Restructuring American universities

This ("End the University as We Know It" by Mark Taylor) article was in the NY Times today. The author argues that American universities need to be restructured in several ways. I have always been interested in thinking about how universities are organized, and what changes could be made to make them "work" better. So I really enjoyed reading the article. Here are the authors recommendations, each followed by my thoughts:

1. Restructure the curriculum to facilitate cross-disciplinary teaching.

*I like this idea, but think it would be worthwhile to do a large study of interdisciplinary teaching already underway, to see what works and what does not. Unfortunately, most interdisciplinary teaching arrangements I am familiar with have not been successful. I think there are a few issues.

-First, there needs to be a natural fit of the disciplines involved and the theme of the class. It sounds good to put a humanities course with a hard science course, but that is often a mistake. Either one of the disciplines takes priority, or both are covered only on the surface.

-All faculty members involved must be comfortable with the approach of all other faculty members, so that they can truly engage in dialogue, and not just cover their own approach.

-Lastly, and most importantly, interdisciplinary courses either must be able to teach fundamentals or they must be offered only to more advanced students. Students in college still need to be taught certain basics (and this becomes increasingly true as a greater proportion of high school seniors head to college). It's great to think about the problem of "war" from many angles. But if students aren't familiar with the theoretical bent and tools of each discipline, they will be lost.

2. Do away with academic departments and create networks of interdisciplinary groups centered on thematic problems.

*I think this idea is only partly right. The problem (like most of the author's suggestions) is that he assumes expertise within a discipline. And of course, this is the case now--because we have departments that train faculty. Without these departments, how will new faculty be trained in one area, that they can then bring to bear on a central problem? I think we should think about how we can combine the benefits of expertise and generalization.

3. Increase communication between universities so that each institution can specialize in fewer areas, and then students can use distance learning to take advantage of other institutions' strengths.

*I really like this idea. I've never been a huge fan of distance learning, but I think it's getting better.

4. Transform the traditional book dissertation into alternatives, such as projects (websites, films, etc.)

*Clearly written from the perspective of a humanities professor. The hard sciences have already moved to an article-based dissertation, and the social sciences are close behind. The humanities could do this too. I do not like the idea of projects for Ph.D.s, because the primary qualification for being an academic should be the ability to communicate in writing. But given the next suggestion the author has (which I do like), maybe there should be some options for peole who don't want to go into academia.

5. Expand the range of professional options for graduate students.

*Yes! If academic departments took a range of professional options seriously, they could vastly improve the overall quality of ph.d.-graduates. I think a large part of the problem in current departments is that faculty refuse to acknowledge options other than research. Because of this, many students have to make their way largely on their own. Why not try to improve the preparation for people who are going to go into government, for example, rather than ignoring them?

6. Impose mandatory retirment and abolish tenure. Replace with 7 year contracts.

*I'm somewhat uncomfortable with the author's premiss for this suggestion, although not his solution. The author compares this to financial executives who spurred the current recession without oversight. But academia has too much oversight in some ways. Social pressure is extremely strong among faculty, creating all sorts of weird relationships. A little top-down management isn't a bad idea. However, the idea of going through a tenure-like process every seven years seems rather cruel. Maybe there is a way to instill tenure in stages, rather than all at once? And also, perhaps academic departments could have a little less power? Although if that is the case, the ways that academic administrators are recruited and hired would also need to be changed.


I think there might be an interesting way to combine the author's suggestions with the way universities work now--

Academic departments are necessary for training purposes--teaching the fundamentals of a discipline--and for reviewing faculty members' work based on the standards of the field. However, departments as they exist now do not promote creative thinking or an interdisciplinary approach. They do suffer from the problem of over-specialization. Not only does this narrow the influence of academics' work, but it fails to teacher undergraduates and graduate students to take a narrow problem they are working on and apply it to a larger question. So, I would suggest:

1) Keep academic departments, but establish interdisciplinary working groups structured around a central question/problem. These working groups would take over some of the work that departments do, as well as some of the power. They would have a chair, would share the responsibility for curriculum construction, and would take part in peer review of others' work within the group.

2) Teaching would take place both within the departments (to instill fundamentals) and working groups (to encourage interdisciplinary thinking), and faculty members would split their required loads roughly in half. Department classes would be smaller, because of their focus on teaching skills. Interdisciplinary courses would have more students, because they would have more than one faculty member teaching, and there would be more onus on the students to be independent scholars.

3) Both academic departments and working groups would evaluate their members for tenure and other promotions. Tenure would remain, but faculty would continue to be evaluated. If faculty members do not maintain high standards after tenure, they could be taken out of working groups and placed in departments as instructors/adjunct professors. They would retain job security but lose prestige. They could work to be reinstated, however.

4) Graduate students would apply to departments, but their education would take place in both a department and a working group. Students interested in pursuing academic careers would be placed mainly with a department and secondarily with a working group, while students interested in non-profit/business/government and other non-academic jobs would be more integrated into working groups (on the presumption that this kind of discourse would be more beneficial to students who are going to need to apply their skills to real-world problems). The boundaries would be flexible between the two options.

Thoughts?

Would you ever...

The other day, I read an interesting article on "neuroenhancing drugs" in New York Magazine. The story is here. It's quite interesting. The article interviews several users of off-label psychiatric medications for ADD, Alzheimers, and sleep disorders, who claim the drugs make them better workers. It goes on to profile doctors (!) and drug companies who argue that these drugs will be the plastic surgery of the future--enhancements of the mental, rather than physical, kind.

I have heard of ADD drugs such as ritalin being sold on the street as a drug (and was once asked if I wanted to buy ritalin in college--I declined). I am completely against this practice, mostly influenced by my mother's condition. As someone who contracted polio as a child and now suffers from post-polio, she takes heavy pain medication every day. Her medication is also sold on the street, and as a result, is very highly regulated. Two Christmases ago, she accidentally washed her supply of these drugs in the washing machine. Her doctor was out of town, and because of regulations meant to prevent street sales, my mother suffered through five days with almost no pills. It was awful, and something I never wish to see again. So the thought of people abusing necessary medication completely pisses me off.

On the other hand, the generic question of whether, as a society, we should develop neuroenhancing drugs for everyday use is an interesting one. The article shows both the up-side (better concentration and more productivity) and the downside (addiction, and sometimes the inability to dictate what task your productivity will make easier). Proponents argue that these drugs could make "society" better, and in particular, would make the U.S. more competetive. Personally, I think fixing the education system would actually do a better job in this realm, given the marginal improvements that drugs offer. Also, we don't really know the side effects of the drugs--do they increase the odds of heart disease, stroke, or high blood pressure? Do they interfere with short term memory or have an impact on one's personality over the long-term? Hard to say.

I have only once taken a drug meant to have a stimulating effect (okay, I mean apart from caffeine or nicotine). I was in high school and a friend offered me whatever the current version of N0-Doz was. Except she encouraged me to take four, which was the normal number of pills she took (or so she claimed). After taking them, I got in trouble for running around the theater where I was working, broke down in tears, went home, and was sick for the next day and a half. I have never had an interest in trying anything like them again. Which might make me less productive, but hey, at least I know my work is my own, and not the result of a drug.

City Living

I love that I can walk to a park, my hair dresser, several grocery stores, my gym, my yoga studio, any number of cafes, my favorite bakery, and all the retail stores I could want. I love that within a two-block radius of my apartment, I can get sushi, ethiopian food, thai food, low-end greasy pizza, medium-quality brick oven pizza, tex-mex, chinese food, and pub food. I am particularly fortunate that our apartment is located in the Center City area, only a block away from a centrally located park, and a couple blocks from a running path that extends along the river and into a large park on the outskirts of the city. So, yeah, I'm pretty lucky.

The downside of living in the city is driving me crazy, though. When we moved into our apartment, there was a popular bar/club occupying the space on the first floor of our building. On Fridays and Saturdays, they played loud (and bad) music that we could hear in our bedroom. We found it annoying, but we could usually sleep through it. The landlord told us they were leaving, and a new owner would be opening a mellow club that played jazz and served food.

At least, that's what they were told. The new place opened in March. And they are...awful. It's billed as an "invitation only" club. They put a red velvet rope across the entrance to our building and ask us if we are "on the list" when we arrive home late. They do bottle service for over $1000 a pop. I didn't even know what bottle service was before they moved in. And they play music very, very loudly. To be fair, it's good music. But it's loud. Loud like there's a party in my apartment, and loud enough that I can feel the floor (and consequently, my bed) vibrating with the bass. And they are open Wednesday through Sunday, so we get only two peaceful nights per week.

This is particularly bad on days I am working. There is nothing like working on one's dissertation while hearing Kanye blasted through your window, along with a bunch of scantily clad women screaming along with the music (I don't know why they scream, but they do).

Last night, for the first time in my life, I called the police about the noise. I felt terrible. No one wants to be the complaining neighbor. And you have to call 911, which seems terrible. Like, "Oh, someone got shot in West Philly? But I have a noise complaint!" Still, it was ridiculously loud and again accompanied by screaming. And other people in our building have been encouraging us to do this--apparently, the police have been receiving several complaints per night. And our apartment is actually closest to the noise that emanates from the back of the club. To make things worse, our bedroom window is closest to the noise, so although it's loud in our living room, it's like being in the middle of a house party in our bedroom.

So, yeah. Hopefully something will change. Neither Alison nor I have soured on living in the city. We have just learned to be picky about our neighbors. And maybe to drive by our intended living quarters at night before signing a lease...

(I should note, we do have the option of moving, but we *love* our apartment. It's a quandry).

Susan Boyle

By now, most people have seen this clip of Susan Boyle. She is a spunky misfit with great talent, and the modesty and age to bring a tear to our eyes. I cried too. She seems like a lovely lady. There are a great number of assessments of "why we love her." Here's the latest one I read, but there are plenty more. They all boil down to our own need for acceptance, her profound giftedness and charm, and a little studio exploitation. I can buy that.

But the Susan Boyle phenomenon also strikes me as having a dark side. Not for her--things will work out quite well for Susan, as they did for her predecessor, Paul. Rather, the dark side of this media sensation is what it says about us (okay, Britain, but it can be said of the U.S. as well). That is, we're terribly stratified. So much so that these two talented individuals--Susan and Paul--could live their lives in obscurity because their parents were not wealthy or connected. And it's not just these two individuals. The truth is, most famous, powerful, and wealthy people in the U.S. and Britain had famous, powerful, or wealthy parents.

What's worse, Susan and Paul are used as stories of hope and inspiration. We are expected to be grateful for the reality world's acceptance in embracing their talent and giving them the opportunity to shine. Through them, we can feel better about class stratification. "Look! It worked out okay for them!"

Reality shows owe much of their existence to our need to believe in the American Dream (and whatever its British equivalent is). And of course, they owe a great deal to class stratification in general. Britain's/America's Got Talent does not tell us that any working class schmo can get ahead. It tells us--through weeks of audition episodes--that most working class schmos belong exactly where they are. They suggest that talent is rare among the ignoranti and that the "truth will out" and will save these few gems from their surroundings. They encourage a belief in talent as raw and pure, needing no expensive coaching or time to cultivate. In fact, the opposite is true. Potential greatness exists among the working class, just as it does in the middle and upper classes. It is the money, independence, confidence, time, and access to resources that they lack.

C'mon, Paterson

Stop playing politics with the gays. If legislators aren't going to pass a gay marriage bill, don't put it up for the vote. Way to gamble gay rights to improve your popularity.

http://nymag.com/daily/intel/2009/04/patersons_gay_marriage_gamble.html

Countdown to diss

I am about two months away from my dissertation defense date (June 18). That is, if it isn't pushed back. When I was in Chapel Hill, one of my advisors warned me that they could decide I wasn't ready, and could push back the date. She told me at least twice that I "had time" to push it back if necessary.

Except that I have an appointment with the beach on June 20. And I intend to make it. So now I am in full-panic mode, trying to get this mess of three drafted chapters into a polished (okay, adequate) dissertation with introduction and conclusion. On top of this, I need to write another paper draft in a week in order to meet with a co-author at PAA. And I am going to Beijing in mid-May. I am regretting that decision.

Anyway, not much new to share. I visited Chapel Hill, which was awesome. I plan to discuss the game and share pictures, eventually.

In other news...

1) I think it is laughable that the Somali pirates are so "outraged" about the killings of their comrades, and now vow revenge. You...get that you were holding someone hostage, right?

2) Also, I think I have finally decided to buy white strips for my teeth. They are too yellow. I'm just scared of the whole bleached-teeth thing, and worried I will do some sort of damage. Also, it would be better to bleach them over a period of time when I was not drinking coffee. This will not happen until late June/July. Hm.

3) I have almost completed the very loooong process of eliminating walk breaks from my running. Basically, ever since I ran my first marathon in the Fall of 2005, I have had recurring knee injuries. At first, it was my IT Band. I spent a year and a half recovering from that. Eventually, I started a marathon training program and got up to 14 miles in the summer of 2007. Then I stupidly moved furniture all day and went running the next day. Hello, runner's knee! This was much more persistent. By winter that year, I couldn't run 2.5 miles without pain. So I started a very long program of building up. I added more yoga, started cycling, cut running to 3x/week, and began running with walk breaks. Finally, I have almost phased out the walking, and I will soon be adding a fifth day of running to my week. Woo-hoo! I definitely credit the cycling and yoga. I did PT exercises for a while, and they were worthless. Mostly, I just needed to build strength in areas that were weak. Or at least, that seems to have been what happened. I'm only running 7.5 miles on my long days, but I dream of more...