Monday, June 8, 1998

U. of Washington Professors Denounce Governor's Embrace of On-Line Education By PETER MONAGHAN SEATTLE More than 700 faculty members at the University of Washington have signed a letter to Washington's Governor, Gary Locke, protesting what they say is a "naïve" and potentially "disastrous" drift toward replacing instructors with computerized teaching tools. "We feel called upon to respond before quixotic ideas harden into disastrous policies," says the letter. It also says that members of a special planning committee created earlier this year have been dazzled by "visions of education 'without bricks and mortar,' of education by CD-ROM and Internet." Governor Locke, a Democrat, appointed the committee, called the 2020 Commission, to develop the state's higher-education plan for the next quarter-century. Organizers of the campaign say they expect to add an additional 200 signatures to the letter before presenting it to the Governor, members of the 2020 Commission, and perhaps to legislators. The letter, written largely by campus representatives of the American Association of University Professors, is now being considered by the university's Graduate and Professional Student Senate. In particular, the letter condemns public comments by the Governor and his chief higher-education adviser, Wallace Loh, who is the former dean of the University of Washington College of Law. Organizers of the letter campaign say that in a recent address at the university's law school, Mr. Loh spoke of a "brave new world of digital education" and said that higher education should undergo the same kind of rigorous reorganization that has taken place in health care in recent years. Mr. Loh has also been criticized for championing a "virtual university" that could accommodate the 70,000 to 80,000 additional students who are expected to appear by the year 2020. In such a setting, he has said, faculty members could specialize: Some could design course software, while others could teach or serve in other traditional faculty roles. The faculty members' letter says, "While costly fantasies of this kind present a mouth-watering bonanza to software manufacturers and other corporate sponsors, what they bode for education is nothing short of disastrous." Governor Locke has outlined a similar vision of the future of higher education, the letter campaign's organizers say. In a recent speech to graduating high school seniors, he said: "People may actually spend less time in classrooms, because learning will be available in many other formats. You might take a course that's available on a CD-ROM, or sign up for on-line tutoring from a teacher or a professional who lives and works in another state or another country. You might participate in seminars at your workplace, or at a community center. Or you might learn by rotating assignments from one department of a company to another. "Where you live -- even if you live in Forks or Zillah -- won't be a barrier to learning, because technology will make both teachers and knowledge available worldwide. So you might take a course from a university in Japan or China or Belgium." Similar ideas are dominating meetings of the 2020 Commission, organizers of the letter campaign charge. The commission includes two former higher-education administrators, several business executives, and civic leaders, but no faculty representatives. It will make its recommendations in September. One indicator of faculty members' concern is that most of the 700 signatures were gathered in just a few days, and on a campus that has little recent history of concerted faculty action. But the university has faced several years of tight budgets, resulting largely from ballot measures that have restricted public spending on education even as the state's coffers have swelled in good economic times. "Calls for 'downsizing,' productivity increases, and greater 'accountability,'" the faculty members' letter says, "carelessly echo corporate fads without taking into account the already downsized nature of the state's universities and colleges." Distance learning should be a supplement to higher education, the letter continues, not a central feature of it. Signatures on the letter, say organizers of the campaign, have come from all of the university's colleges, including arts and humanities, engineering, the sciences, and health sciences. James Gregory, an associate professor of history who is one of the organizers, added: "We have an awful lot of signatures from the computer-science department. They think this is a nightmare, and they are in a position to know." Background story from The Chronicle: "Rethinking the Role of the Professor in an Age of High-Tech Tools," 10/3/97