategy. I have more to say on that but I’m waiting on my-future-collaborator-on-some-project Char Booth to write a post so I can piggyback with my thoughts.

Librarians & TC
The hottest thing to me right now is the idea of Threshold Concepts. When I found out that this was a code for “troublesome knowledge” I was hooked! These are the big ideas in each discipline that people struggle with for a variety of reasons.

I had a great conversation with a grad student a few weeks ago who is researching Threshold Concepts in relation to the Writing Program on campus. They are looking at it across disciplines and this is very inspiring to me. I love when I am hit with a contagious idea. I plan to meet with them later this summer to see how we might be able to get involved.

So what is this all about?

“A threshold concept can be considered as akin to a portal, opening up a new and previously inaccessible way of thinking about something. It represents a transformed way of understanding, or interpreting, or viewing something without which the learner cannot progress.”
Meyer & Land

The basic characteristics: (knowledge that is)

Transformative

Irreversible

Integrative

Bounded

Troublesome

Some examples:

Physics = heat transfer

Mathematics = limit

Cultural studies = signification

Literature = deconstruction

Economics = opportunity cost

Philosophy = personhood

These are some of the big critical ideas that students struggle with as they advance through the curriculum: necessary knowledge. And once they “get it” they pass through the threshold and move on to the next idea. It becomes a foundation for their academic progress.

And Libraries?
There is an article in the current issue of portal titled Threshold Concepts and Information Literacy, which applies this framework to the library context. (Thanks SB for passing it my way.) It’s a good read in terms of the challenges we face with our instructional efforts and I recommend giving it a look.

But… I am not interested in applying this to “library instruction” (aka instruction we do about using library resources and developing research skills) but rather, to the enterprise level of learning across campus. Let’s frame it this way: how can the library help students cross through the difficult thresholds and learn critical concepts that will enable them to succeed with their chosen major?

If I’m a physics librarian (or engineering librarian for that matter) what can I do to support an instructor teaching heat transfer? This is difficult and perhaps different. It expands our focus beyond assignments and gets into the heart of learning. What can we do in terms of learning objects, collections, instructional support, etc to help with this threshold / keystone concept.

Obviously faculty are the experts here and we cannot presume to be able to do a better job with these big ideas. But we can play a support role and demonstrate some knowledge and proficiency regarding the related threshold concepts for the subjects we are responsible for. This could greatly aid the impact and reputation of the library and librarian in the eyes of the academics.

For example, if I’m the English Librarian I should be conversant on deconstruction theory and other major forms of literary criticism. It’s one thing to know how to use keywords and subject headings to identify and locate information, but to be able to have an off-the-cuff discussion with some students or faculty about Derrida and Heidegger as it applies to literary criticism could strengthen my role or how I am perceived.

I’m not saying we need to be experts, but if we call ourselves subject specialists or something to that effect, then we should at least have a basic understanding of the “difficult” concepts within the discipline that we are supporting.

I definitely think this feeds into our instruction strategy too. What are the core courses that we need to reach? What are the research-intensive courses that we can support? And what are the threshold concepts within each discipline that we can assist with?

I really want to try and tie this all together with a curriculum map and an instructional strategy, but for now I’m enjoying reading the philosophy and application across the disciplines. It’s cool to see how the engineers apply it compared with the humanities and so forth. Here is a great bibliography if you’d like to dig deeper.

In the profession we talk a lot about making an impact and showcasing our value and I think that threshold concepts can provide us with an additional avenue. It’s one thing to offer an instruction session that helps students address a term paper assignment, but it’s another thing when the library is bonded to a critical learning encounter.

@brianmathews

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quidditas

“Who Controls the Inputs?”

Well, who sets the admissions targets?

It seems to me that one productive benefit of linking full time tenured instructor pay and promotion firmly to learning and placement outcomes is that it will force a conversation between upper admin and faculty about admissions targets and standards.

For example, in the contest between hitting graduate admissions targets and enrolling students with a real chance of using (I’ll even set a low bar of 50/50) their degree in journalism in some remotely related writing or publishing career, tenured faculty have tended to opt for wrangling personal benefits out of upper admin while processing student debt servicers for Citibank over accurately assessing their admissions files as befits their role as professional gatekeepers. Same for many other fields.

If we’re going to talk the corporatization of the university, as faculty keep insisting they want to do (as a means of deflecting attention from their own part in all this), then at least get real about it.

I am, therefore, all for linking instructor pay and promotion to learning and placement outcomes–and not at all in favor of blaming the admitted customers, their parents, their communities, their roommates –or even Facebook– for conditions generated by the institutions themselves.
medwards12

Colleges have grown accustomed to using end-of-term standardized evaluations as a basis for both improving the quality of instruction and making important faculty career decisions. This system frustrates both students and instructors, providing neither with the feedback required to make necessary changes while classes are in session. A feedback-and-refinement process serves students, faculty, and administrators better by removing obstacles to learning, providing a means to rapidly improve delivery, and cutting evaluation costs. A fully developed Web-based evaluation system serves colleges better by providing information more quickly and clearly and shifting the definition of quality instruction and improvement from “getting high scores” to “using student feedback to facilitate change.” By taking these steps, schools can begin to mine the vast potential of technology-driven evaluation to improve teaching and learning.
bryanalexander

Great discussion from Sondra, who represented the small campus/liberal arts world. I like the way you rapidly surveyed the terrain, from the importance of peer cohort benchmarks to the student experience connection to organizational reconfiguration.
kenn45

Yes!
Guest

Lesboprof,

I feel your outrage. I feel it’s necessary to pose some tough additional questions — what if the boy wasn’t 10? What if he was 19? What if he was a private first class in infantry, and the abuser was his NCO and “openly gay” and serving in the military with pride?

What if the victim had no way out of the situation because he couldn’t prove that the act wasn’t consensual and the witnesses were scared of saying anything? What if he got it twisted in his head and thought, ‘I can’t be weak, I am not a victim — I am gay and I wanted this’? And then what if the military bounced him around until he went downrange and died under strange circumstances and the whole thing got covered up while the gay community held parades and parties celebrating the repeal of Don’t Ask Don’t Tell?

Would you care then?

Would you feel it important to draw attention, cultivate awareness, and demand a national discussion?

Those things happened. And the gay community didn’t care. They had their parades, their parties, their cheers of progress. It wasn’t as though it was impossible to know that such things happened — I wrote letters to gay news outlets and senators to caution them about the conditions for enlisted servicemen after the repeal. Gay activists wanted their victory. People like us were expendable.

Don’t preach to the people who didn’t stop it or intervene earlier. Change a few of the elements in this story and you might very well be capable of sacrificing young people for a higher cause.

joud3084

If your point is that requiring soldiers to stay in the closet reduces the risk of sexual assault, I think you have it wrong, and even potentially backwards.

If your point is that sexual assault is a crime whenever it happens and should be prosecuted regardless of the sexual orientation involved, then I think we would all agree.

If your point is that the efforts by gay Americans to secure their civil rights somehow sanction rape or institutional cover-up, then I think that’s an unjustified slur.

And regardless of the point, if the aim is to try to make this columnist look like a hypocrite in her opposition to sexual crimes, then I think evidence would be more persuasive than innuendo.
http://twitter.com/poopinchute Lulzmobile

What in tarnation are you on about? Does this have something to do with Obama being a secret gay Muslim (you wrote: http://criticalnewsscan.blogspot.com/2011/11/my-take-on-herman-cain-sex-scandal.html )?
lesboprof

ROP Lopez, your argument holds no water. I would ask you what you would say about the many women who have been raped in the military. Perhaps we should just let gay men and lesbians into the military, eh?

Just FYI, rape is never okay, and I do not think equating the end of don’t ask Don’t tell with rape is acceptable or even rational. Get over your fear of gay men and lesbians.
tenured_radical

Bobby, this just isn’t a “gay issue”: if there is a gay community, it doesn’t have police, and to the best of my knowledge nobody gay saw this happen. This is an issue that revolves around the many forms of violence big time athletics perpetuates. Child rape may be the epicanter, but violence against women, medical mistreatment and the failure to educate or compensate athletes.

I realize that violence against men is an important theme of your responses, but it isn’t the “gay community” that erases/perpetuates that. It is a sex-gender system more generally that markets and constructs ideals of masculinity that, honestly, depend on violence for their social, institutional and economic power. It wasn’t the “gay community” who had the opportunity to monitor and stop Sandusky: it was a male hierarchy at Penn State that thought its football team was more important, and it was a multi-million dollar charity (Second Mile) who depends on high profile jocks and what they can bring to the table to bring in donations that, in turn, pay the executives.

You have been very open about how lodged your concerns are in difficult life experiences, but those experiences — and you analysis of why they occurred – are not universally replicable. Turn your fine mind to expanding your critique and weaving it into your conservative worldview in the creative ways you have indicated.

henr1055

1. People do not want to get INVOLVED – and supervisors discourage employees from getting INVOLVED. Next you do not know who (quoting Clear and President Danger) has a CHIP IN THE BIG GAME. You mess with someone who has a CHIP IN THE BIG GAME AND YOUR TOAST TENURE OR NOT. If I reported something and a university administration did not do anything I would be suspicious and probably would not risk my job to go over the head of the negligent supervisor. CHIPS IN THE BIG GAME. If there is an investigative reporter out there who wants to dig find out who it was that had the CHIP.
laur2582

In answer to R.O.P. Lopez: rape is rape, and is not a sexual crime, but is a crime of violence and power. As such, the sexuality of the perpetrator, gay or straight, is really not relevant. DADT’s repeal will not facilitate more incidents of the sort that, I assume, happened to you. The point is that rape is a violent crime, assertion of power and effecting humiliation on the victim. The rage and humiliation that you express is that of all rape victims, and when we as a society allow it to go on, do not report, do not pursue the rapists, it is a failure to pursue justice. It is NOT a matter of homosexuality or heterosexuality, but violence. Violence against children IS more heinous, because children ARE more powerless, but it doesn’t change the nature of the crime, only the degree.
drj50

It is not necessary “to assume that they tried to minimize what happened, even to themselves.” Some apparently believed that they did the right thing by notifying superiors. I would have assumed that, especially if I had notified a chief administrative officer who oversaw campus police and also had access to the university’s legal counsel. I would have assumed that others knew more about how to handle this than I.

Or could we not “assume” that incompetence rather than butt covering was involved?
22223206

And so the
patriarchy beat goes on: the male, white, rich, empowered patriarchy can take their
pleasure (or any other treasure desired) from any woman, child or less-than-equal-man
they want, with impunity. No surprise – it’s been revealed in most other
patriarchies: the church, Wall Street, politics, etc…..

Thanks,
Lesboprof, for speaking out on the issues – most people have been brainwashed
into submission and inaction by 10,000 + years of patriarchal domination and
exploitation. It’s time for the other 99%
of the people to stand up for their own human rights, and for those who are
powerless to defend themselves.

And as for Henr1055
and R.O.P. Lopez – use your enlightenment to enlighten others, not to disparage
them. It’s time for ALL of us to grow a pair, and stand up for the right thing.
bfrank1

I don’t disagree that all the individuals involved had a responsibility to call the police, or that they should all lose their jobs, especially those in positions of authority who covered up or obfuscated the problem. Certainly I can understand the fear of reprisal that a graduate student or a janitor might have experienced that prevented them from calling the cops at that moment, but if they felt strongly enough to come forward to a supervisor, that person had an obligation to follow through for them. This includes Coach Paterno. But there is another aspect to this. JoPa is an elderly Roman Catholic man who has witnessed almost a century of such behavior sanctioned and abetted by the spiritual leaders of his church. JoPa is not a ’60′s free love radical, not someone subverted by free thinking, as the vatican contends in its own defense; JoPa has been well schooled in the morals of his church, and this is the result. NOW can we put some bishops and cardinals in jail?
csoehl

I have been a court-appointed guardian ad litem for over 15 years and have become pretty jaded about the responsiveness of adults who are mandated reporters to pretty clear evidence of abuse of children. I tell everyone I speak to about this issue that the first call to make is to the police and then, and only then, to any other persons who should be notified. Many elementary schools have a process they want teachers to follow when abuse is suspected, and this leads to miniminzation and failure to report. Anyone who is a mandated reporter, and this includes almost anyone working in an educational environment, must take personal responsibility to report, even if abuse is only suspected. Most states have a legal requirement which devolves onto the person who suspects abuse, not the institution. Personal liability requires personal responsibility.

Of course, if I witnessed a child being raped, my first response would be to confront the rapist, rescue the child and worry about reporting afterward. We are the grown ups who must do whatever is required to prevent this happening. Where are everyone’s values and human instincts? This makes me want to weep!!!

butteredtoastcat

You have two grown men, a GA and a janitor, so stunned that they can’t react. The first calls his dad distraught; the second goes to his supervisor shaking and crying. Clearly these were shock reactions going on. To claim that “if I witnessed a child being raped, my first response would be to confront the rapist, rescue the child and worry about reporting afterward” is lovely wishful thinking, but pardon me if I have some serious doubts.

We all think we would react in certain ways, but we really don’t know until we are put face to face with a horrendous situation. And just a note about PA: the state’s law about reporting suspected abuse permits an educator to report to either a police agency or to a work supervisor. A Philadelphia Democrat is now trying to change this law to make it mandatory to contact the police, specifically.

http://www.phillyburbs.com/content/tncms/live/phillyburbs.com/news/state/pa/pa-lawmaker-calls-for-law-change-over-psu-arrests/article_338b494f-d7e8-58a3-b286-3f2d5b07df04.html

Sadly, perhaps, McQueary (the GA) and the janitor were both following the current PA law by alerting their supervisors. Neither went to the police, but the law did not compel them to do so. As someone who actually read the entire sickening grand jury report, I am hoping that Democrat gets his way. But when one judges McQueary and the janitor, one needs to keep both shock reactions and the PA state law in mind.

tenured_radical

Which means these kids and their parents should sue the a$$ off Penn State.

butteredtoastcat

Oh, there will be lawsuits. They will be settled out of court. Victims and their families will be bullied into taking what is offered. My guess is that there is more rot in this than 8 victims and one disgusting pedophile. Penn State will do what organizations always do, protect their own. PSU threw to the wolves an unpopular president and an aging coach that they’ve been trying to fire for years. Both were expendable. What they won’t allow, under any circumstances, is a wide scale housecleaning, a ferreting out of all the guilty. Second Mile and PSU will protect each others’ guilty secrets and high powered state officials connected to the board members of both institutions will do their best to make this go away quickly.

tenured_radical

Right on.
http://usa.alexandalexa.com/fashion/t-designers/trunki.html Trunki

This is best resource for getting knowledge and improve our skill. Over here you have described some examples which are really useful for us.
prattcc

We introverts spend all our free time with the most interesting people.
barbmc5

It’s too bad you ever felt guilty! I am a highly introverted,married, 50+ childless woman with a PhD and a non-tenure track research position at a large research university. I’m just fine with my current situation and know that you will be too. Being “lab mommy” is about as much as I can handle on a daily basis. For me exhaustion and happiness are mutually exclusive and always have been. Everyone from my boss, the tenured professor and department head, to my students to my husband knows that I shut down once I reach a certain level of exhaustion and there is just no powering through it. Leave me alone and let me rest! Really, the only time I wish I could fight myself and win is when I go to scientific conferences. I think I would get more out of them if they didn’t do me in by the end of the first day.
helen53

I’m certainly with you! After teaching three classes in a day and having some interactions with random students, faculty, and other folks. I have to shut down, and the only company I want is my cat. Even being with people I adore can be too much sometimes. After too much social stimulation, I feel like I’m vibrating like a bell that’s been struck too hard. Do I feel guilty or inadequate? Yes, sometimes, but mostly I feel misunderstood. At least my cat gets me.
mjaneb

Yes – right on target. I am in fundraising (a people-centered profession if ever there was one), but early on I gravitated to grant writing where there is less in-person interaction and more alone time to research, think and write. My extroverted spouse still wonders why, on the weekends, I go to the far side of the yard to garden or rake when I could be working side by side with him or other family members. Ah, sweet alone time!
ashay78

Thank you, Minerva. I think you “hit it on the head” when you say “just because you are good at working with people doesn’t mean you draw energy from it.”

I love people (students, faculty, and staff), but I love it when they go away too.

I worry that this trait will allow others to obtain a better position at my college. I hate having to “fake” my way through being social because I know it will influence how my next interview turns out.

oh_richard

As others have said, this does hit the nail on the head… And as other have said, thank you!

But why do introverts go into administration at all?

There’s a great Star Trek Voyager episode (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flesh_and_Blood_%28Star_Trek:_Voyager%29 for a overly simplistic summary) in which Torres says something to an introverted woman who has discovered her potential for leadership. “You’re an engineer, like me,” she says. “Just remember that it’s great to have visionaries who inspire people, but -we’re- the ones who make their dreams -happen-.”

This last 60 seconds of the episode resonated deeply with me, as it captured exactly how I felt about my time in administration. I tried to figure out how to make the dreams happen, but didn’t feel the need to be out front and own the dream. The work of solving a problem or creating a new opportunity is not about planning one or two steps and saying “good enough – let’s go with it!” (which the extroverts tend to do). Rather, it required weighing several steps and in my mind bug testing each, thinking ahead to begin then to gather the data we would need later at key decision points, anticipating obstacles and some ways to mitigate them… -then- thinking of how to “package” this for my extroverted colleagues. The nice red ribbon is flashy and colorful, and absolutely we need that… but we’ll need some plain ugly wire behind the scenes to tie it on; otherwise the ribbon will fall off and blow away.

It’s not just that working with the people doesn’t energize us… it’s that we expend a great deal of energy doing the jobs the extroverts look to us, and count on us, to do.

ljrjue

Except for the
fund-raising events of family get-together, inflatable tents also are great for
weddings where you can order a more casual style tent. You will feel confident
in the event if mother nature starts pouring her heart out in the form of rain
and wind, your guests will be protected. http://www.madeinflatable.com
morningsider

I collapse on my couch most nights, totally drained from teaching and advising. I find myself nostalgic for an office job I had twenty years ago: after 8 hours in cubicle I could enjoy all sorts of evening activities. As a full time college professor, I can’t drag myself out of the house in the evening, and weekends are spent recovering from the week. I pass up all sorts of things I would like to do. When I realized that my cubicle job fit my introversion, whereas teaching demands constant social energy, I no longer begrudge myself couch time.
This post shows one of the ways college professors are often a mismatch as educators. Many of us went to grad school because we are introverts who love long hours of solitary reading & research & writing. Somehow most of us “forget” that as professors we will be spending a great deal of our time in social interaction, something extroverts thrive on and introverts do not.

vern1

I liked your post. I’m a full time professor as well but have had a very different experience that you report. I’m at a large community college, I have a 17 hour a week teaching load.
Our colleges must be very different. I can go weeks without one student coming by during posted office hours. My office is far away from my colleagues. Social demands are minimal or absent. My classes are mostly large lecture classes where the social interaction is not greatly different than an actor on a stage “interacting” with the audience …. Best Regards

tardigrade

As an introverted student, the amount to which collaborative or other “group” work has been demanded in class has indeed got to me.

If businesses really do value it that much, make it a diploma modifier like “honors”, and let us have a few classes for each course that aren’t collaborative.
vern1

Very nice analysis! Like having a chronotype off from those around us, being introverted in a sea of extraverts makes working life hell. My daily wake-sleep cycle is a few hours off that of most every one else, and coupled with an introverted personality, made working 9 to 5 in an office a daily punishment.

Now I am quite happy teaching at community college, with lots of night classes.

I think a valuable analysis would look at the type of social interaction that is draining to us introverts. For example, I would never include teaching as “social interaction”– to me it energizes me, but not because of any “social” factors– rather in the way that an actor might describe energy derived from a successful stage performance. Of course I teach mostly large lecture sections– I’m thinking that the comments about teaching being draining have to refer to small discussion sections?

This is eerie but the cats image in your essay looks uncannily like my two cats.
vern1

“Interacting with people is draining” – doesn’t it depend on the type of people and the type of interaction?

For example, I find interacting with a colleague in hallway chit-chat energizing, but interacting with a student who asks “when is the test” or “can you give me the class notes” not energizing. I find giving a good lecture in my large classes energizing, but I can imagine that running a small discussion section would be draining.

Minerva can you refashion your social interactions so that they tap the part of you that is energized by them?

tardigrade

There’s at least one introversion spectrum (e.g. people-introversion, activity-introversion). Perhaps your midway along one or more of these spectrums and thus cannot complete relate to the stronger introverts along that spectrum.

antonw

Education writers should lead with the Bureau of Labor Statistics report that states that only
22% of the jobs created require a college degree and that math/science/computer jobs are being hit hard in our “Flat” world. See page two of this two page report.
http://www.textbooksfree.org/Change%20Education.htm
http://www.facebook.com/people/David-Moelling/100000672345596 David Moelling

The Commenters who noted the Ivy/Public delta as one of consistency miss the point. It’s still the student who wants and knows what they want to achieve. The school can help them choose the right courses etc. This is easier in private schools and particularly in the science/engineering areas (I refuse to use STEM) not because of the subject matter but because a defined set of courses and prerequisites exists. All students should start out as a declared major (changable) with a strong core of common courses for their first year. The structure is enormously helpful. This is what private schools often do better. HOWEVER, the cost increase is truly in the administrative and physical plant not the instructor level. At private schools this is prestige and in the public schools its payoff to the local construction lobby.
rei727887

Whether a college education is “worth it” also depends on one’s major. A degree in Applied Mathematics, for example, will be worth much more than a degree in Ethnic Studies.

It’s also interesting to compare the benefit:cost ratio of a two-year certificate of competency in a high-paying vocation, awarded by a community college, to the benefit:cost ratio of the four-year degree in Ethnic Studies. Community colleges’ tuition is less, as is the length of the program (two-year versus four-year). If the community college student lives at home, his cost for food and rent is less; and even if he’s a full-time student, his opportunity cost of foregone income is less. Finally, it’s unclear whose compensation would be higher.

For this person, the “college premium” may be small or negative. Yet, despite having little competence or interest in academics, he may feel obligated to earn a worthless four-year degree– incurring lots of debt to do so – because he has bought into the LIE that he cannot be successful without a bachelor’s degree.

hdl1784

Relatively few people major in “ethnic studies”. That’s a coded whipping boy. Business majors far outnumber ethnic studies majors. The business major is a more relevant comparison.

22265447

superficial, warmed-over drivel. everything has gone up in price and the consumer price index does not adequately reflect higher education. higher ed has a more relevant index which commentators with their axes to grind either overlook or ignore. as was noted in another post, the price of a car has gone up dramatically since the 70s and there’s no lasting value. it’s not an investment, but a cost of living. most items we buy meet those characteristics. higher education does not. when will higher ed commentators start noting that the skyrocketing costs of consumer products that is needed to pay ceo salaries and shareholders has taken ever so much more money from our pockets and created such a huge wealth gap that people are noticing and expressing that awareness through the occupy movement and support for it. are they deaf to such obvious signs of public discontent? they must be, because they want colleges and universities to imitate business. then, when we do–by charging what the market will bear (or just what we need to make up for declining state financial support) or paying our ceos–they cry foul. which is it smart guy commentators–should higher ed act like a business or not?

jaysanderson

Howard Johnson is right.
rei727887

I have examined the Higher Education Price Index and it’s a self-serving piece of circular nonsense that is completely irrelevant to consumers’ ability to pay for college.

Like the CPI, HEPI is based on a “basket” of goods and services that Institutions of Higher Education (IHEs) buy, the greatest portion of which is labor. Now, here’s the catch: if the (weighted average) costs of the goods and services in the IHE market basket increases, THE HEPI INCREASES by the same percentage.

Think about this for a moment. It’s as if you go shopping for a car and find that the model that cost $20,000 last year now costs $21,000 — an increase of 5%. When you point this out to the salesperson, he says, “No, in ‘real’ terms, it’s the same price as last year because the Car Price Index increased by 5%.”

So, no matter how much the cost of the goods and services bought by IHEs increases, the HEPI neutralizes it, allowing the institutions to claim “with a straight face” that the cost of higher education really hasn’t increased that much. On the other hand, if the IHE’s funding doesn’t keep pace with the HEPI, it can claim that it’s losing purchasing power. And how does the IHE close this gap between revenues and “need”? If you said, “raise tuition,” go to the head of the class.

The Consumer Price Index is the appropriate deflator for calculating what students and parents pay, after adjusting for the effects of inflation. When adjusted by the SAME index (to allow an apples-to-apples comparison), the cost of tuition has FAR OUTPACED consumer purchasing power.

The HEPI has absolutely no place in determining the “true” cost of colleges and universities to parents and students.

22028784

At least the Chronicle’s editorial director is willing to let us know that he is not neutral on the question of higher education’s value. This helps explain much about the editorial choices.
bethryan019

Everyone is extremely sensitive to the cost/value conumdrum. I think the situation is the siren for creating new education models – how can we look at the goals of education differently? Like the publishing industries, higher ed is going to have to accept that in the current environment, they have remember that their businesss is education, not forcing dated and inefficient education models originally created in the Middle Ages. The world has changed.

And yet, I just had a couple of young (20 something) alumni tell me that now that they are working, their education was worth every penny they had to borrow – we’re talking about a +/- $600/month student loan payment. I was amazed.

But, they had the personal drive to get those jobs by taking internships for no pay; there can be no substitute for personal initiative. Higher-ed can inspire and train, but students need to be responsible to plan their finances and be willing to make sacrifices as well.

When enrollments fall, higher-ed always looks at price/discounts – the author did not mention the increase in the high school drop out rate in the Northeast which also narrows the pool of applicants for higher ed as well.
http://www.facebook.com/people/Jim-Bishop/672604057 Jim Bishop

@ klaunglu

To my great disappointment, I think my late great friend Page Smith, who wrote the book to which I referred in my original post, was correct. We have, as a profession and as a culture, lost what was once our basic assumption about the purpose of education. I remain convinced that education at its best is a process wherein caring, skilled, informed people guide others in the process of becoming human; that is to gain control over the towering capacity that separates us from every other living creature of which we now know. We have the most developed ability to reason. Once a person has learned to execute the capabilities of their humanity, they may well get a good job, but that is not the point. In fact, some of our most capable brothers and sisters chose not to have a job at all but create a world for themselves completely outside the contemporary limitations of the culture into which they are born. Now, and for some time, the ‘educational process’ in most of its iterations is essentially a occupational training exercise ministered by people who attempt to pour the bodies and intellects of their students into molds prepared by the industrial machine that provides their summer homes and ‘research’ grants.
daraflores

Study without thought is vain: thought without study is dangerous. Stop wasting your time with just job hunt, if you are looking for a job for more than a year just realize that you need to change job you can get degree in few months from High Speed Universities search it online and you will be amazed
teapartydoc

See how “necessary” your pretty little credentials are to the public when your subsidies dry up, sucker.
lizziec

Adding to this questionable value is the dumping of masses of for-profit graduates into the market place with nice pieces of paper but little to show for their time in “college”. Now, employers not only have to contend with the reality that public universities have long ago lowered standards to keep the tuition monies flowing in, but now there are a host of other institutions, apparently with degree-granting ability, whose graduates add to the confusion.

It’s getting harder and harder to determine who’s worth the interview, and for a while, I heard talk in the ivory tower of the PhD fading into the ranks of the Master’s Degree and a NEW degree being developed (post-PhD) that would REALLY separate the wheat from the chaff. (yeah, right…)

Colleges are continuing tp price themselves out of the market for all but a few wealthy families, and those willing to enter into debt slavery to attend while the quality across the board continues to diminish in the name of greater numbers.

My prediction? But for a few of the solid, private/non-profits (Ivies come to mind), employers will dispense with looking for the degree specifically and begin to develop methods for evaluating who is trainable and then partner with (or develop) just-in-time training programs that will prepare their workforce for their specific needs. This sounds good for employers and seems nice if you are one of the people deemed “trainable”,… until you try to leave that enmployer and find that you are starting over again at the bottom of the heap.

In a way, things will have come full-circle, but it will be painful for all until we settle into the new reality.
lizziec

disqus… love when they double post!!!
rei727887

In my indignation over the inappropriateness of using the HEPI to justify increases in IHE spending — and, more specifically, tuition increases – I’m afraid I got a little carried away, but my main point is the same.

The HEPI does, in fact, measure the cost of a typical market basket of goods and services bought by IHEs at specified points in time. A significant part of this market basket consists of employee compensation, which is influenced by those use the index.

Now, to the source of my indignation. My state is home to a major public university system which shall remain nameless. Several years ago, this system produced a very nice glossy brochure to justify its request for additional funds. One chart had a title to the effect of, “Adjusted for Inflation, Cost of [IHE] Has Not Increased.” Sure enough, there was a line chart illustrating this point. How could this be? Even though state support per FTES had decreased over the period covered by the chart, tuition had skyrocketed and, after adjusting for inflation as measured by the CPI, total funding per FTES had increased in many of the years on the chart.

I was told that spending had been adjusted by an index measuring the cost of goods and services that the system bought — the HEPI. Although this description was technically accurate, I’m sure it was news to the students and parents who had seen tuition more than double over the previous decade.
jennoh2

It seems that more and more students are looking at the value of education. I know that the community colleges are swamped with students in our area. Many students opt to go to community college and then transfer to OSU to save money. They know the end result will be a degree from a reputable university. I see more students becoming more pratical and giving up bells and whistles, including traditional campus life, to save money. Additionally, it seems the emphasis now is for students to become more globally educated, both in and outside of the classroom, so that they can be more marketable to employers who are now looking for candidates that have experience interacting in the global market place.
vern1

I agree with you, but I think your “watching tv” comment might be misunderstood– commercial tv for me is as draining as dealing with slow people, but PBS or Netflix is recharging for me … What is it on tv that you find recharging?
ecogeofemme

Actually, almost anything. My husband doesn’t like much tv and can’t relate to the low-brow shows I like!
laughnow

Being ‘liberally educated’ is only for the rich now. College to get a job may be useful if its in an employable discipline. In IT, if I had it to do over again, id have skipped college, paid 20K to get a Cisco CCIE(assuming I had the brain to do it, which is way harder than the worst, and multiple immediate offers of employment. Then after getting a job that paid better than slave wages, get myself ‘liberally’ educated, provided I had enough dramamine to stomach it.
Young engineers I know coming out of college have 80-100k of college debt, limited prospects, but have no employable work skills. No education is worth that unless its employable.
http://pulse.yahoo.com/_AQVEVDBVQIFXGWTEGKME5ZMFMU neptune

Agreed. Three degrees here: BA at a rigid private institution, MA, MA, and ABD at public institutions (still trying to finish the PhD). My undergraduate institution was very tough whereas my graduate training has been somewhat mediocre: in fact it seems that at my doctoral institution, likeability goes much farther than actual competence. There is absolutely no comraderie among graduate students and intellectual disagreement is often impulsively characterized as “idiocy”. But that may be more of a revelation about graduate school politics/culture/egos than the difference between attending an exclusive private institution and a public institution. All that I know when I was B student as an undergrad in a private university, I felt more intellectually challenged than as a grad student in a public university. And while I have studied under distinguished chairs at my doctoral institution (two were on my original committee), those I studied under as an undergrad were more approachable and genuinely concerned about my intellectual development as opposed to demanding unquestioning deference to their opinions. As a college teacher these days, I implore my students to question me as much as they can: I’m no good to them if I demand that they take my scholarly opinions as the final word.
goldenrae9

I couldn’t respond to your lower comment wherein you stated ”
Or perpetuating them, you condescending piece of work, presuming, as your remarks do, that you and your like-minded fellows understand the problem better than I could possibly, a joke in itself.”

I would remember that we can read your facebook page and it seems pretty clear that you’re more a conservative troll than someone who has extensive background knowledge in higher education.
graddirector

Well, I am a science prof studying a human disease and trying to develop treatments for my scholarship. I assure you my work is read by plenty of folks and may even affect your life some day.

As for my day, most of it is directly relevant to teaching and helping students. However, at the college level, there is alot more involved than just giving lectures. My day usually ends around 6pm when I pick up my kids, so I guess I am like a dairy farmer now…..

Your assertion that MS students work harder than a tenure track assistant professor is simply absurd and shows a clear ignorance of a professor’s day. Many of our students chose the MS instead of the Ph.D. since they find our work schedule unappealing and are specifically choosing a profession where 40 hour work weeks are the norm in direct contrast of that of their mentors who often work twice that at peak periods.
ellenhunt

Dear god Jim. You have no clue what you are talking about. Professors work long hours. And to get to be a professor is incredibly competitive. Typically they work for 15 to 20 years at starvation wages before making much of anything. A very few make really good salaries. But I know brilliant, highly qualified professors in sciences, with tenure, who make in the $80K range. And many of them are the best, most active teachers.
http://www.facebook.com/people/Jim-Bishop/672604057 Jim Bishop

You believe what people write on their Facebook page?!?

Do you believe in Leprechauns, baby Jesus, Santa, the tooth ferry, the inherent honor and virtue of tenured faculty and their leadership?
ellenhunt

Yes. And living testament to Kruger’s observation that “the unskilled therefore suffer from illusory superiority, rating their ability as above average”

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/10626367
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunning%E2%80%93Kruger_effect
Unemployed_Northeastern

Cars are subject to lemon laws and consumer protections. College degrees and student loans are not. If your new car doesn’t work, you have recourse. If your new degree can’t get you employment, well [insert BS "pull yourself up by the bootstraps" nonsense here].

Edit: like a new car, the value of a new degree drops precipitously a few months after graduation, when many employers start looking ahead to the next class of graduates instead of looking back at the “day old bread.” The relevance of a new college grad sans employment can almost be measured in weeks.
seattlenerd

I work in higher education, as a tenured professor, as an administrator. There’s a lot of truth in J.B.’s points 1. and 2. above.

There are, of course, extremely effective faculty at universities, but the reward structure for faculty is largely orthogonal to effective educational leadership. In my experience, Universities get effective educators and administrators by accident, not by design.
Unemployed_Northeastern

I must say, this is one of the most thoughtful comments regarding the cost structure of higher education I have seen from a college president. Thank you. If I might, I have a few unrelated questions.

- There is a pretty strong conception among many venture capital outfits around Boston that only Harvard and MIT grads have ideas worth funding, no doubt because so many VC partners attended MIT or an Ivy. One hand scratches the other… Consequently, if someone from BU or Wentworth or Tufts or wherever has a genuinely good or great idea for a product/site/widget, s/he will encounter a lot of closed doors in Back Bay, Cambridge, and Waltham. Have you found this myopia to impact WPI grads?

- Similarly, Mark Zuckerberg recently came back to Boston/Cambridge to recruit. He made it no secret that he was only recruiting from, you guessed it, Harvard and MIT. Evidently, no one from the other 80-some odd Boston-area colleges and 30-odd Pioneer Valley colleges knows how to write code. What was your take on that, if any?

- Moving away from the sickening notions of prestige = talent that pervade our corner of the country, how does an institution or student balance their education between specialized coursework and training that has immediate benefit for an employer, and skills that might be more versatile in the long run? In other words, how does one ensure they can find another job if their chosen speciality goes the way of the passenger pigeon? One reflects on the many laid-off aerospace engineers – genuine rocket scientists! – after the end of the Apollo program, or of the thousands of unemployed Silicon Valley workers after the dot.com implosion and the “discovery” that most of their work can be done in developing nations for a fraction of the cost (or done stateside by folk on work visas). In other words, in our global economy where so much of the work force and their accumulated knowledge and experience is considered utterly fungible and easily interchangeable, how can one safeguard against such occurrences, beyond moving to the low-cost countries themselves?
unusedusername

Exactly.

“a simple credential will no longer cut it in some employment circles. And on that front, many colleges just don’t measure up.”

The real problem is that some majors don’t measure up. To say that college doesn’t work because some graduates are unemployed is painting with too broad a brush.
http://www.facebook.com/people/Jim-Bishop/672604057 Jim Bishop

>Your assertion that MS students work harder than a tenure track assistant professor is simply absurd and shows a clear ignorance of a professor’s day. <

I'm MUCH more familiar with 'a professor's day' than you want to believe, or I will take time to explain. Sincere congratulations on spending most of your day in ways '…directly relevant to teaching…' but I would ask you to consider the profession as a whole, and reflect on the percentage of your colleagues and mine who can honestly make the same claim. Parents send their children to school to obtain an education from legions of people who have a very different goal for their efforts, and that is the long and short of it. As you are with the sciences, reflect for a moment on how much public money is lathered on your discipline's projects, and how contemptuous multitudes of scientists are regarding the public and the non scientist science students that blunder under their sway.
ellenhunt

Consider, Jim, how contemptuous you are regarding those making the often incredible sacrifices necessary to be an educator or researcher.

I can only presume that you may have had a bad experience, or are just taking out your frustrations with life online.

I agree that because of budget cutbacks the student to professor ratio has become far too high. And yes, some professors get through who are, as the English say, “donuts”. But the majority have worked incredibly hard to get where they are.

Yes, some are arrogant jerks, that’s true. But mostly what some see as arrogance is a degree of irritation with a people who are uninterested in learning, but want to tell the professor “where its at”.
DaveyNC

Have you noticed that nearly every part of our economy that gets a significant amount of revenue from the government is experiencing exploding costs? Healthcare, check. K-12 education, check. Higher education, check. Housing, check—er, well it was, before it imploded. Corn and other subsidized crops, check.

It’s the subsidies that do it. Any time the government tosses some more money into a sector, prices rise by an aggregate amount roughly equal to the amount of the subsidy. I’m guessing that state legislatures cut back in part because they know that the feds will make up the difference.

If we want these costs to come down, we need to get the federal government out of the subsidy bidness.
klaunglu

Thank you vceross for providing an optimistic point of view and showing the opportunity that we have before us. I think that this discussion in itself is a great step towards progress.

I’d like to share my point of view first before I elaborate. I am a STEM graduate student in an R1 university. I have the opportunity to earn a good living in the private sector, but I have decided to take a large sum of loans in order to pursue elite education so that I may one day get the chance to join the ranks of professors of higher education. I frequent this website extensively and understand the challenges involved in pursuing a tenure track or an academic career. I believe, however, that the quality of research and teaching that is performed within this country is invaluable.

Jim Bishop, I understand your point of view. Many professors have wasted my time in courses that cost me $44 dollars per day. I have toiled with many friends through courses from professors that we believe taught us nothing and only hold tenure because they are lucky enough to be in a lucrative research field. However, I have many peers that have been inspired by professors, deans, and administrators that toil for the good of higher education and by proxi, the good of society.

I would like to ask you again what is the point of “higher education”? I personally do not believe it is to provide the means for students to make a living. I personally do not believe it is to increase the GDP for the nation. It might do so by coincidence, but I believe the goal of higher education is to improve the society in which we live in. I believe that the professors in sociology do this by pointing out to us the prejudices in our society and help shed light on how to see the value in other human beings unfamiliar to us. I believe that the professors in philosophy improve society by showing us how to critically think about important issues like abortion and immigration.

I understand the concern, however, of the importance of making a living. I will have to pay back over $50,000 in loans on an academic salary if I achieve my goals. Believe me, I am exploring all the options available to me. I would like to ask everyone though, what is the real value of higher education?

Here is an idea towards a solution I’d like to share. The discussion has largely been from people asking for more revenue potential from a college degree or from people defending the value of higher education and advanced research. Why not consider them separately?

threejs just mentioned this above. ”many trades pay way better than many degrees.” It reminds of the community colleges that provide training in order to work the pipettes and equipment for biotech firms. Why do we need to publicly fund people to make a good living? If citizens can fund trade education that will result in adequate jobs that provide for a family, is that not enough? On the flip side, why should the public fund higher education in economics or business in order for some people to make a large personal salary? Is that a good investment in public money? I do not pretend to say that it is a simple question, but I’d like to bring it up anyways.

To end my post, I’d like to sincerely thank the administrators, professors, and public for thoughtfully discussing these topics. I understand the limited time that everyone has under these tough conditions. You are all truly going above and beyond your duties and it gives me hope that this crisis will turn into a great opportunity like vceross says.

Thank you. I sincerely wish you all the best of luck in your endeavors. Remember that your efforts give us students hope and motivation to do great things.
hdl1784

That is interesting to hear. The conventional wisdom is that people with engineering degrees come out ready to work, and can get jobs easily.
ellenhunt

DaveyNC. I presume you listen to Ron Paul talk about Austrian economics?

1 – If you look at nations where there is a National Health Service, health care costs are NOT exploding. The USA, where “competition” and “private payment” rules is driving rises in health care costs worldwide. Just look at the salaries of physicians worldwide.

http://theincidentaleconomist.com/wordpress/physician-fees-and-salaries-in-the-us-and-other-countries/ – The pattern shown for orthopedic surgeons also applies to other specialists.

So the actual evidence shows that the problem in health care is that the USA does NOT have enough government involvement! Take a look at Medicare reimbursements to physicians. Many doctors won’t take medicare patients because the payments are so low. There is simply no price support system present there.

2 – It is just not so that K-12 costs are exploding. Where did you get that non-fact? Government support for K-12 education has dropped, and that’s because of property taxes being cut – which is a subsidy for home prices. So the federal government has had to pick up the slack, and that has made local schools beholden to Washington. See how that works?

3 – Higher education tuition cost is rising, yes. But only because in the past government paid 80% or more of the cost of a college education! Take what little support is left away and tuition costs will rise further.

4 – Crop subsidies are not subsidies. They are price supports. Those are there as a strategic matter in order to prevent extremely destructive booms and busts in farming. Those price supports kick in so that farmers can stay in business. Farms would not be able to survive without them. Subsidies only kick in in good times for farmers. As long as the price is high the price support doesn’t cost anything. There are basic things like food that are matters of national defense.

5 – At the end of your post you discuss the states versus the federal government. And you imply that if you get the federal government to stop allocating money that the states will step up. Except that at the state level the anti-tax demagogues are screaming the loudest. So that won’t happen.
ellenhunt

Yes, that is true. There should be a clause in the federal student loan program that says that if the college has too high a loan default rate that it will no longer be eligible for student loans. And that college should also be required to pay back the federal government for those defaults. That will at least shut down lousy colleges that exploit the system.
jdbishop5

I understand how hard the best teachers work very well. What astonishes me is how often teachers know very little about the difficulties of other professions. It would seem that nearly every subgroup within society has the idea that its difficulties are the most challenging, and that others are a cake walk. Certainly there is an ‘ivory tower’ quality to many of our ‘best and brightest’s’ thought processes, including yours. It is not at all unusual for people to ‘…work for 15 to 20 years at starvation wages before making much of anything. ’ That is the very normal circumstance for almost everyone.
Unemployed_Northeastern

And as soon as broke college grads can spend more on lobbying than the banks who fought for these onerous conditions, I am sure Congress will do the right thing…
Unemployed_Northeastern

That’s the conventional wisdom for law schools, too. Doesn’t mean it is true.

- unemployed attorney
hdl1784

There is no “reply” button under Unemployed Northeastern, but I am responding to his/her comment on my previous comment. That is emphatically NOT the conventional wisdom about law schools, and it has not been for a number of years now. For at least the past 5 years anyone paying attention would have heard that law school is a risky proposition for lots of people. No one has ever said that law school teaches people to be practice ready when they come out. I mean no one in the decades since Langdell. On sites all over the Internet, law students and graduates are castigated because they majored in subjects that did not train them to do anything but get another degree. Engineering is almost always offered up as the thing they should have been doing instead of majoring in English or History. It is interesting to hear that graduating with an engineering degree is no guarantee of a job or that the person will be able to hit the ground running, and know everything they need to know, on day one. Actually, it’ s not a surprise, few educational programs actually do that. People just have this wish/fantasy that they will.
Unemployed_Northeastern

In regards to law schools, yes, it is common knowledge among readers of the Chronicle of Higher Education that law school is a sham. In the general public, it absolutely is not. Not even close. Every law school in the land continues to turn away hundreds and thousands of applicants, falsified employment data is still condoned by the ABA and relied upon by well-meaning kids who have been told their entire lives that educators are benevolent demigods, and as one striving mightily to get out of the profession, I can assure you that every nonlegal hiring manager believes that all attorneys make bank, and that anyone looking outside the law must have some manner of mental defect. Do not overestimate the general public’s knowledge of law school.

Personally, I am rather surprised that you know of the uselessness of a law degree for most, but have never heard that the old chestnut “We need more STEM people now!” is mostly a cover for corporations to continue to lobby for increasing numbers of H1B work visas, whom they can pay far less and for whom employee protections are more or less nonexistent (since their ability to stay in the US is generally predicated upon continued employment with the company that brought them in, H1B holders sure as heck aren’t going to complain when our [very] few employee rights & protections are run over by capricious bosses).
hdl1784

@unemployed — it it is not just readers of the Chronicle who know the current problems with law schools. The numbers of people taking the LSATs are down. Applications are down. Of course, many people are still going because they do not know what else to do and because they genuinely want to go.

And it is not just corporations who are pushing STEM.
Micha_Elyi

Neither Ron Paul nor Austrian Economics invented the basic economic principles of supply and demand.

The NIH depends on artificially capping supply. Unsupplied demand is ignored by its bureaucrats and left to suffer. Cost is low and so is service – like a Wal-Mart or, in the UK, a Woolworth’s.

Economics education undoubtedly sucks in your country.