Ivory Tower Blues: Rescuing the Liberal Arts.

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Ivory Tower Blues Rescuing the Liberal Arts.

• The crisis
• System overload
• Disengagement
• Grade inflation
• What to do?

www.ivorytowerblues.com
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The benefits of a university education
(research conducted from 1950s thru 1990s)

• Monetary
• 10-30 annual rate of return
• 1,000,000 over lifetime (average)
• Non-monetary
• Liberalism technical skills
• Long-term career success
• Humanities vs. Applied Degrees
• Citizenship roles, intellectual growth, and a
  broad awareness of the world?

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The crisis

• These benefits in jeopardy because of a system
  overload
• The liberal arts are being diluted and degraded
  by a flood of unmotivated students expecting high
  grades for little effort
• Liberal arts benefits come from the ability to
  critically analyze arguments and communicate
  ideas
• Not the memorization of facts and procedures
  (vocational training)

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crisis

• Lower human capital production because of lower
  standards of performance
• Disengaged students learn/retain little
• Moderate ability students not transformed
• High ability students less likely to reach
  potentials
• Credibility
• Employers
• Disengaged students are conditioned to become
  poorly motivated workers
• Professional and graduate schools
• Skeptical of the integrity of grades

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1. System overload

• Introducing job training mentality into liberal
  arts programmes capitalizes on their cachet, but
  dilutes their value
• Creates massive problems in student-environment
  fits
• A source of confusion over the role of exams and
  what grades mean (contributes to inflation)
• consider the social justice implications of X in
  the context of Y, by contrasting theory A and B
• Vs.
• here what you need to know about X and Y for the
  test

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2. Academic disengagement

• A source
• Attempts to retain most students in academic
  programmes by
• dropping standards
• increasing immediate rewards (easy grades)
• Both lead to grade inflation (compression)
• A downward cycle ensues
• Students expend less effort
• But expect high rewards
• Faculty lower standards further

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Liberal Arts and Research-intensive universities
(NSSE 2006)
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ripple effect

• The attempt to reduce high-school dropout using
  this approach has infected many universities as
  students have arrived expecting high grades for
  little effort
• Universities in turn reduce standards to attract
  and retain students
• Result
• Less human capital development
• Less personal transformation
• Less is value added by higher education

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A student from York Universitywho wanted a more
engaging education (Psynopsis, 2007)

• Total challenges from 2nd and 3rd year courses
• 1 essay, 1 report, 3 literature reviews, 2 group
  projects, 2 research proposals, and 26
  multiple-choice tests
• Feels his BA in Psychology qualifies him for
  Jeopardy or hitting the North American Trivial
  Pursuit circuit
• Resents paying 20,000 for what he could have
  acquired by reading an encyclopaedia

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Grade Inflation Changes in university student
grade expectations (Runté, 2006)
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National Survey of Student Engagement (NSSE,
2004) of students reporting As or Bs
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Grade compression The case of Harvard University

• Over 90 are now awarded honours grades (A or B)
• Summa cum laude now limited to top 5
• but this requires a cut-off at 3 decimal places
• might as well use a lottery to determine the top
  honours

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An ex-student from Calgary(My best marks were
in partying 101 Globe Mail, 2006)

• Taking only one step up a mountain, when there
  are thousands more to go, and then being told
  that one step is more than enough, seems to cheat
  one out of reaching the summit and seeing the
  valley below.
• It is my own fault for not taking more steps and
  getting closer to the mountaintop, but it is not
  my fault for receiving a higher mark than I
  deserved. I was not given a chance to work hard
  for something, because slight efforts were
  enough.

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The slow boil of grade inflation and
disengagement It is time to pay attention
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WHAT TO DO?

• Solutions require acknowledging the problems and
  a willingness to address them
• Getting past denial and massaging the facts
• We need about 20 of the labour force to exercise
  critical thinking and high-level verbal/written
  communications

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Reactive strategies

• Solutions with current resources
• End the disengagement compact
• Require more of students beginning in first year
• Return to core curricula (reasoning abilities)
• add capstone courses
• offer electives in applied topics
• Require more of professors through curriculum
  control (essays, tutorials, better teaching
  methods)

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System-wide measures to restore the credibility
of the undergrad education

• Audit individual high school standards for
  admissions
• Convert grades to a common standard
• European Credit Transfer System (ECTS)
• 10 As 25 Bs 1/3 above average
• Set system-wide grading standards (e.g. ECTS)
• Reward teachers for high standards
• Quality control of student assessment
• Higher-order intellectual capacities oral and
  written communication skills

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Proactive strategies

• Call for additional resources by pushing the
  envelope
• E.g., Nation-wide lobbying of governments as one
  voice
• Threaten admission cut-offs at 15-1
  student-teacher ratios
• Would almost double youth unemployment rate
• Governments know it is cheaper to fund education
  than to deal with a massive youth unemployment
  problem

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Toward 2023 Long-term strategies

• Market on the basis of quality
• Base branding strategies on academic strengths
• Agree on division of specialties among schools
• Admissions strategies
• Deemphasize grades
• Bolster recruitment systems
• PSE sector set up educational and career-goal
  counselling in high schools
• Establish individualized entrance exams in
  competitive programmes
• Assess motivation and willingness to engage

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Market quality

• Schools that promise personal intellectual
  transformation can tap different markets
• Western - has the best student experience but
  is it intellectually stimulating?
• Exit surveys only 65 find it so
• Target motivations in recruitment that will bring
  in students willing to meet the system halfway
  

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Give students the chance to find purpose and
direction
Help me find my way.
Establish lived educational missions to help
students find their purpose and direction, and
lay a basis for them to reach their goals
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Take engagement to a new level

• Think of the whole student as a total package,
  from recruitment through to their careers
• Connect recruitment with later alumnae
  involvement
• Establish a quid pro quo with each student (e.g.,
  personal supervisor-of-studies)
• Personally transformed graduates will be loyal
  and generous alumni

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Thank you for your attention