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- Call for the inclusion of caste within UC’s anti-discrimination policy
UC Faculty Associations
UCI hires ex-USC dean as provost over group’s objections … Orange county Register 5/21/2013
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IFA Board letter to Chancellor Drake Concerning Appointment of new EVC
The IFA Board sent a letter to Chancellor Michael V. Drake on May 12, 2013 voicing their concern over the possible appointment of Howard Gillman, former Dean of the College of Letters, Arts and Sciences at USC, as the new Executive Vice Chancellor, and the lack of public review in the selection process.
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Dear Chancellor Drake:
We write on behalf of the Irvine Faculty Association, representing the IFA in accordance with our bylaws. It has come to our attention that Howard Gillman, former Dean of the College of Letters, Arts and Sciences at USC, is the finalist of the search for a new EVC to replace Michael Gottfredson. Searches of broad concern to the campus should be conducted as openly as possible so that faculty from various areas and perspectives can raise issues that may not be evident to the necessarily few colleagues on any search committee. It is the purpose of our letter urgently to point out such issues, even if the search has reached its final stage. We are concerned for several reasons. Dean Gillman’s fairness in handling personnel cases, as well as his relationship with faculty in general and American Studies and Ethnicity faculty in particular, have been called into question by reports from USC. Given ongoing public attention to racism at UCI, Dean Gillman’s hiring particularly without public discussion or review would send a negative signal regarding UCI’s seriousness about addressing its problems. We urge you to weigh the grave impact that this choice may have.
USC colleagues convey that Dean Gillman had poor relations with USC faculty. According to current and past faculty at USC, Gillman’s renewal as dean was contested in letters written by many Humanities chairs as well as many individual faculty who complained of his lack of support for their research and lack of respect. According to their accounts, Gillman’s reappointment at the first renewal was qualified by reservations about his performance. Matters apparently did not improve during the second term. Gillman was offered, and declined, reappointment for a third term, again over faculty objections. Many senior faculty left during his term despite USC’s able financial position, and there is a perception among USC faculty that Dean Gillman’s retention and tenure decisions were uneven, unclear, and partial. This situation raises questions about his qualification to be EVC and Provost at UCI during a period of ongoing budgetary difficulty and reorganization that will require deft and professional negotiation and cultivation of trust.
Dean Gillman’s improper handling of personnel procedures is a matter of record. According to published articles, in the course of an appealed tenure case that is still pending as an EEOC complaint, it was concluded that Dean Gillman acted inappropriately to bias the proceedings by calling additional referees outside the candidate’s field. “USC’s faculty grievance panel found that ‘Dean Gillman’s phone calls to additional referees during the [review] lacked appropriate protocols, resulting in a procedural defect that materially inhibited … [the] tenure review process.’ The panel also recommended that Gillman’s ‘cold calls’ documentation be removed” from the professor’s dossier and that her case be reevaluated (http://dailytrojan.com/2013/05/02/prof-loses-tenure-bid-after-appeal/). Regardless of the merits of the professor’s case, Gillman’s behavior unduly influenced it. This conclusion appears to corroborate USC colleagues’ reports that he was out of touch and unsupportive. An endowed Professor of English, Tania Modleski, has taken the unusual step of criticizing her own institution in print. Professor Modleski published an article in The Chronicle of Higher Education analyzing the “continued erosion of faculty governance” during the period of Gillman’s tenure, erosions that opened the door to the kinds of actions in which Gillman engaged. (http://chronicle.com/blogs/conversation/2013/01/11/the-death-of-shared-governance-at-u-of-southern-california/) Professor Modleski notes that the kind of action Gillman took — phone calls to additional referees — returns to practices that are socially rather than procedurally and objectively based, and that such practices have long operated to the disadvantage of minority faculty and women. A dean who believes that such a practice is appropriate is ill-suited to govern as EVC and Provost at a public university.
While it is tempting to hope that the problems with Dean Gillman’s record could be offset by the impact of important gifts to USC, it is far from clear that Dean Gillman played a decisive role in these gifts. $200M raised in the period is attributable to a single very large gift that was donated by a trustee. For many faculty, Dean Gillman’s difficulties apparently outweighed his fundraising contribution, thereby casting doubt on this dimension of his performance as well.
It is a crucial matter that Dean Gillman’s tenure was riven by faculty perceptions that the decisions, research priorities, and tone he set at USC adversely affected minority faculty and women and indeed, the culture of enlightened exchange at USC. In addition to the EEOC complaint pending regarding the case of Mai’a Davis Cross, Assistant Professor of International Relations, which we cited above, another tenure case involving a minority assistant professor, Jane Iwamura, received national attention in the form of a petition signed by 923 academics and students and opposition from USC’s Student Coalition for Asian Pacific Empowerment. (Professor Iwamura’s book from Oxford UP was widely praised by leading scholars in her field.) A panel held at USC on September 22, 2010 on “Race, Tenure, and the University” was dedicated to studying the larger social forces related to what was said to be a pattern of racial discrimination in personnel actions at USC. In addition, according to faculty in American Studies and Ethnicity Gillman refused to appoint a chair they had elected, declining both of their nominees. Faculty who work on ethnic studies and minority discourse who departed from USC during Gillman’s tenure include Professors Denise da Silva (now at Queen Mary, University of London), Roselinda Fregoso (UCSC), Ruthie Gilmore (CUNY), Robin D.G. Kelley (UCLA), Herman Gray (UCSC), David Lloyd (UC Davis), and Cynthia Young (Boston College). While Dean Gillman is not the sole reason that many left for thriving careers at other institutions, we are concerned that his management appears to have exacerbated perceptions of institutional racism rather than helping to overcome them. Administrators quoted in the above articles respond to faculty concerns about diversity and equality by arguing about the methodology used by a political science professor who was working to document them, instead of treating the existence of those concerns as a serious matter. This response is not appropriate. Dean Gillman ought to have created conditions that encouraged a different kind of response: a less defensive demonstration of the ability to hear campus concerns at the level at which they are expressed by faculty and students.
We do not need to emphasize that UCI is in the middle of a challenging situation regarding racism on campus. The last few weeks have brought two incidents of hateful slurs against black students. Nor have such incidents been foreign to the campus previously. In addition, the external review of the School of Humanities strongly criticizes the assessment of Humanities units and one Social Science unit that were said to “need attention.” The external review rightly stresses “the seeds of distrust, the resentment, and destruction” sowed by the targeting of precisely those units on campus most concerned with the study of difference and diversity. The “Needs Attention” exercise threatened to affect the academic reputation of UCI, becoming citable as evidence of administrative complicity in an inhospitable culture for minority students and faculty. The campus is vitally in need of an EVC/Provost that comes into this situation with a strong proactive record of promoting diversity on campus, including warm relations with ethnic studies scholars; a forceful articulation of racism’s complex causes and effects; and strong interpersonal skills for the handling of racially charged conflicts. In this context, the hiring of a former dean who actually has an EEOC complaint pending against his unit and who has been found by a review board to have introduced bias into the tenure case of a minority professor would be a visible and egregious mistake. It would immediately be noticed as such by all members of the community who have been following the “Needs Attention” debacle or working with students who are rightly indignant about racism on campus. These are disproportionately not the members of the community who have had the opportunity to weigh in on the EVC finalists.
Our university has a serious commitment to equity and diversity. The nomination of Dean Gillman as EVC calls that commitment into question. Were he appointed, UCI could be charged with having dismissed in advance the EEOC complaint. And while a current employee of the university has a right to have judgment withheld regarding a discrimination complaint, that is not the point when a candidate seeks to be hired into a new and broadly significant position. In the latter case, an absence of association with controversy and animosity is a positive and reasonable, even minimal, criterion. Dean Gillman does not meet that criterion.
We would have raised the above issues earlier if we had had any opportunity to do so. Amid ongoing concerns about equality, the limited opportunity for comment in the search process may also be cited as evidence that UCI, like Dean Gillman, needs to be more committed to open governance and to the diversity and fairness it protects. Hiring Dean Gillman without having given ample opportunity for views such as ours will make it seem as if UCI is ignoring the recommendations of the Humanities external review and the calls for sensitivity and education being issued by UCI’s Office of Student Affairs. We bring these matters to your attention in the spirit of openness and public concern. We urge that it is not too late to have an open and full conversation about finding the best candidate for this key leadership position at UCI.
Sincerely,
Executive Committee, Irvine Faculty Association irvinefa@gmail.com
CORRECTION (May 18, 2013). This letter has been edited. As originally published, it erroneously stated that Dean Gillman was not offered a second renewal of his term as dean at USC.
Our letter speaks from the IFA’s independent position regarding a matter of public concern: attention to fairness amid a troubled climate. We encourage all who share our concern about these issues to speak about them in an accurate, serious, and respectful way.
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Chancellor Drake’s Response to our letter is available here. In response we would like to reiterate that this letter was not anonymous. It was sent in the name of the Irvine Faculty Association, a campus affiliate of the Council of UC Faculty Associations, for more than 30 years a recognized UC faculty organization with membership at all campuses, and posted on our official website. We would also like to reiterate that while there was opportunity for faculty and students to comment on the best qualities to look for in an EVC, the final candidates themselves were not made public and therefore there was no ability for faculty to share any concerns or give any input in the process. Our only opportunity to respond in this regard was when we were informed by colleagues of the immanent selection of Dean Gilman. Given the serious concerns voiced to us from a variety of sources we felt it was incumbent upon us to make a public statement in order to ensure even at this late stage and in view of the serious situation on campus, that the fullest possible discussion would be possible.
Add your voice to a call for changes in SB 520
The Irvine Faculty Association is gravely concerned about SB 520, a bill currently being considered by the state legislature, which would mandate acceptance of online courses for academic credit at the UC, CSU and CCs, even those offered by 3rd party profit making companies, without meaningful input or quality control by faculty. This proposal seems to us to have profound potential implications for shared governance, educational quality, faculty control of curriculum and standards for degrees.
Below is a statement and petition authored by the Berkeley Faculty Association in conjunction with sister Faculty Associations and the Council of UC Faculty Associations, opposing the Steinberg bill. The UC Irvine Faculty Association is circulating the Berkeley Faculty Association petition to the UCI community. If you choose to participate, please write your campus affiliation in the comment box so that we identify ourselves as faculty across the system. Please circulate it to your colleagues and beyond.
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Dear Colleagues,
The Berkeley Faculty Association is deeply concerned by Senator Darrell Steinberg’s attempt to force the UCs, CSUs, and Community Colleges to accept credit for online courses from any source. Please help us convince him to pull or amend his bill by signing the petition at the link below.
http://signon.org/sign/uc-faculty-opposition?source=c.em.cp&r_by=985930
Thanks
on behalf of the Berkeley Faculty Association
Shannon Steen
Associate Professor
Department of Theater, Dance, Performance Studies Program in American Studies
UC Berkeley
For more information on this impending legislation, see the various links at:
http://www.thenation.com/blog/173350/profit-fiasco-california-public-colleges-turn-web-courses
http://utotherescue.blogspot.com/2013/03/the-academic-senate-and-others-respond.html
An ”Open Letter” to UC faculty from the systemwide Senate can be viewed at:
http://senate.
Senator Steinberg (or his staff) wrote the following op-ed in the Orange County Register:
http://www.ocregister.com/articles/online-500611-education-students.html
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For-Profit Fiasco: California Public Colleges Turn to Web Courses
Jon Wiener is a contributing editor to The Nation magazine and an IFA member. He published an article today in response to Senator Steinberg’s Proposed legislation that would require California public higher education institutions to accept select online courses, even those offered by 3rd party profit making companies.
http://www.thenation.com/blog/173350/profit-fiasco-california-public-colleges-turn-web-courses#
Senator Steinberg’s proposed online classes bill
Today’s New York Times (and a number of other news sources) had an article about proposed legislation from Senator Steinberg that would require California’s public higher education systems to accept transfer credits from select online course providers for 50 of the state’s most impacted courses (some of these courses would be Community College or CSU courses but some could be UC courses, they have not been selected yet).
The IFA immediately responded to this news by sending a letter to the Academic Senate, and promptly received a response stating that the Senate had neither participated in shaping nor been informed about the bill before it was announced to the public.
The New York Times article is available online at:
Lillian Taiz, the president of the California Faculty Association (the union representing CSU faculty), is quoted in the article as saying:
“What’s really going on is that after the budget cuts have sucked public higher education dry of resources,” she continued, “the Legislature’s saying we should give away the job of educating our students.”
The language of the proposed bill is not available from the Legislative Counsel’s website yet, but HERE is a PDF of the proposed language and HERE is a PDF press release from Senator Steinberg’s office.
Also see: “Will the Academic Senate Defend Faculty Authority or not?” by Michael Meranze in response to the proposed legislation. Michael Meranze points out that Steinberg’s SB 520 re: online education will violate Regents Standing order 105.2
The selection of a new President of the University of California
Sherry Lansing, Chair
Regents’ Special Committee to Consider the Selection of a President
University of California
1111 Franklin St., 12th Floor
Oakland, CA 94607-5200
Fax: (510) 987-9224
Dear Chair Lansing,
The selection of a new President of the University of California
provides all of us an important opportunity to set the future course of
the University. The Council of UC Faculty Associations, by far the
largest voluntary membership organization representing the faculty of
the University of California, would like to offer these principles for
who we think would best serve the interests of the university community:
The next President must have a very long and large view of the
University of California, animated by extensive experience in and deep
knowledge of public higher education. He or she should grasp the
seriousness of the University’s current predicaments, including
imperiled affordability and access to undergraduate education by the
middle class, shrinking graduate programs, the difficulties of
sustaining educational quality and research infrastructure, the problem
of retaining and supporting a first-rate research and teaching faculty,
the challenges posed by rapidly evolving but untested online education,
and growing disparities among the campuses, especially their access to
resources. The President must also be able to represent UC effectively
to legislators, the governor, and the people of California. He or she
should stem pressures toward further privatization and defend and
promote the public status and public mission of the University.
Above all, the next President should be a leader in the most august
sense of that word.
Sincerely,
Robert Meister,
President, Council of UC Faculty Associations
Professor History of Consciousness and Political and Social Thought, UC
Santa Cruz
SCFA Request for Information RE: Online Education Contract with Coursera
This issue touches on many curricular and academic issues including faculty ownership rights to their lectures. In 2000, CUCFA successfully lobbied for legislation establishing that individual professors, and not the University, own the intellectual property in their live performances and course materials. The effect of this legislation is to treat the recording and reuse of courses in the same manner as other forms of faculty publication, and to establish that the University has no more right than a note-taking service or a student with a video camera to publish our courses without explicit written consent. Viewed within this legal framework the contract template [Exhibit G-1] that faculty will be expected to sign before their courses can become available on Coursera appears to put the UCSC campus in the position of becoming the publisher of this material on Coursera and other platforms. “I hereby irrevocably grant the University the absolute right and permission to use, store, host, publicly broadcast, publicly display, public[sic] perform, distribute, reproduce and digitize any Content that I upload, share or otherwise provide in connection with the Course or my use of the Platform, including the full and absolute right to use my name, voice, image or likeness (whether still, photograph or video) in connection therewith, and to edit, modify, translate or adapt any such Content (“Content Enhancements’) for the purposes of formatting or making accommodations to make Content accessible to persons who have disabilities.” Moreover, both Exhibits G-1 and G-2 contain language indicating that the University’s rights to publish “Content” would include distribution to “persons” and “entities” other than Coursera.
Any proposed contract between UCSC and members of our bargaining unit for publishing their courses online could be considered a change in the terms and conditions of that faculty member’s employment that is, at least arguably, subject to mandatory collective bargaining before the proposed contracts are offered to and signed by individuals. In deciding whether to invoke its right to bargain, SCFA would naturally be interested in the specific terms of such contracts (e.g., their revocability, exclusivity and the rights of signatories to participate in and be informed of any monetization that occurs). And in deciding what our collective bargaining position should be SCFA will also be interested in the consequences of permitting and incentivizing individual members of our bargaining unit to agree to terms under which new or existing UCSC courses will be made available online to students on our own campus and/or at other institutions (including for-profits) where they might, at any time in the future, be taken for credit toward a UCSC degree. Depending on the campus administration’s answers to these questions, the foreseeable consequences could affect the terms and conditions of employment for members of our bargaining unit, whether or not they as individuals agree to participate in Coursera. Finally, there is the question of what incentives might be given to present and especially future faculty to make the campus a publisher of their courses online. Any system of incentives to publish courseware through the campus (whether in the form of carrots or sticks) would almost certainly change the employment relation between the UCSC campus and all members of our bargaining unit.
These issues were not discussed with the SCFA, the exclusive bargaining unit for the UCSC faculty, prior to the signing of the contract between Coursera and UCSC. Since contracts to be offered by UCSC to individual instructors will constitute new terms of employment for members of our bargaining unit, we ask that all contract negotiations between the University and members of our bargaining unit be halted until the SCFA has received sufficient answers to its informational requests (including but not limited to those below) in order to determine whether to seek collective bargaining.
To expedite our consideration of collective bargaining we submit the following Request for Information:
•Was there a confidentiality agreement between Coursera and the campus? If so, at whose initiative was such an agreement undertaken? Who were the parties to this agreement on UCSCs side? If any Senate faculty were parties to the agreement, does the administration consider them to have been acting on behalf of the Senate? Was there any other form, official or unofficial, in which the Senate was consulted prior to signing the contract with Coursera? [SCFA has a responsibility under HEERA to determine in what manner the Senate was consulted, and on what range of issues, before determining how broad or narrow its role as a collective bargaining agent can be.] •Has any member of SCFA’s bargaining unit, other than administrators, signed the agreement needed to post their classes on Coursera? If so, we hereby request copies of the executed documents in addition to a full report of any side-letters and/or additional understandings about the nature and amount of any consideration offered or expected. More generally, SCFA asks that the UCSC administration, as a signatory to the contract with Coursera, clarify its view of the UCSC/Instructor agreements provided as Exhibits G-1 and G-2 attached that contract. Are these “forms” of agreement required by Coursera subject to negotiation and modification with individuals and/or (potentially) with SCFA? If so, would the campus expect such modifications to take the form of a change in the release document provided by the campus to Coursera or the form of a separate agreement setting additional terms and conditions on the employment relationship between the instructor and the campus? [This request is material to our need to know the new terms and conditions of employment that have been or will be offered to at least some members of our bargaining unit. To the extent that such terms have already been offered and accepted without notice or consultation with SCFA, we will need to determine what further requests to make regarding the actual commencement of such courses while discussions about bargainability take place.] •What contracts have been signed by other campuses and/or UCO) with other online providers, including but not limited to EdX and Udacity? [While we do not assert the right to be involved in contracts other than those between the UCSC campus and UCSC Senate faculty, we believe the terms and conditions of these other contracts, which should be a matter of public record, will be directly relevant to our eventual assessment of whether the terms that UCSC has negotiated with Coursera are advantageous or not.] •What plan does the campus have for monetizing its contract with Coursera? In what form, if any, does it expect participating faculty and/or the faculty as a whole to benefit from that plan? •What plan does the campus have to reduce instructional costs as a result of its contract with Coursera? In what form, if any, would members of our bargaining unit benefit from that plan?
We consider this letter to place the campus on notice that some of the issues arising out of its contract with Coursera may be collectively bargainable and that it should cease implementation of those aspects of that contract until the issue have collective bargaining has been addressed in future meetings between us.
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Online Education in the Media – January 2013
January 2013 – There has been an explosion in the mainstream press already this year concerning online education. Here is a s synopsis of relevant links that represent just a few of the articles that have been published.
Whose Online? What Online?
Sebastian Thrun founder of Udacity… insisted, online courses will not offer educational advantages if they simply try to transfer the classroom experience into a digital form. Putting faculty in front of cameras and simply recording their lectures will only dehumanize the process of learning and serve to debase the practice of teaching. Online will be an advantage only when it can be put together to do exercises that cannot easily be done in a classroom (and not simply in the sense that you can get more people to see a lecture) and when those exercises can be combined with a renewed attention to person to person pedagogical contact… I wish that there was evidence that the Regents understood this point. But judging by the close there was none. Regent Pattiz continues to think of online as if higher ed is the music business where you purchase a download of a discrete chunk of content rather than–as Thrun and others tried to convey–an ongoing process of directed learning. Regent Reiss, not showing the sort of attentive learning one might wish, trotted out the tired cliche about the end of the “sage on a stage” not realizing that the implications of the presentations by EDx, Coursera, and Udacity was that the teacher as director (and not as “guide on the side”) becomes even more important in these models.
Read full article [here]. by Michael Meranze, Remaking the University.
UC may increase online courses
With insistent urging by the governor and in light of a failing online program, the University of California Board of Regents discussed ideas on Wednesday to increase the number of online courses at the UC – but have yet to lay out further concrete plans. “It’s no secret that (the) UC has hit a wall with regard to traditional instruction methods,” said UC President and ex-officio Regent Mark Yudof at the opening of the meeting. “The finances simply no longer exist to support the old model of instruction in the same ways.”
Read full article [here]. by Kristen Taketa, The Daily Bruin.
Editorial: UC push for online education is too strong
The University of California is using hyperbolic language to push forward an expansion of the system’s online education program, an unproven and expensive tactic for improving the University’s course offerings. At Wednesday’s meeting of the UC Board of Regents, UC President Mark Yudof said “It’s not secret that the UC has hit a wall with respect to traditional educational methods.” Yudof added that it is not financially feasible to continue focusing on improving “brick and mortar,” or traditional education. In addition to the $750,000 grant and the $6.9 million line of credit dedicated to the program, of which a significant amount has been spent, Gov. Jerry Brown’s recent budget proposal suggests both the UC and the CSU receive $10 million to continue developing their online education programs. The suggestion that online education is a more valuable avenue to develop than in-classroom education is flawed… Before emphasizing the importance of funneling millions of taxpayer dollars into a largely undefined expansion of the program, working with a small-scale program, put together carefully with student input, would be far more beneficial to the students. In the meantime, much of the financial and working effort the UC is putting into UC Online could be put into improving on-campus educational resources that students definitely need.
Read full article [here]. by The Editorial Board, The Daily Bruin.
As California Goes?
California is the Fertile Crescent for massive open online course providers, at least the for-profit ones. The state is also shaping up as a testing ground for phase two of the MOOC experiment, which includes fees and a path to college credit, and where public colleges try to use material from MOOCs to help meet student demand in gateway courses… Gov. Jerry Brown wants California’s public institutions to take a hard look at MOOCs. Along with the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, he is encouraging experimentation with MOOC platforms for introductory and remedial courses.
Read full article [here]. by Paul Fain, Inside Higher Education.
UC online courses seen as inevitable
Within five years, students at the University of California will likely take 10 to 15 percent of their courses over the Internet, UC President Mark Yudof said Wednesday in San Francisco at a marathon discussion of online education with the regents, Gov. Jerry Brown and three rising stars in the world of classroom-free courses. Yudof said he’ll provide incentives for faculty to develop online courses to ease overcrowding in the most popular freshman and sophomore courses. And he said UC is working to overcome technical difficulties preventing students from taking online courses developed on campuses other than their own. Student Regent Jonathan Stein warned that students are concerned that trading the benefits of campus and classroom for computerized education would be a “degradation of the UC experience.” Yudof said that no student will be forced to take classes online, but that the migration is inevitable.
Read full article [here]. by Nanette Asimov, The San Francisco Chronicle.
UC regents pledge to expand online education in next few years
University of California leaders pledged Wednesday to sharply expand online education over the next few years, possibly aiming to have UC students take about 10% of all their classes online — averaging four courses toward their degree… Yudof promised that the new classes would be of high academic quality and would not cause layoffs. The regents were under pressure from Gov. Jerry Brown to take such steps, and last week Brown’s budget proposed giving UC $10 million next year to help finance new online courses, primarily entry-level general education courses that are now overcrowded… Just a day earlier, Brown announced the start of a pilot partnership between San Jose State and Udacity, a Silicon Valley online education group, to create low-cost online classes in entry-level subjects. Brown also plans to attend next week’s meeting of the Cal State University trustees.
Read full article [here]. by Larry Gordon, The Los Angeles Times.
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“UC Irvine Professor quits midway through online Coursera class”
A UC Irvine professor has stopped teaching midway through a massive online course in microeconomics offered through the Coursera organization, saying that he had disagreements on how to conduct the free class for thousands of students around the world.
The action by Richard A. McKenzie, an emeritus professor in the UC Irvine business school, highlights the uncertainties faculty face in adapting traditional face-to-face classes to the emerging universe of massive open online courses known as MOOCs.
In his statements posted to the class website over the weekend, McKenzie appeared to be frustrated over his attempts to get the students to obtain and read as much of the textbook as possible.
“I will not cave on my standards. If I did, any statement of accomplishment will not be worth the digits they are printed on,” he wrote.
The course, which is now midway through its 10-week schedule, will continue since its lectures are already videotaped; an administrator from the UC Irvine Distance Learning Center will coordinate it, officials said.
But in chat room postings, students said they were confused over whether to keep on with the non-credit “Microeconomics for Managers” course, which is one of six that the UC Irvine online extension has in operation this term through the Coursera group.
McKenzie declined Monday to discuss his action in detail other than saying in an email that the matter has been “a drain” on him and involves serious issues. In his message to the class, he wrote: “Because of disagreements over how best to conduct this course, I’ve agreed to disengage from it, with regret.”
Gary Matkin, UC Irvine’s dean of Continuing Education, Distance Learning and Summer Session, said in a statement that McKenzie is “not accustomed [as few are] in teaching university-level material to an open, large and quite diverse audience, including those who were not seriously committed to achieving the learning objectives of the course or who decided not to or could not gain access to supplemental learning materials.”
Future lessons and assignments, as developed by McKenzie, will continue to be presented to students, according to Matkin.
“We will make sure that the students have the guidance and feedback they have experienced so far in the course, which they uniformly so far have praised,” he said.
McKenzie, who retired from his regular faculty position at UC Irvine in 2011, said the Coursera students “will not be left hanging” and that all course assignments and discussion problems are ready to be posted as scheduled. “However, I will not be involved,” he wrote to students.
Under the Coursera model, much of the grading is automatic or performed by fellow students. Professors videotape most of their lectures in advance and often comment in general on message boards without answering questions from individual students.
This has been a mixed month for the Mountain View-based Coursera. Earlier, a Georgia Tech course on “Fundamentals of Online Education” was canceled after technical glitches. But the organization won a significant victory when the American Council on Education said four Coursera courses, including a math one at UC Irvine, were worthy of college credit.
Coursera was founded last year by two Stanford University professors as a for-profit organization that posts online courses from prestigious universities. So far, 33 schools are participating, with 222 classes in all.
While enrollment in the classes is free, Coursera charges students $30 to $99 for a completion certificate. The classes are taken under surveillance monitoring that includes typing patterns to prove a student’s identity. Coursera plans to charge extra for students who will take final exams proctored through webcams to earn potential college credit.
ALSO:
Online courses to be reviewed for possible degree credits
UC Berkeley joins online education platform of Harvard and MIT
Conference about online education attracts major players to UCLA
— Larry Gordon
LA Times, February 18, 2013
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Funding Higher Education: The Search for Possibilities
The national Campaign for the Future of Higher Education is about to release their series of papers titled “Funding Higher Education: The Search for Possibilities.”
The Council of UC Faculty Associations contributed one of the papers in the series. CUCFA Vice President Stanton Glantz, as principal author of that paper, will be participating in the news briefing on February 12.
Please help spread the word to your local faculty and local media, or via your social media channels. Details are in the press release (pasted below and also attached as a MS Word document):
——————————————————-
Campaign for the Future of Higher Education
For Release: February 6, 2013
Contact: Lisa Cohen, 310-395-2544 or Alice Sunshine, 510-384-1967
FUNDING HIGHER EDUCATION: THE SEARCH FOR POSSIBILITIES
The Campaign for the Future of Higher Education
calls on America’s college & university faculty to join
in the search for new ways to fund higher education
NATIONAL TELEPHONE NEWS BRIEFING
Tuesday, February 12, 10 am Pacific/1 pm Eastern
Call (800) 553-0273 / Ask for “Campaign for the Future of Higher Education”
• The three authors of working papers on new ways to fund higher education will explain their proposals and take questions from the news media, including campus reporters and education bloggers.
• The briefing begins a drive by CFHE for faculty to step up our role in the search for new possibilities that will save access to higher education and strengthen our nation’s middle class.
• The briefing takes place on Abraham Lincoln’s birthday. Lincoln signed the 1862 Morrill Act that initiated America’s public higher education system, starting with Land Grant Colleges. Today that system spans the nation but is on the road to elimination.
FOR RELEASE FEBRUARY 6, 2013 — In the United States, quality public higher education was once accessible to most Americans able to benefit from it.
The way it worked was simple—taxpayers funded public colleges and universities sufficiently so that students who were prepared to work a few hours a week could complete their degrees in a relatively short time with a minimum amount of debt. For those with even greater need, government provided state grants and Pell grants.
This system worked well for decades and opened the door to opportunity for millions of Americans.
Now, we are told we can no longer afford this. We believe that is wrong.
The Campaign for the Future of Higher Education has begun a drive to involve our nation’s college and university faculty in the search for better solutions than funding cuts, privatization, soaring tuition and academic shut-downs.
Our nation has arrived at our current quandary for a variety of reasons. One is surely a failure of imagination, a set of assumptions that profoundly limits our ability to think about possibilities.
Three working papers released by the Campaign for the Future of Higher Education aim at stimulating a more thoughtful, fact-based, national conversation about paying for higher education in this country.
THREE IDEAS TO FUND HIGHER EDUCATION IN AMERICA
Two of the CFHE working papers address the common assumption that funding higher education through public means rather than through skyrocketing tuition is simply impossible.
One explores the notion of free higher education and examines what the actual cost to provide such an ideal would be.
Bob Samuels, a University of California faculty member in San Diego, argues we could make big strides towards free public higher education by reallocating current governmental expenditures for higher education and by eliminating regressive tax breaks.
The second paper, using the state of California as a test case, looks at the real magnitude of returning to recent, more adequate levels of state funding for higher education. Stanton Glantz, a professor at UC San Francisco, describes that “reseting” higher education funding to more adequate past levels would require only very small adjustments in the median income tax return.
The third paper explores a currently unused tax revenue source that could be tapped if there were the political will to provide adequate public funding for higher education. Rudy Fichtenbaum, an economics professor at Wright State University in Ohio and national president of the American Association of University Professors, explains how to achieve vastly improved funding for higher education through a miniscule tax on selected financial transactions.
Members of the news media, including campus/student reporters and bloggers on education issues, are invited to a news briefing on Tuesday, February 12 (10 am Pacific/1 pm Eastern) to hear a short discussion by the three authors and to ask them questions about their proposals.
To join the call:
• Call (800) 553-0273 / Ask for “Campaign for the Future of Higher Education”
• You may dial up to 5 minutes before the start time
To see the papers in advance:
• Send an email request to dchernow@calfac.org
• Go to http://biz127.inmotionhosting.com/~future58/workingpapers/
Please note: the CFHE web address will change on Sunday, February 10. After that time, you can see the papers at www.futureofhighered.org/workingpapers.
These working papers are meant to encourage discussion, foster debate, and generate action. We invite faculty members and higher education supporters, particularly those with direct experience in America’s classrooms with students, to add thoughts about these models and ideas about others through the comment section of the CFHE website.
We also invite you to post on the CFHE Facebook page at https://www.facebook.com/FutureofHigherEd
and to follow CFHE on Twitter @FutureofHE or using #FutureofHE.
BACKGROUND
We must provide the advanced education needed to sustain our economy and to undergird our democracy. America is not broke, and these creative ideas show that we can afford to keep the doors of opportunity wide open. Indeed, we cannot afford to shut them.
It is unfortunate for our nation that leaders and policy-makers are giving up the dream of affordable public higher education for Americans. The door into the middle class is slamming shut for those who want to rise and the position of middle-class Americans and their children is shaky, at best.
In place of the tested and successful engine of opportunity—state colleges and universities—corporate reformers are calling for privatization, higher tuition, and even shuttering traditional colleges for middle-class and working Americans.
Millions who persist in pursuing college confront enormous debt that will shackle them for the rest of their lives, threatening our national economy on a scale equal to the home loan debacle.
Saddest of all, few who are calling for this brave new world of higher education are considering a lesser education for their own children. Harvard, Stanford, Yale, and many flagship public universities will remain in place for elites to enjoy. Rather, this lesser education will be reserved for those who cannot afford an increasingly rationed liberal arts curriculum.
And yes, the need is immediate and urgent. Consider this report published in the February 2012 issue of Postsecondary Education Opportunity, ominously titled “The Race to Zero.” This report takes historical data on state spending and projects future state expenditures for higher education based on that data.
The study finds that if current trends in funding public higher education continue, in 2022 Colorado will be the first state to hit zero funding for higher education. Alaska will follow in 2027. More than a dozen other states will hit zero by 2050. California will reach zero funding for public higher education in 2052. By 2100, state support for higher education will zero out in 24 other states, leaving roughly 10 states with continued support.
The “new normal” myth driving this trend is based on the lie that there is no money to fund public higher education and the misguided notion that students should be responsible for their own education because they benefit the most from it.
While CFHE takes no position on these proposals, we do believe that the current trend of publicly defunding higher education is an educational crisis that needs our attention.
Until we as a nation entertain options other than privatization of public higher education, which has reaped gigantic profits for edu-businesses but massive debt and dashed dreams for millions of Americans, we will not solve the problem.
We do not pretend to have exhausted all possibilities with these papers. We urgently need a national conversation about one, whether we want to head in the direction that “new normal” politics is taking us, and two, what better ideas can help us do the best possible job as we address changes in our society and our nation.
In reality, everyone benefits from an educated population and America has prospered more when excellent public higher education was affordable. These papers, we hope, will start a discussion about alternative models to fund higher education in our nation.
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