Sept. 21, 2005

What Should the U.S. Commission Do?

On Monday, U.S. Education Secretary Margaret Spellings announced the creation of a national Commission on the Future of Higher Education. She said the panel would help develop a “comprehensive national strategy for postsecondary education,” exploring such issues as access, affordability, and higher education’s role in reversing America’s declining competitiveness in the world economy.

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The panel is undoubtedly going to hear from some of those people during the series of public meetings it plans to hold beginning October 17, but Inside Higher Ed invited a wide range of people from across the higher education spectrum to offer some initial suggestions on issues the commission should explore, approaches it might take, and perspectives it ought to include.

We’d encourage you to add your own ideas to those below, by clicking on the comment button at the bottom of the article.

Abraham Lackman, president, New York State’s Commission on Independent Colleges and Universities:

The problem I generally have with commissions is that they tend to focus on what’s wrong with something without trying to say, Is it working? It is my belief, and I think is most folks’ reckoning, that the higher education system in America is probably the best in the world. If you have something that’s good, you build on its strengths. So the question for this commission should be “How do we make it stronger?,” as opposed to “What’s wrong with it?”

The second issue, and this is a perspective I bring from New York State, is that I have always seen federal involvement focus on the issue of access, whereas in the states, especially, governments are also looking at economic development. Colleges in the Northeast are increasingly looked at as tools to solve problems, particularly in the transition from manufacturing to a knowledge-based economy. Is it time for the federal government to look more at colleges and universities as an asset in terms of economic development? There’s a real role for the federal government in terms of equipment and capital for our universities, which I’d argue are just as important to the national infrastructure and economy going forward as roads and bridges and the transportation system.

Vicky Lepore, coordinator for library research, Lake City Community College (Fla.):

If this board is going to make a unique impact, they need some representation of students to stay grounded, to plant more world values and synergetic vision into our educational system, and break out of old problem-solving patterns. I would hope that the board includes some representation from our most outspoken critics of our educational system, too.

I don’t agree that the U.S. education system is “by far the leading system in the world.” I think we lead in energy consumption, and entertainment, and adult illiteracy, but our values don’t reflect much about being responsible world citizens, much less how to compete in that world economy. Will the board’s purpose include translating our educational values and vision into producing students with a sense of responsibility and ethics for the world family?

Michael Offerman, president, Capella University:

It is difficult to know just what the Commission is going to deliberate since we have so little information at this point. But it seems obvious that the last thing any of us want to see is more regulation or unfunded mandates.

That said, it would be beneficial if the Commission could help to define a big picture policy agenda that fosters innovation and greater public understanding of the value of higher education for the individual and for society. It is especially important that consumers, employers and federal and state public policy makers understand the value of higher education. While it would be a mistake for the federal government to mandate specified outcomes for higher education institutions, it might be beneficial to outline a common platform for discussing educational outcomes in a way that the various constituencies can clearly understand and trust.

It might also be a beneficial if there was specific encouragement and support for innovation in higher education. The marketplace may drive competition and change in higher education, but the regulatory structures discourage institutional risk-taking and innovation. The structures complicate the creation and potential for success of new institutions with new missions or for new approaches within existing institutions. That is not to say that innovation does not occur, but more innovation and change is necessary to provide access to new audiences, including minorities and adults.

Innovation and change are also necessary to turn around the fact that our country is losing its competitive edge in the global economy. Yet there are tremendous pressures to simply continue the status quo and to judge changes and innovations by how much the changes look like and produce the same outcomes as existing programs and organizations. Perhaps it is time for a new version of the Fund for the Improvement of Postsecondary Education with a focus on things such as minority access and degree completion, increased delivery of science and math programs and access for adults learners who need to increase their knowledge and job skills. Perhaps there needs to be some formally recognized “safe space” within which institutions can innovate in the form of new approaches, new delivery modes and new pedagogy without putting their standing within the higher education community at risk... Perhaps The Washington Monthly College Guide is on the right track by creating a ranking that considers societal impacts, asking “what colleges are doing for the country.”

In the end, if we are going to have a Commission, it is my hope that that body avoid mandates and focus on stimulating new and innovative solutions for higher education to use in addressing major societal issues.

Luke Swarthout, associate, State PIRGs Higher Education Project:

We think there are a plethora of questions to be addressed in higher education and are excited about the opportunity this commission provides to dig into broad as well as detailed questions.

Broadly: What are the needs of our economy and our civil society and what role should higher education play in American society? What should be the goals for college attendance — should we be working to aggressively increase the percentage of our citizens who attend college? How will we educate those students both from a logistical and pedagogical point of view?

Then how will we finance higher education, thinking about ensuring access for the millions of students entering college? How will we keep college affordable and how should higher education be financed? What responsibilities do the federal and state governments have to provide an affordable education?

What place does student borrowing have in paying for college and how does loan debt affect access or affect the quality of a student’s education? Within the realm of financing alone there are questions of how to encourage state investment in higher education and how to find efficiencies within the student loan programs.

I should say that we are excited to work with the commission and hope that the absence of any student or consumer voice is not indicative of their lack of interest in addressing higher education from the student and consumer perspective.

Jonathan Brown, president, Association of Independent California Colleges and Universities

I am not sure I agree with the initial purpose of the group but a lot of that depends on how they conceive of themselves. The Economist just published one of its surveys that argued forcefully that the weakness of European higher education was its tendency to have a centralized focus and conversely the strength of the American system was its decentralization.

That being said, I think it is appropriate to have a distinguished group of people think about the future (and this is a pretty distinguished group). I know several of them and respect their work. There are also a couple who I disagree with from their writings about higher education — but on the whole the group looks like a good one. Higher education’s strength, IMHO, is in part reflected by what The Economist recently said — its diversity — so I think the balance of their process should be to help all of higher education think about alternative futures without being too prescriptive.

Many blue sky activities like this often come up with conclusions that ignore basic trends that are not well understood at the time (think Malthus and his complete lack of understanding of the effects of the steel plow) but to get higher education to begin to think about what comes next (in the words of H.G. Wells) is a good idea. David Warren, the National Association of Independent Colleges and Universities’ president, argued about five years ago that several fundamental conceptions of higher education (a degree, a course, a student, and even a university) were undergoing fundamental redefinition. Challenging those of us in higher education to confront those changes and those stake holders to confront the same set of issues would be a good idea.

Kathryn Jones, executive director, Higher Education Alumni Council of Oklahoma:

I am always a little leery when an organization w/ heavy representation from the business community is formed to ’study’ education. I can’t recall a comparable committee composed primarily of educators to “study” business. The implication appears to be that since we haven’t/can’t/won’t take care of problems, they’ll do it for us.

My thoughts re: this task force are such:

What is Secretary Spellings’ agenda? Did she wake up one morning and say, “Let’s have a panel to study higher education?”
It was said that “the federal government has every right to examine academe more closely.” Are there not controls already in place to review financial aid policies, contracts, etc.?
Does she plan to get into the rankings’ game?

Big Sister may be here.

Ronald G. Ehrenberg, director, Cornell Higher Education Research Institute:

Perhaps the most important thing that I think the commission can do is to analyze how our current federal policies encourage states to reduce their support of their public higher education institutions and to raise tuition; doing so increases the level of Pell Grants that students in the state are eligible for and shifts the cost of public higher education in the state from taxpayers in the state to students and taxpayers in the nation as a whole.

As my friends Tom Kane and King Alexander have pointed out, federal policies should encourage states to spend more on their public higher education systems, not to spend less (In contrast, when states cut back their expenditures on Medicaid, they lose federal matching funds). Given the tremendous inequalities in enrollment and graduation rates between students from families in the lower tail of the family income distribution and students from other families, the commission also should consider what innovative federal policies would encourage higher education institutions to make extra efforts to enroll students from lower-income families and to provide the service these students need to succeed in higher education. An example of such a policy might be a program that provides grants to public and private higher education institutions for each Pell Grant recipient that they graduate.

Patricia Seleski, professor and chair of history, California State U. at San Marcos

While I heartily agree that both access (of all qualified students in general and of underrepresented students in particular) and cost are issues on which the commission should focus, they clearly aren’t the only ones.

I will say in regards to access that here in the CSU it is constrained by our capacity to serve more students. In the past few years our ability to take on more students has not been a question of things like unwillingness to experiment with new technologies (we do) or to increase class size, or to schedule B.A. requirements at night and at other times convenient for non-traditional students — it has almost totally been a factor of the institution, the system and the state’s lack of willingness in creating new capacity at existing campuses. While the state has been most culpable in this regard, both the CSU system and the institution are also at fault. One thing that I doubt a commission of CEOs will explore, but should, is the thickening of the administrative layers on campuses over the years.

My other concern touches on the question of cost. Rather than focusing so much attention on cost — how much it actually costs to put the product out — more attention needs to paid to how students finance their college educations and the impacts that our students’ large reliance on loans have on their individual futures and the future of the society in general.

I know it is fruitless to suggest this, but the commission should largely stay away from spending a lot of time on defining standard outcomes or defining how these can/should be communicated to the public: They won’t, but they should avoid this.

Richard Ekman, president, Council for Independent Colleges:

If achieving better results from institutions of higher education is to be a major focus of the new commission, it will need to examine the practices of smaller private institutions. If the commission looks into the matter, it will likely be persuaded to advocate for all of American higher education many of the features that are commonly found in the smaller institutions. The amount of student engagement in learning, of cognitive growth, and postgraduate civic involvement are all greater, on average, for smaller private institutions than for other kinds of colleges and universities.

Small colleges also enroll and graduate low-income, minority, and first-generation students at higher rates than larger public institutions. And they utilize far less public money to produce these results than state-supported institutions do.

Yet most state and federal policies — and the flow of public funds — ignore these distinctions. We need public policies that reward institutional effectiveness and encourage more bang for the public buck.

— Doug Lederman

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Comments

Shared sacrifice?

Along with health care, education costs have been increasing at twice the rate of inflation for nearly a decade. This is simply unsustainable and unworkable — to deny that is to deny the financial hardships faced by working-class students today. Hard decisions on priorities and attainable goals have to be made, and PDQ.

As a political independent, let me suggest a symbolic first step: college presidents making over $125,000/year contribute back to their institution at least 5% of their salaries.

Leadership starts at the top, leadership is symbolic. If leadership does not (or will not) lead in containing costs, why should anyone else? At that point, issues such as public service in lieu of tuition and increased taxpayer support are left on the side of the road, IMHO.

R.A. Shaw, College-town resident, at 6:25 am EDT on September 21, 2005

The same people who destroyed genuine public educational accountability in Texas and are destroying it now nationwide through NCLB have turned their sights to higher education. First Texas, then the nation. As a James Bond plot might say: “The World is Not Enough” for these folks. Public policy disaster follows these folks, and this will be no different.

Jimmy Kilpatrick, Editor, at 6:45 am EDT on September 21, 2005

Predatory For-Profit Institutions

I work for a regionally accredited for-profit four-year institution. My employer is in the same mold as the University of Phoenix, Strayer University, or American InterContinental University, but at 7,500 students is a bit smaller. These institutions exist because of the Title IV system. It is not a coincdence that their tuition rates resemble one another’s closely, nor that they all approach the annual cap in available federal funding.

These institutions prey upon unsophisticated prospective students, making vague assurances about job placement and high salaries in the fields where they offer instruction, and not at all emphasizing the sixty thousand dollar price tag accompanying the completion of these often mediocre programs. Ours in particular shamelessly targets poor immigrant students, many of whom do not speak English well.

I believe the commission should focus on the value that students get from universities that charge tuition rates that are designed to be as high as possible under Title IV, and in particular should at the very least consider requiring participating institutions to make the total cost completely understood by students in advance of any application fee or other commitment.

Afraid To Be Named, Staff Member at For-Profit Institution, at 9:12 am EDT on September 21, 2005

Commission make-up points to the outcome expected

Looking at the comission make-up, I see a heady mixture of for-profit ‘learning’ people and others caught up in the business of education and the adminstering of education...and few practioners. I see even fewer people who might bring a ‘progressive’ or altenative view of what education is and should do. In a word (or two)I see adherents to the “banking statements” of education and few who see education as more than a corporatized commodity.

Is it fair to guess, then, that this commission will focus on business and commodification and not on the role of an educated population?

All education both socializes AND teaches individuals to think...antithetical goals in today’s world. And yes, budgets need to be met. But, it is time to swing back toward critical thinking and away from education as commodity. The make-up of the commission points in the wrong direction.

Theron P. Snell, at 9:25 am EDT on September 21, 2005

No College Student Left Behind?

From the perspective of education, I have two instincts here. One the one hand, having taught at a state university, there really needs to be some standards set with respect to writing. So many people complain about the inability of 4-year and even grad school graduates to write well. Students came into my course, having already passed through freshman English, with no experience writing an MLA essay. On the other hand, I have two sons who attend well-respected but very different schools, one what might be called pre-professional and the other the traditional liberal arts. Each kind has its benefits, and I wouldn’t want to see a cookie-cutter approach applied to either. Universities do tend to monitor their curriculum more carefully and more regularly, it seems to me, than do K-12. And clearly, innovation, which is critically important, comes from those colleges and universities that innovate on their own.

Name Withheld, at 10:04 am EDT on September 21, 2005

Education for Sustainability

While reviewing the list of those on the committee, it seems that very few, if any, are associated with sustainability in education. If we cannot focus on sustainability in education at the federal level, as well as the campus, state, and regional level, then we will fail to adequately prepare students for the interdisciplinary world in which they will be living and working. I would like to see this become an important topic of conversation among politicians, businesspeople, students, faculty, and administrators. Recently I have heard from several sources that there are polls or surveys done, one by Price Waterhouse Coopers, showing that in the land of business and corporations, many of them see sustainability as a topic of major importance in the next 5 years. Teaching sustainability needs to be a priority for the students of this country so that they can be better citizens, and to solve those tough problems that we face economically, socially, and environmentally.

Riley Neugebauer, Environmental Coordinator at American University, at 10:21 am EDT on September 21, 2005

Economist

The series of articles on higher education in the Economist should be brought up first. One of the reasons that Shanghi University, the magazine, and several outside commentators agree gives American Higher Education its position in the world market is the autonomy of the schools, the business interactive practices, and the variety of Universities.

This committee may reduce the autonomy of schools, which should be discouraged. However, it is important that as the developing world tries to form business and trade connected universities that try to lead economic development and technological progress, rather than relapse into the 19th century liberal arts or go on with classes on the “Elements of Culture in Buffy the Vampire Slayer — Honors level” (a friend takes that class at another university) or doing studies on the crispiness of biscuits (Cambridge University 2004).

The future of education will need to be a refocusing on preperation — the earliest American colleges prepared preachers though they later turned to liberal arts education for all. The next generation will need to prepare businesswomen and men and engineers and scientists — not just roll out Shakespeare majors who then try to get jobs at tech companies.

For profit colleges can simplify and refocus our major research institutes — they can educate returning learners and part-time community-college students. They can educate those who work full time while in school.

Our research institutions can then refocus on cutting edge scientific research and 18-26 education.

I expect that this will be fought tooth and nail by some of those who either teach the obsolecent (and thats generous) courses or are working at universities because the rest of the world is ruled by an elitist capitalist conspiracy in which they wish to take no part.

Kevin, Undergraduate, at 10:24 am EDT on September 21, 2005

THE commission

Is this not but treading the same ground, carefully avoiding taking into account what has been said and written about the university. Cardinal Newman’s THE IDEA OF A UNIVERSITY pretty well encapsulates the question. Jaroslav Pelikan picked up the theme and wrote a book about Newman’s book, carefully avoiding the main question. Today the most active parts of “universities in this country are the trade schools: law, business, medicine. And it is their alumni who have the money to decide the course of “higher” education. But these schools do not belong in universities.

Gabriel Austin, at 10:46 am EDT on September 21, 2005

I am concerned when we confound compulsory K-12 education with voluntary higher education. That seems to be what Secretary Spellings has done. The beauty of higher education is its diversity – it is also a source of warts but I’d rather have a few warts on the system that turn it into an over-planned bureaucracy.

Ultimately, higher education (both public and private) is based on a “school choice” model that allows adults to pursue education as if it were a commodity. The fact that the federal government subsidizes some individual’s choices should not negate the fact that with limited regulation, the system provides wide variety of options including some that may not be all that worthwhile. Caveat emptor.

The worry that there might be some standardization of higher education is very real to those of us in teacher preparation programs. Title II of the Higher Education Act requires us to engage in testing of our candidates and ranking (within a state) of the education entitites based on the pass rates of our candidates. Like NCLB, there are consequences for ending up on the bottom of the list. I suspect that this practice encourages teacher preparation programs to take fewer risks and thus deny access to students who are likely to perform poorly on the test. (I can make these claims without self incrimination because Montana is a pilot testing state and we do not participate in the testing/raking process at this time.) The commission should take a strong stand against this kind of ranking regulation.

I do think that there is a federal role in supporting individual students in obtaining a higher education. I don’t think the commission should be looking at a regulatory or even a planning role for the feds.

Paul Rowland, Dean, School of Education at The University of Montana, at 11:04 am EDT on September 21, 2005

I urge all my academic friends and colleagues, from students down to presidents, to stay calm. It’s far too early to begin hyperventilating about potential outrages the U.S. Commission might commit. As I see them, the Commission’s members are an extremely capable, well balanced, and experienced lot. I believe they can be trusted to do their job and to do it well. We should all consider how best to communicate to the Commission members our ideas about the major strategic issues confronting U.S. higher education. In doing so, we should avoid burdening them with our personal hobby horses. For example, I do not intend to send them a manifesto about the American public’s sad lack of understanding of momentum conservation.

Don Langenberg, Professor of Physics at University of Maryland, at 11:44 am EDT on September 21, 2005

Credibility

Unfortunately, I think that the first thing the commission needs to do is establish its credibility to speak fairly, dispassionately, and intelligently about the task before them, clearly demonstrating that they do not have any preconceptions or set agendas. I don’t say this because I feel or know that they are unfair, partisan, stupid, or are ready to force an adgenda on higher education. I say this because there is clearly a problem of perception about the role of this board — one based in its composition and its stated goal. If the members of the commission don’t yet know, I am sure they will learn soon that our higher education system is world respected and that their stated goals do run the risk of being perceived as running counter to the reason for this respect. I suspect that politics and their view of the administration will also color people’s perspective of this commission. It could be argues that the “No Child Left Behind” programhas not yet been properly implemented or handled (a charge leveled by members of both parties). This commission could (and doubtless will) be seen as an attempt to change the subject in some circles. This credibility gap could be addressed by adding faculty, staff, and student representatives to the board at an appropriate date and time. It could also be addressed by the release of a manifesto that addresses concerns that concerned, rational people may have. I suspect there are a large number of ways to go about this. I just hope that it is one of the first items on the commission’s agenda.

Matt DeForrest, Dr., at 1:06 pm EDT on September 21, 2005

College Cost and Student Aid

A commission such as this cannot help but deal with the price of college. But the conversation needs to a well-informed and sensible. I agree with Tom Kane regarding federal policies to encourage states to spend more—or at least increase capacity to accommodate the demographic wave approaching higher education. I also agree with the thrust of Ron Ehrenberg’s comments, but need to set the record straight (in the interest of an accurate conversation about price). Rising tuition does not make students more or less eligible for Pell grants. Awards in the Pell grant program are a function ONLY of the maximum award (currently $4,050) and family financial circumstances, as indicated by the expected family contribution, which the family receives when completing the FAFSA. The price of attending college does not affect eligibility for or the level of the grant.

Brian Fitzgerald, Exec. Director at Business-Higher Education Forum, at 2:18 pm EDT on September 21, 2005

Unity?

I can’t remember seeing a batch of comments on this site so unified in direction. So far there have been two (necessary, I believe) notes of restraint, but most have expressed concern. When something galvanizes people to this degree, I am always curious why. The panel’s composition is clearly a major factor. Higher education autonomy is another. I am still curious, though, what has brought so many together, what has aligned a group that usually bickers and backbites.

My concern—and no one has yet brough it up—is Spellings’ boss’s position on community colleges. The President has indicated his interest in remaking community colleges into centers for job training. Time and again, though he rightly acknowledges successful people who moved on to higher degrees, Bush centers on converting the nation’s community colleges into vocational training academies.

I don’t work for ITT because I don’t want to work for ITT. It isn’t the environment that I want about me. I’m afraid, however, that we may yet see recommendations that treat community colleges (and, by extension, their students) as second class. That would be dangerous, not only for education but for the economy.

Andrew Purvis, at 2:26 pm EDT on September 21, 2005

What the commission should consider

With all of the information floating through our purview, it is surprising that the establishment and purposes of the Commission are nearly invisible. Perhaps this is a problem with higher education as a whole: not in the public’s attention zone. Certainly, the commission can and should address the multiple functions of higher education nationally and internationally, so that there is a large picture for the public.

The Commission should address higher and postsecondary education broadly, including all sectors: colleges, universities, community and technical colleges, privates and publics, as well as the for-profit sector. The Commission should also change lenses, looking at institutions, at students, at administrators, faculty, and staff, and at the public and private sectors and their relationships to higher education. In a sense we need a master template for thinking about and examining higher education, and we need to compare this nation’s perspectives and approaches with those of other nations.

My personal/professional orientation these days in with disadvantaged students in all levels of postsecondary education. In a system based upon merit and privilege, how are those who are disadvantaged treated, advantage or further disadvantaged by government policies and practiced and by institutional policies and behaviors? My research in this area suggests that there is little that is systematic that is being done to offer the disadvantaged the same privileges as the advantaged.

John S. Levin, Professor of Higher Education at North Carolina State University, at 2:35 pm EDT on September 21, 2005

The future of higher education

Higher education in the U.S. is at or near the same crisis level as the public schools, though for different reasons. A few facts: [1] the number and proportion of engineering and science graduate students who are American has been declining precipitously for years, and the graduate programs have had no success or even the will to reverse the trend. [2] A majority of public school science and math teachers are untrained in these disciplines, and yet are expected to feed science and math students into higher education. [3] The quality of entrants into U.S. medical schools has been falling steadily for years, but most medical school curricula today keep the students in class or lab for an average of 3.5 days per week compared to the 5.5 or 6 days of medical schools as recently as the 1950’s. No one seems to care !

Dr. Irv ing I. Kessler, Professor Emeritus, at 7:30 pm EDT on September 21, 2005

All

It’s clear from commission’s membership and from Spellings’ speech what our masters want from higher education: help in making U.S. corporations internationally competitive, and preparation of workers to meet corporate needs. I think there were supposed to be some other aims of education. Anyone recall what they were?

Richard Ohmann, retired at Wesleyan University, at 9:08 pm EDT on September 21, 2005

Dr. Ohmann

Dr. Ohmann, what those other goals are is obsolete.

The blindness of some members of the American higher education community to the crisis our nation will soon have to face in the form of our underprepared students will only make the transition harder.

For the moment the universities spinnoffs and corporate preperation are not so far behind that the knowlage economy is beaten. But unless we at least try to keep pace with China, India, Singapore and South Korea, we will end up losing all the advantages we have held so long and fought so hard for.

Some Indian and South Korea engineering students have 5 years of straight advanced math and engineering. Ours have at best 2, and that is coming out of high schools that are far behind the best in the Far East. Between that, the anti-business attitudes and the low work ethic of many American graduates, and their small number, we will soon be outcompeted on every front.

We have enough time and enough resources to change or system — but if we squander it on more of the same, we will fall only further behind.

Kevin, Undergraduate, at 4:38 am EDT on September 22, 2005

The commission would be wise to address: Access to what? To what purpose? With what result? At what cost? A general liberal arts higher education is not right for everyone, but certainly has it’s place. Career education is important for the health of our economy. Specialized programs, professional and graduate education, all play an important role. The diversity is what makes American postsecondary education unique.

The federal government provides significant resources to maintain that diversity of choice through direct student financing. Therefore, students with financial need can come to the threshold with money to invest in themselves and in the nation. They have a right to a quality education and a fighting chance at completing that education with the result they were expecting. Are they? What are the costs and the outcomes for students? Does it differ? How and why?

The most important thing for the commission, to this student of higher education, is that everything is on the table — there are no taboos or sacred cows, and that the discussion is informed by data, not anecdote.

Ellen Frishberg, Ed.D., at 4:51 am EDT on September 22, 2005

Adjunct faculty

Clearly a major issue in institutions of higher education these days is the use of and treatment of adjunct or part-time faculty. Often these valuable members of the community are underpaid, undervalued, and exploited. Many small colleges or community colleges depend on adjuncts for the majority of their teaching. And they get better from these adjuncts than they deserve. So, what can be done?

First, budget for and hire more full-time faculty, with a priority to draw from proven adjuncts. Second, pay part-timers more equitably, perhaps a substantial percentage of what full-timers make for teaching the same classes. Third, offer bonuses and benefits for longer-term, proven successful part-timers. Finally, thank your lucky stars for the excellent work done by most adjuncts. They make possible the success of institutions of higher education. I like to say about part-timers that teaching is their profession, not their hobby. Treat them accordingly.

Robert L Russell, PhD, Adjunct Professor of English at St. Edward’s University, at 11:56 am EDT on September 23, 2005

Narrow vision

The narrow vision of the U.S. is already a concern to those able to see the whole picture.

Education is actually defined as: Math, Science, Technology, and a university president has complained, “We’re not producing enough engineers,” as if our students are products, resources, meant to shoulder future burdens, instead of the valuable human beings they are with natural talents that deserve to be nourished.

In K-12, in Texas, this dangerously narrow vision is already leaving out and marginalizing otherwise-naturally-talented students.

Innovation and holistic problem-solving will come from those now being “left behind” in Texas, for example. Teachers, who need to be broadly-educated, will continue to be in short supply if the current math-and-science-only trend continues.

I believe that the lack of attention to the education, literacy, and practical vocational training of the adults in poor communities, now all but nonexistent, will further add to the already-growing hunger, poverty, anger, frustration, and crime in the U.S.

We will become too much like the fascist countries we pity and despise.

P.T. Oliver

P. T. Oliver, M. Ed., Director at Coalition of Literacy Services, at 5:05 pm EST on November 14, 2005

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University of Texas, Brownsville

Reports to: Chairperson of School Specialties Department Scope: Full-time, tenure-track position. Seeking an assistant ... see job