Nov. 29

Quick Takes: Uncertainties Over Concussions in College Football, MIT’s High School Site, Secret Ticket Wishlist, Push for Independent Universities in Cuba, Ivy Bashing, Harvard Bashing

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College football programs decide by themselves how to diagnose and treat players’ concussions — and when injured players can return to the field — without oversight, despite the seriousness of the health risks, The New York Times reported. The article was prompted by several recent incidents in which key players suffered concussions, and have been declared fit for play in this Saturday’s key games.
The Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s OpenCourseWare program puts course materials online and makes them available free to anyone — in an effort that has been praised by educators worldwide for opening up MIT materials. On Wednesday, MIT announced a high school version, Highlights for High School, that will put materials online for high schools to use to improve instruction in science, technology, engineering and math. On on Wednesday, MIT announced that it now has 1,800 of its courses — virtually all of them — in OpenCourseWare.
A “ticket wishlist” from John Edwards won’t be released by the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. It’s not about presidential tickets, but sporting events. The Associated Press has been seeking e-mail documents between Edwards and the university related to a think tank he established at Chapel Hill in 2005 and has received some of the requested documents. But the university is blocking release of a “ticket wishlist” from Edwards, saying that it is part of confidential information related to his employment. The university told the AP that Edwards did not receive free tickets.
More than 5,000 Cubans — many of them students, professors and intellectuals — have signed a petition calling for the return of Roman Catholic universities and other universities that would be independent of the government, the Chicago Tribune reported. Fidel Castro’s government shut down such universities decades ago, and those signing the petition say that there is no real academic freedom at the state-run universities, where those who criticize Castro are kicked out.
The idea that Ivy League alumni or graduates of similar institutions run all the businesses that matter is just a myth, at least in the Silicon Valley. The San Jose Mercury News reported on a survey of the CEO’s of the 150 largest public companies in Silicon Valley — and two thirds were educated at state universities, state colleges, or other regional institutions.
02138, the new magazine about all matters related to Harvard University, has discovered (please read this sitting down) that some of the university’s biggest stars — as well as prominent scholars elsewhere — rely on sometimes uncredited student assistants for much of their writing. The details are here.

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Comments

Spitting in the Wind

Concussions among football players—not to mention other serious injuries that leave “student athletes” maimed for life—should spark a debate among leaders in higher education on whether such a sport is consistent with the noble purposes of colleges and universities. It isn’t, of course, and there are few leaders in higher ed who would have the courage to raise the issue. Perhaps there is no need to do so. The Ivy League initiated the Roman circuses, and they still sponsor them. So why debate the issue? After all, they are looked to for leadership. In their defense, the Ivie players probably come closer to meeting the real definition of student athlete than others. But it would be encouraging to see collective higher education come closer to matching its behavior with its rhetoric. Does anyone want to join me in a spitting in the wind exercise?

Higher Ed Diogenes

Higher Ed Diogenes, at 8:35 am EST on November 29, 2007

Ghostwriting Scandals

The Harvard ghostwriting scandal article is very important. Ward Churchill’s worst offense, after all, was his ghostwriting, and Harvard shows us how little academia cares about it unless you’re a controversial professor. It’s time for academia to take a strong stand against ghostwriting, and to require proper credit (perhaps a secondary credit line) for research assistants. In the sciences, they manage to credit a long list of people who work as research assistants; why can’t it be done in other fields? Those of us who manage to write books without research assistants probably deserve some credit, too, for the work we do.

John K. Wilson, collegefreedom.org, at 9:06 am EST on November 29, 2007

Ghostwriting—-The Implications

I’m with Mr. Wilson in that this is important.

In higher education, reputation is everything. Schools sell themselves on the real and imagined achievements of their faculties. Even if you know, as an incoming student, that you’ll likely be taught by graduate students, you might be willing to pay to rub shoulders, once-removed, with the best. You’re hoping that success can be learned, and that the institution—-the collective whole—-will do something for you.

So, when an institution with history, like Harvard, suffers from scandals such as ghostwriting, plagiarism, or whatever, it hurts higher education on the whole. Students lose confidence that they’re rubbing shoulders with the best: if it can happen at a place with a solid reputation, it can happen anywhere.

While my words above come at this from the student perspective, I also see Mr. Wilson’s point. It’s bad enough that many courses are no longer taught by professors, but is it also the case that even their research can be questioned? I mean, what’s real in higher education if we can’t trust that professors are doing their own research?

In sum, if professors are not forthright about their research, the whole higher education establishment in America is a farce, a joke.

All instances of cheating in higher education—-whether by ghostwriting, over-reliance on research assistants, plagiarism, etc.—-must be forcefully stamped out. It goes to the integrity of the idea of education on the whole. — TL

Tim Lacy, at 1:55 pm EST on November 29, 2007

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Quick Takes: Uncertainties Over Concussions in College Football, MIT’s High School Site, Secret Ticket Wishlist, Push for Independent Universities in Cuba, Ivy Bashing, Harvard Bashing

Comments

Spitting in the Wind

Ghostwriting Scandals

Ghostwriting—-The Implications

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Research Associate Minnesota’s Private College Council, Fund and Research Foundation

Research Postdoctoral Fellow East Carolina University

Senior Applications Analyst University of South Carolina

Health Educator/Project Coordinator University of Colorado at Denver and Health Sciences Center-Ninth and Colorado

Staff Psychiatrist Princeton University

Externship Coordinator Corinthian Colleges

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Physical Sciences (Adjunct) Instructor Hillsborough Community College

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