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[emerson_scholar]

Institutions right now have a strong (and perverse) incentive to lower faculty to student ratios: USNWR Rankings use these ratios as part of their formulae. If you look at the highest ranked private colleges and universities they are well below a 15:1 ratio, and many are 9:1.

I think the worry here about particular courses, and thus particular majors, "making enrollment" is misplaced. The number to look at is students taught per FTE per year. So, in departments like my own, if I teach a spread of intro, intermediate and upper-level courses in two semesters that have 50, 40, 30, 25, 10, and 5 students, respectively, I am earning the smaller seminars by teaching largish lectures. Increase the size of those lectures more and you have more wiggle room. At universities that train graduate students that is the space you need to earn those students.

The way to make sure that German and departments like them survive (and thrive) is to have the faculty teach not only the smaller language classes (and intro language classes really should be capped at 20, imho) but large lecture classes on topics interesting to a wide swathe of the student population, cross-listed with other departments (History being a natural cross-list). These classes would then also serve to interest students in the culture of the language department, and think about taking the language itself. Some faculty will complain about the idea of teaching both large lecture courses and small language courses. Too bad, they need to "earn" those tiny upper-level seminars somehow.

Institutions typically budget things using a moving three-year average of endowment performance, etc. So, too, should deans look at enrollment numbers for departments. If we have one down semester then that shouldn't matter too much as long as we keep our FTE/student ratio well above the institution average. So what if occasionally the Classics folks have 4 students in upper-level Latin. They are regularly enrolling 120 students in Mythology and Ancient History, so they should be allowed to offer classes that appeal to a small slice of motivated and excellent students. You lose those kinds of students and you kiss your butts good-bye.

As far as the abuse of department chairs: everybody rotates every three years (excepting junior folks). Spread the pain as well as the glory. I know that places exist where chairs get a course release, but not doing so feels quite normal here and it works fine. There is also something democratic and liberating about sharing departmental governance.

And, yes, Mad Doc. The equilibrium of higher ed is completely out of balance. Were I able to look into a crystal ball and see that cuts in pay across the board, plus increased teaching loads, balanced by more reasonable tenure demands, would save the system, I would sign up in a heartbeat.

[mozman]

The idea of extending the ideas outlined in the OP to Universities across the board is asinine.  Eliminate research?  "Screw the STEM fields"?  Without the overhead generated by grants, how are you going to pay your light bills?  You aren't going to do that on $16K tuition a year.

Now, such a system based on teaching without research may work in the humanities/soft subjects (if tuition is significantly raised).  In fact, I would be all for separating STEM from the rest of the university.  I would have LOVED it as a student if I could have ditched my required humanities general ed classes, which I found to be simultaneously trivially easy and totally boring and irrelevant.  I am sure the humanities people had their own complaints about their required science courses.  Lets make both groups happy.

As an aside, I have found in my experience those who pooh-pooh research as "bean counting" and a "game" tend to be bad researchers.  Don't blame the system if you can't hack the job.

mm

[blackbart]

Now, such a system based on teaching without research may work in the humanities/soft subjects (if tuition is significantly raised).  In fact, I would be all for separating STEM from the rest of the university.  I would have LOVED it as a student if I could have ditched my required humanities general ed classes, which I found to be simultaneously trivially easy and totally boring and irrelevant.  I am sure the humanities people had their own complaints about their required science courses.  Lets make both groups happy.

As an aside, I have found in my experience those who pooh-pooh research as "bean counting" and a "game" tend to be bad researchers.  Don't blame the system if you can't hack the job.

mm

Wow. I have just enough time to pop some corn before watching where this goes.

[concordancia]

The way to make sure that German and departments like them survive (and thrive) is to have the faculty teach not only the smaller language classes (and intro language classes really should be capped at 20, imho) but large lecture classes on topics interesting to a wide swathe of the student population, cross-listed with other departments (History being a natural cross-list). These classes would then also serve to interest students in the culture of the language department, and think about taking the language itself. Some faculty will complain about the idea of teaching both large lecture courses and small language courses. Too bad, they need to "earn" those tiny upper-level seminars somehow.

In our German department, this would actually require hiring more people. They are already teaching full loads, when would they teach the large lecture class? How would that effect the majors, who may end up with even fewer offerings than they have now?

And why are so many willing to argue that humanities research is irrelevant? This seems quite contrary to the full time professor. If you don't want research, hire a bunch of MA's and let them teach canned courses. PhD's tend to be extremely intellectually curious and likely to whither if stifled in the way so many of you are proposing, no matter what the field.

[alleyoxenfree]

Now, such a system based on teaching without research may work in the humanities/soft subjects (if tuition is significantly raised).  In fact, I would be all for separating STEM from the rest of the university.  I would have LOVED it as a student if I could have ditched my required humanities general ed classes, which I found to be simultaneously trivially easy and totally boring and irrelevant.  I am sure the humanities people had their own complaints about their required science courses.  Lets make both groups happy.

As an aside, I have found in my experience those who pooh-pooh research as "bean counting" and a "game" tend to be bad researchers.  Don't blame the system if you can't hack the job.

mm

Wow. I have just enough time to pop some corn before watching where this goes.

Eh, we've heard this all before.

[kedves]

"If I were in charge" isn't a game I like to play, and the dig at the lovely and gracious Fiona in the first post turned me off.  But ignoring the inflammatory parts, I agree with Mozman's objection.  Discovery--the production of knowledge in every area--is one of the social goods that universities produce.  There are many kinds of colleges and universities in the U.S. with many missions, but research should continue to be one of those missions.  Why should all colleges and universities be the same?

Now, such a system based on teaching without research may work in the humanities/soft subjects (if tuition is significantly raised).  In fact, I would be all for separating STEM from the rest of the university.  I would have LOVED it as a student if I could have ditched my required humanities general ed classes, which I found to be simultaneously trivially easy and totally boring and irrelevant.  I am sure the humanities people had their own complaints about their required science courses.  Let's make both groups happy.

Those "soft" subjects are pretty hard for a lot of people and contribute to that boring and irrelevant goal of developing the well-educated, civilized person.  But isn't making all groups unhappy a fundamental principle of college?

[cranefly]

The Model U probably could not offer philosophy or German, and maybe not African-American studies. Maybe not any foreign languages, in fact.

Well, foreign languages we can probably do without. After all, most educated people around the world speak English these days anyway.

A very high-level administrator at my university reportedly expressed these sentiments while discussing whether we should have a foreign language requirement. The horror, the horror.

Wow, such a (stereotypical) American, ethnocentric view point! The point of learning languages is not just to communicate. Learning languages lets us think in new ways.
Sorry, but languages are very, very important. If you've never travelled to a country where they DON'T speak English, I suggest you do, for a length of time, and learn something.

[sibyl]

How do you all plan to get the administrative work of a department done without course releases?

We already do this. Our chair doesn't get a course release, merely a tiny bump in salary.

Wow. Just. wow. This is no way to treat a chair.

This varies a lot by institution.  At a college with 100 faculty and 1000 students, chairs don't bear the same burdens as do chairs at R1s and can generally handle the work without release time.

I used the 50% figure for instruction because at my private residential SLAC, operating expenses for instruction are just under 50% of tuition revenue (net of financial aid).  So I am deliberately ignoring endowment income and financial aid expense; you can either imagine that this is a public institution where neither is involved, or a private institution where endowment income exactly matches financial aid, or something.  I just want to create a working model.

In the model, the remaining 50% of revenue would presumably still go to other kinds of non-instruction expenses like housing and dining, extracurriculars, development offices, research technicians, registrars, maintenance and housekeeping, other administrators, and so forth; I didn't want to bog us down in a discussion of particular expenses, and I am also assuming that faculty won't want to do administrative tasks.

I'll also mention that the $80K compensation figure is about $20K below the national average for all faculty, according to the AAUP report; I was concerned that we might set tuition too high.  If we wanted to project a cut of 20% in administrative expenses (it can't be much higher, since we do need people to manage the physical plant and ensure regulatory compliance), then we could either cut tuition to $13,500 or raise compensation to $95,500, which is darn close to the current national average.

[emerson_scholar]

The idea of extending the ideas outlined in the OP to Universities across the board is asinine.  Eliminate research?  "Screw the STEM fields"?  Without the overhead generated by grants, how are you going to pay your light bills?  You aren't going to do that on $16K tuition a year.

This. is. a. canard.

I hear this all the time from grant-chasers. But it is simply not the case. Extramurally funded research does not pay for itself, let alone generate revenue. Full stop. Extra-mural funding directly enhances institutional reputation, not institutional coffers. But, as with so many reputation-enhancing games, this is a fool's errand, and too costly to continue.

You want to make the case that it is necessary, Mozman, then bring it. Your comments betray the fact that you don't believe in the university as an education institution. So, go work for industry or for a privately financed research lab and let somebody who wants to teach, teach.

As an aside, I have found in my experience those who pooh-pooh research as "bean counting" and a "game" tend to be bad researchers.  Don't blame the system if you can't hack the job.

Hah. You're a funny one! I had to have a book out with CUP and three articles in top-tier journals just to get sniffs at T-T jobs. Actually getting one meant teaching demos, job talks and grueling campus interviews. The market in my field is so competitive it would make your head spin. I didn't ride into town on the coat-tails of my post-doc PI's research with a bunch of fourth-author articles and demand 250K in start-up funds.

We soft humanities folks have been yoke-fellows at best, and pulling your wagon at worst, for a long time. Don't be so surprised when we get annoyed when you STEM folks try to drink our milkshakes too.

Finally, lest your false assertion become accepted wisdom, I never suggested eliminating research, merely that we not research for the sake of fast and frequent publication. Good research takes time, more time than the artificial schedule imposed on us by a broken system.

Recognizing and articulating that the system is broken isn't evidence I haven't figured out how to game it.

[temporaryname]

The Model U probably could not offer philosophy or German, and maybe not African-American studies. Maybe not any foreign languages, in fact.

Well, foreign languages we can probably do without. After all, most educated people around the world speak English these days anyway.

A very high-level administrator at my university reportedly expressed these sentiments while discussing whether we should have a foreign language requirement. The horror, the horror.

Wow, such a (stereotypical) American, ethnocentric view point! The point of learning languages is not just to communicate. Learning languages lets us think in new ways.

Sorry, but languages are very, very important. If you've never travelled to a country where they DON'T speak English, I suggest you do, for a length of time, and learn something.

First of all, you may wish to re-read the post by t_r_b that you were responding to--it doesn't say what you seem to think it says.

Second, the claim that learning an nth language (where n>1) lets you "think in new ways" bothers me, both personally and professionally. Does it give you alternative ways to voice your thoughts? Sure. Does it change your thought patterns? No. Does it perhaps give you the opportunity to have a wider range of experiences and change your thought patterns that way? Possibly.

I'll give you the benefit of the doubt on that one and figure that you were just writing what you did as a shorthand--but it's a shorthand with ramifications. To bring this back somewhat to the point of this thread, if you try to justify foreign language instruction with such claims, it's simply going to be easier for people to ignore its utility and thus cut it.

[spork]

[. . . ]

The way to make sure that German and departments like them survive (and thrive) is to have the faculty teach not only the smaller language classes (and intro language classes really should be capped at 20, imho) but large lecture classes on topics interesting to a wide swathe of the student population, cross-listed with other departments (History being a natural cross-list). These classes would then also serve to interest students in the culture of the language department, and think about taking the language itself. Some faculty will complain about the idea of teaching both large lecture courses and small language courses.

[. . .]
 

But, in contrast to your Classics example, departments don't want to "lose a body" to some cross-listed interdisciplinary large lecture course.  The English people have to teach the Freshman Comp 101 because it's a gen ed requirement; same with history faculty and Western Civ.

I'm not really arguing with you, just pointing out how stupidly university curricula and faculty are organized.

[quasihumanist]

People who are worried about the impact on STEM fields:

Create a(n administratively) separate research institute next to the university.  If there is interest on both the part of the university and the scientist, the scientist could get a job which is 50% at the university (teaching 3 courses a year) and 50% at the research institute (or whatever percentage could be worked out between the scientist, university, and research institute).  To the extent that a graduate student is supported by research grants, these would go through the research institute.

My feeling is that the teaching and research missions of a university are so often in conflict with each other that it makes sense to separate them and conduct them in two different institutions with two separate budgets.

I don't think those numbers that have been floated work out though.  I find student learning in 60 person lectures (or any bigger) to be practically minimal no matter what the subject is.  I would also find it ridiculous for a place of higher education not to have a philosophy department.  This means I don't think we really can support an average class size of bigger than 15, and, more realistically, 12 or 13.

Zero administrative course releases are unreasonable unless you have significant staff support.  If the department secretary takes care of most of the routine administrative tasks, then one can have a chair without a course release.  But you can't spend 50% on faculty salaries and hire any staff.  Benefits already eat up another 20%, and then there are buildings to build and repair, supplies and equipment to purchase, utility bills to pay, parking lots to plow in the winter, et c.

I think, more realistically, we can have students taking 9 courses a year, faculty teaching on average of 5.8 courses, getting total compensation (NOT salary) of 80K a year on average (which comes out to around 55K salary) with average class sizes of 13.  That comes out to about 20K a year per student in tuition alone.  And I think you could do it this cheaply only if classes were held in an abandoned shopping mall, because I don't see how you spend 50% on faculty compensation and manage to build any buildings.

[mozman]

Finally, lest your false assertion become accepted wisdom, I never suggested eliminating research, merely that we not research for the sake of fast and frequent publication. Good research takes time, more time than the artificial schedule imposed on us by a broken system.

I don't doubt this is true when studying Emerson.  I unequivocally dispute this in many science fields - good research DEPENDS on fast and frequent publication because the field changes so quickly.  Delay for a year and you are obsolete.

An example from my own research - about 3 years ago we spent over $15,000 and about 500 person-hours developing about 60 genetic markers for one of the organisms we study.  Last year we spent under $10,000 and about 50 person hours to get 90% of the GENOME for this same organism.  The science and the available technology changed dramatically in less than 2 years.

If you are not fast and frequent, you will get left behind.

[unemployedacademic]

emerson_scholar, could you expand on your assertion about external grants?  I too have heard that science grants bring in money to research universities but am unclear on how this could be the case.  Wouldn't it be fraud to use funds granted for particular research in any other way than to fund that research?  Is the extra money coming from patents?  Also, science students are supposed to be more expensive than humanities students even though they pay the same tuition.  Is this part of the equation?

For the record, trading a modest reduction in research requirements for a modest increase in teaching duties at a research university doesn't sound too bad.  Aside from community colleges, which simply need more money to run with full-time faculty, it's the research universities that are the biggest users of adjunct and graduate labor, right?  

Reducing research demands would also have a beneficial effect on LACs, since many of these are ratcheting up their research profiles.

[mozman]

...Create a(n administratively) separate research institute next to the university.  If there is interest on both the part of the university and the scientist, the scientist could get a job which is 50% at the university (teaching 3 courses a year) and 50% at the research institute (or whatever percentage could be worked out between the scientist, university, and research institute).  To the extent that a graduate student is supported by research grants, these would go through the research institute.

I think this is an EXCELLENT idea and would be all for it, as long as the overhead stayed with the research institute - in fact, there are many institutes that run like this (my school is almost like this except that we teach grad students - no undergrads; my spouse works at a University-affiliated research institute almost exactly as described).