Yeah, why were at it maybe change a number of industries:1) Prison industrial complex – turn into a Disneyworld for inmatesbecause Disney products are their own prison system starting with marketing to young kids only to find their inculcated until death with Mickey, The Magic Castle and Goofy… Prisoners here will like the flexible work hours and the fun rides that the yard cannot provide…. not to mention the monorail jail pass for good time served… Parole in this system is being a tour guide….2) Casino’s – Let gets some clergy in there because without eternal damnation odds no one much cares about poverty or incurring huges debts; also the robes, Pope-rock star suites and crossing of oneself after rolling the dice is good branding… Then you can have all of the vices in one room…. In the name of father, the son and the holy craps table… the point is seven father…. the patriarch needs a new robe3) Banks, Financial Institution Employees – Film white collar crime like the show COPS; but this time Soprano meets Madoff or Gotti meets Ken Lay… The finale is a fight to the death match using only office equipment in very tall buildings4) Politicians – Research subjects on the topics of lying (Eckman’s work); institute electro shock procedures designed to tazer those who lie to the public and to themselves… Cross market the depends undergarment for lying under oath: “Depends, when you just cannot possibly tell the truth because eliminating waste on yourself is more convenient”.The Olive Garden approach to academe (wtf), that’s all we need is to resemble industry more. Someone offer just the slightest bit of sanity pleassssssssseee.

“higher education is doing a very good job in the United States (despite the costs) and business has gotten us into a real mess in this country and they are the lost souls of our society . . . not higher education”On average, higher education in the US is very good. However, in any particular class there is a nontrivial probability of getting a bad professor. Reducing the variability on the low end is not a bad idea.As to comparing business to higher education, neither one is a virtuous model for society.

Proposals for the further corporatization of the university (as if we don’t have enough already) disgust me. But I’m glad to see that at least somebody is admitting that this approaches leads to reduced quality. I’m tired of administrators who claim we can “innovate” our way out of a budget crisis while preserving or even enhancing quality. Get real. Fewer resources = lower quality.

Re #6:Not my field (university budgets and allocation of mon…er, “resources”), but isn’t there a kind of Laffer curve here? Zero resources = zero quality.Some resources = quality at least better than zeroDream-come-true resources = certainly better than better-than-zero quality, but not necessarily dream-come-true quality.Cut-to-the-bone-austerity resources = maybe better-than-minimal quality, but probably not.Pages in a paper not affecting its quality isn’t parallel to “resources” at a university not affecting its quality.

In fact, in both the Cal and the Cal State, most teaching is done by adjuncts. We use cheap labor, so does Olive Garden. We are already there.

The comments here are reflective of faculty ability to metaphorically stick their heads in the sand. Have you not noticed the growth of the for-profit model? Most of the publicly traded for-profits provide just this sort of education: no residence halls, no meal service, no athletic or recreation program, contingent faculty, collectively developed curricula, focused attention on learning outcomes, etc. And (despite the recent attention in Congress), these institutions are popular with students. Wake up. We need to attend to some aspects of the for-profit approach and not stick with same old, same old!

What? The food at Olive Garden isn’t any good?

Nicely said, sanjaykapur (#14), couldn’t agree more.

Re #8:I never said, or implied, that any and all reductions in “resource” allocation, e.g., increasing the number of students from 25 to 30 in each section of a class with multiple sections, will necessarily result in a drop in “quality.” I was merely answering abichel’s straw-man argument in #6 that “It is time to jetison [sic] this tired argument of more means better.” Obviously, more does not always equal better, and less does not always equal worse. Generally and in the big picture, however, more usually equals better and less usually equals worse. An army with a billion-dollar budget is probably going to be better than an army with a million-dollar budget. A football team drawing from a pool of ten thousand players is probably going to be better than a football team drawing from a pool of a hundred players. A blouse costing $100 is probably going to be a better blouse than one costing $10. And a class with 12 students in it is probably going to be better class for the stuents than one (in the same room, with the same professor) with 40 students.Specific circumstances, though, affect the general rule. If the class about which stinkcat speaks is purely a lecture class, with questions and discussion handled elsewhere, and if 30 students can fit as comfortably (in terms of view of the lecturer, room to take notes, etc.) as well as 25 can, then, fine. On the other hand, there’s a tipping point, i.e., if 30, why not 35, if 35, why not 40, and so on until it’s like those old photographs of the Sorbonne, with students sitting in the aisles and on the window sills? Then there’s the matter of the professor’s load, e.g., grading 30 papers, quizzes, and exams at a time instead of 25.Which brings me to questions for stinkcat (if he/she is a faculty member): Could you teach just as effectively as you do now with an increase of 20 percent in the number of students you usually teach? Or, taking it from the other direction, how about taking a one-sixth salary cut (i.e., in the college’s “resource allocation” to you in the name of the efficiency you seem to think should have no effect on a faculty member’s quality of teaching?

Ok, I managed restaurants, better ones that corporate hack-shacks like Olive Garden now I am a PhD student at a Big Ten University. I know more about this comparison than the person who suggested it and than anyone else here.So, let me be perfectly clear Olive Garden, and all the other chains, are mediocre at best. Some, like Olive Garden are down right bad.Should that be our goal here? (And in health care?)There are lessons that cross from hospitality to academia, however the business model is not one of them.

It strikes me as odd to be reading an essay about something so important to our country’s future educational system and seeing so many statements based on “People argue this” or “Faculty believe that.” Who cares what people argue and faculty believe if they don’t have any evidence to back it up? Surely there is some data that supports or proves false the belief that x amount of teaching with less than y amount of time spent in research has z effect on student learning? If not, why not? Why do reasonable people waste time arguing about these things when some well thought out tests could provide solid evidence one way or the other?

Sadly, any attempt to overlay a business model on the traditional liberal arts education has one universal result: a diminution of quality. Business is the “lowest common denominator” answer to the issues that face education, and is certainly not the best answer. State boards of education flee to business because they attempt to acheive measurable results, having “deliverables” rather than contribution. Certainly, a businessman or woman can produce something, but I think any rational mind not clouded by the bottom line would see that education is more than bottom line thinking–that it supposes that the human mind can transcend its condition and emerge into something marvelous instead of mucking about in the mundane. I hope we don’t embrace this idea any more, and that Phoenix, Capella, and all the other online and for-profit schools remain, in our perception, what they are: diploma mills where quality doesn’t count.

The phrase “skimping on quality” is a really unfortunate way to frame the issue. The notion that we as a society have to “skimp on quality” to provide access to higher education is not only ludicrously wrong, but potentially very destructive as well. Throughout the article, “quality” is defined by inputs, not value added to the student and/or to society — as one of the commenters above mentioned. Thus, the policy tradeoff between “quality” and access in the article is a false one, dependent on a totally inapproprite US News-type definition. Consider this: When we allocate over a quarter of a million dollars to educate a student with high test scores who would have gone to college anyway, and barely move the needle on his/her value added, is that “quality?” Is that what “top notch” means?Yglesias is correct in his conclusion — that we ought to expand access — but dead wrong on his framing of the issue — as is the article. When it comes to allocating scarce resources to high value-added investments in hiher education, the term quality — defined as it is usually defined in rankings — is of little help. We can definitely afford to trade of this kind of “quality” for expanded access. Because the opportunity cost is near zero.

“Quality” was a very different concept for Ray Kroc and for Mortimer Adler, and the two should not be conflated.I am concerned about the debt loads that are crushing the spirits and choices of graduates. They simply aren’t sustainable. A bailout is necessary, if only initially, through the revision of our bankruptcy laws to permit student loans to be fully discharged.We need to find ways for students to pay-as-they-learn, as I was able to do to a considerable extent, while earning several degrees. Education may be inherently costly and inefficient, from a corporate perspective. I think my professor, the late Peter F. Drucker, would concur in this sentiment. If it is important to our society, then society must find a way to pay the tab.

This article came under the heading “Measuring Stick. It is unclear what is being measured and how it is measured. What is a ‘quality’ education? If it is learning how to become a cog in the corporate mill, perhaps the Olive Garden approach is the correct one. If it is learning how to be a responsible world citizen, including the possibility of learning how to foment revolution, perhaps not. A university’s faculty must be clear on the mission of their university and their roles in it before assessing the outcome of classroom activities.

ddl18, the “for-profit” model costs more, not less. The subject here was reducing costs not increasing them. Are you proposing (in contrast to nearly everyone) that costs are not high enough? Talk about head in the sand.

“Which brings me to questions for stinkcat (if he/she is a faculty member): Could you teach just as effectively as you do now with an increase of 20 percent in the number of students you usually teach? Or, taking it from the other direction, how about taking a one-sixth salary cut (i.e., in the college’s “resource allocation” to you in the name of the efficiency you seem to think should have no effect on a faculty member’s quality of teaching?”In my classes with our normal caps, I could handle a 20% increase in class size. It would entail more work on my part, but not a proportional increase in workload. The lectures would not entail more work. If by teaching more students implies that I am taking a one-sixth salary cut, does that mean that when my class size was cut from 35 to 25 that I received a 33% salary increase? Should I have been grateful to my employer for that increase?

Re #28: Since so many on this thread want to pursue the already feeble analogy between Olive-Garden-type restaurants and colleges far beyond its poor abilities to make any sense, I might as well pile on.* Most “prima donna” chefs in really good restaurants don’t make “esoteric” dishes; they make rather standard dishes (e.g., roast salmon or risotto) with a little flair or a deftly added ingredient that makes them taste better than similar dishes served in average restaurants. The classroom equivalent would be a standard course taught, with a little flair and some deftly added extra ingredients, by a professor who’s the pedagogical equivalent of more than a fry cook.* The cost of an Olive Garden meal includes a greater percentage owing to advertising (recent stats indicate sales of about $1 billion with an ad budget of $200 million), than does a meal a better, non-chain restaurant.* Other than the traditional “No shoes, no shirt, no service,” Olive Garden is absolutely unselective of its stu…er, clientele. Perhaps if the chain demanded proof of at least a 2.75 high school GPA to eat at one, it wouldn’t enjoy such an economy of scale.* Part of Olive Garden’s profitability is due to its serving a whole lot of pasta, which is pound-for-pound quite cheap. Its menu is like having a college offering nothing but a variety of history classes. You want science? That’s another chain down the street.* It’d probably be pretty hard to stay (eating) at an Olive Garden for four years. Lots of transfers after the first freshman semester, I’d bet. (Of course, they’d get transfers who spent their first two years at McDonalds.)Re #32: While it may not make sense for “average” universities to ask their TT faculty to be “star researchers,” it does make sense for them to ask their TT faculty to be researchers and to do some research. Otherwise, they’re not really professors.And a question: If 80 percent of what appears in academic publications was never published and the world would be no worse off for that, and if this isn’t a situation that has just arisen overnight, what to say of somebody who made a living in academic publishing for 40 years and never quit because of those facts? Or was Mr. Thatcher the shepherd of exclusively the 20 percent that deserved to be published? Re #33:Yes, it does mean that stinkcat received a de facto salary increase, and yes, he/she should be grateful to the employer for it. It may not be an actual dollar increase, but it’s a per-unit (in this case, per student) increase, in the same way that when a maker of dishwashing liquid keeps the price the same but reduces the number of ounces in the bottle, it’s effectively raising the price. To see stinkcat’s hypothetical more clearly, let’s expand the the decrease in students from teaching 1,000 students to teaching 5. Even if he’s mostly lecturing to them in a big auditorium, he still comes up with 995 fewer exams, quizzes, papers, etc., to grade, fewer e-mails to answer, fewer Blackboard sessions, few students showing up at office hours, etc.Point taken that a 20 percent increase in the number of students in his class wouldn’t necessarily mean a 20 percent increase in workload. But I’d guess that the increase in exams, quizzes, papers and that other stuff (above) would increase the workload by at least 15 percent.

So, like Olive Garden, should colleges and universities serve oversized portions of relatively non-nutritious substance that adds unhealthful volume without substance to consumers’ bodies and minds? (Or is that exactly what we are now doing)?

“In Defense of Real Food/Education”, the Olive Garden model is not what this country needs. Where do we rank in quality of education/food? Where do our secondary schools rank globally? Are we really feeding the population what it needs by creating a better promotional vehicle for food/education that we already do not need? Can you see where I am going with this?In what manner will America regain its position as best in the world as it relates to education/food/technology/healthcare, and etc.? Instant, tasty, convenient, and affordable, all buzzwords which mean exactly what? If most Americans could eat healthier for less money they would. However, the better or “real food” is more expensive like many of us understand the “real education” is more expensive! Lastly, is the issue of “really educating” the populace a matter of dollars or a collective sensibility? My $.02 only

A devastating response to the “find clever ways to cheapen the product” argument was provided a long time ago by Father Guido Sarducci of SNL. You can see it at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kO8x8eoU3L4

In response to the question #35 raised,the rate of acceptance at top presses (for which I worked) and top journals is about 10%, but all those rejected books and articles usually do end up getting published somewhere down lower in the food chain of publishing. And there are quasi-vanity presses among academic publishers that we all know about to pick up the worst of the output of beleaguered professors.—Sandy Thatcher

Cambridge———————————————–Univeristy of La.-MonroeRuth’s Chris———————————————-McD’sWhat is the acceptable quality, you ask? How much money do you have, I inquire.Unless it’s been a long time since you were a kid/fasting/just back from a long backpacking trip, food quality really is in the eye/wallet of the beholder. Maybe you’ve never lived on scarce enough resources to remember when a BigMac was glorious. If so, put a caveat on your statements.Reality is, not every school can/will offer the same educational quality. If market competitiveness, marketing (old Oak and new climbing walls are both pitched to sell their respective schools) and finding one’s niche in the food chain (LOL) is already what we do, then leave off the trite arguments about how we, in higher ed, may succumb to the U. Phoenix moral decay–YOU ARE ALREADY THERE.Thinking otherwise is to deceive one’s self. Face it. Your product already is cheaper/lower quality than that offered somewhere. BUT does your product strive to be reeeally good? To reeeeally return a lot for the student’s/consumer’s investment? I may not have had better food at Olive Garden than Ruth’s Chris. But I may have had better wait staffing. And been seated quicker. And thanked more and encouraged to come back more upon departing.Something tells me this argument, at some level, comes back to ‘does the consumer know what they should want’ or is it up to me, the expert, to make that determination?

Re #43:So, Mr. Thatcher was indeed instrumental, in working for the “top presses,” in publishing only the stuff that deserved to be published and all the crap was published by somebody else whose presses were lower on the quality chain.Why don’t I quite believe this 100 percent? Is it because it’s a rather standard exculpatory practice of retrospective whistle-blowers, who were in the business in matters ranging from steroids in baseball to no-bid contracts in the defense industry to casting couches in Hollywood to publishing academic flotsam, to maintain that it was always somebody ELSE who committed the bad deeds? Yep.

Gox,I RARELY get tired of reading what you have to say! It is like a verbal shot into my corpus collosum…. I never know if it is going to my left brain or the right. But it always finds its way to my attention centers!Peace