Ivory Tower Blues: Confronting the Critics

1. Ivory Tower Blues:Confronting the Critics • The Argument: • Massive disengagement + • High grade inflation = Crisis • The critics

2. The benefits of a university education • 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?

3. Are these benefits in jeopardy? • Education vs. training? • Critical analysis of arguments and the ability to communication ideas • Vs. Memorization of facts and procedures • … grading practices: • Education - critical and reflexive • improvement is always possible; reference point is the unknown limit of the human intellect; perfection is unattainable • Training - passive, descriptive, regurgitative • meeting expectations regarding procedures and information retention; 100% possible

4. DISENGAGEMENT + GRADE INFLATION = ? • Disengagement is at historically high levels • Grade inflation is at historically high levels • the combination = a crisis for • Students (and parents) • Professors • The system

5. The slow boil of grade inflation and disengagement: It is time to pay attention

6. Crisis for students • Personal debt for a BA-lite • Less skill acquisition • Underemployment • “Degree purchasing” • Less learning for self • More disruption for other students • Alienation from learning • Entitlement for grades with little effort • Not “in the moment” • Increasing stress levels

7. Crisis for faculty • Disengagement compact • alienation from teaching/mentoring • Adversarial encounters over grades • 22% on stress-reducing medications • 22% report physical health issues • 13% experience clinical levels of distress • Job satisfaction/cynicism • Recruitment? • Early retirement?

8. Crisis for the system • Loss of: • Function • Sorting and credentialing • Push toward vocationalism • Credibility • Employers and professional schools • Respect • Public • Profscam / The Great Training Robbery

9. Reviews of the book • Cacophony of contradictory reactions • 1. Total support with how we handled it • 2. Support, but we don’t go far enough • 3. Problems exist, but we overstate them or they have always been this bad • 4. Denial that there are any problems • Good reviews tell readers about the book • Vs. grandstanding or rebuttals (Rorschach projections)

10. THE CRITICS • Crisis, what crisis? • All of these problems exist, but there is no crisis • (Allan Hutchinson, Assoc. Dean, Osgood Law School, Globe & Mail) • Administrators in denial • NSSE • ~10% engaged/~40+ disengaged • 80-90% regularly receive As + Bs

11. European Credit Transfer System (ECTS) for all passing grades • A – 10% ~ EXCELLENT - outstanding performance with only minor errors • B – 25% ~ VERY GOOD - above the average standard but with some errors • C – 30% ~ GOOD - generally sound work with a number of notable errors • D – 25% ~ SATISFACTORY- fair but with significant shortcomings • E – 10% ~ SUFFICIENT - performance meets the minimum criteria

12. Mass university education is upon us: Get used to it • We need to adjust to the “diversity” of learning styles of disengaged students • And create a 2-tiered system • (Benedikt Hallgrimsson, Assoc. Dean, Medicine, U. of Calgary, University Affairs) • High schools have tried this and made matters worse • 2-tier? (Mac/Calgary/UBC - élite streams) • The BA-lite for the disengaged masses? • Is it ethical to take their money?

13. There are no disengagement problems • “All of my students are engaged” • (Rebecca Coulter, Faculty of Education, Western, The Agenda, TV Ontario) • Students at my university aren’t like that • (Heather Munroe-Blum, Principal, McGill University; Cross-Country Check-up, CBC) • “I truly do not believe that [the book] describes our university here at Western” (Paul Davenport, President, Western, Western News)

14. Increasing disengagement at the university level: US NSSE data Hours per week spent by upper year university students studying, reading, writing, rehearsing, etc. for all classes

15. … in universities • NSSE: • ~10% fully engaged: treat university as a full-time job • ~ 25+ hours per week (hpw) + classes • ~40% - partially engaged • some preparation for class; some last-minute work on papers; cramming for exams: • ~ 11-20 hpw + classes • ~40-50% - disengaged • little or no preparation for class; little work on papers; little studying for exams: • ~ 0-10 hpw + classes

16. McMaster NSSE 2006 compared to Ontario universities and US equivalents

17. It’s always been like this • Students have always been disengaged • David Strong (President, University Canada West, Cross-Country Check-up) • Has higher education been a fraud all along? • Diseng + Inflation is a new situation • A generational change

18. … always like this? • Children of the wealthy never cared about learning • If so, it didn’t matter to their futures … now it does • Those who are not wealthy deserve a quality education

19. Embrace grade inflation • Grades have been increasing for a long time • Just recalibrate your assessment to a B average • We are hitting the ceiling • the B will come to be defined as “average” and therefore beneath students • … and we are running out of letters

20. Types of grade inflation • Higher grades, same standards • Same grades, lower standards (hidden inflation) • Higher grades, lower standards

21. Impact of grade inflation • Grade conflation • Under-reward excellence • Over-reward mediocrity • Effort disincentive • Less skill development • Less personal transformation

22. Prolonged youth … grade 13, 14, 15, 16 • University is just a middle class rite of passage now anyway, just like high school was, so why does it matter? • Not necessary if the secondary system were reformed and vocational tracks developed • Why destroy the Liberal Arts for this?

23. High grades are good for students • Self-esteem • Optimism • Persistence • High grades arefraudulent when given to students who don’t deserve them • False feedback is bad for them, setting them up for failure • System ethics and integrity?

24. Low grades alienate students • Grades should be used for feedback and assessment, with the goal of helping students discover their strengths and nurture their abilities

25. There was no Golden Era of education • You are romanticizing the past • We experienced excellent Liberal Arts educations and don’t want this lost for future generations • We want to stop the slide into mediocrity and the destruction of the Liberal Arts

26. Students have busy lives • The new reality is that students fit university into their lives rather than fitting their lives into university • Should we simply give them a BA-lite? • Aren’t we misleading and cheating them?

27. Professors are bad teachers • Professors need to be met half-way by students, as part of the “bi-lateral contract” of the Liberal Arts; otherwise, we are but a glorified high school

28. What legacy will we leave? “Why am I here?”

29. Ivory Tower Renewal: Best practices in leading universities Follow the debate on • www.ivorytowerblues.com • Thank you for your attention