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Rhodes
on the "New American University"
Former Cornell University President Frank H.T. Rhodes has written
recently on issues with a special relevance to ANAC members. His
1999 chapter, "The New University," in Challenges Facing
Higher Education at the Millennium, edited by W. Hirsh and L.
Weber (Oryx Press), articulates eight characteristics he associates
with the best research universities in the 21st century. These qualities
resonate to some extent with ways ANAC members have sought to differentiate
our largely Carnegie Master's comprehensive model:
- Institutional autonomy, lively faculty independence, and vigorous
academic freedom, but strong, impartial, public governance and
decisive, engaged presidential leadership.
- Increasingly privately supported, but increasingly publicly
accountable and socially committed.
- Campus rooted, but internationally oriented.
- Academically independent, but constructively partnered.
- Knowledge-based, but student-oriented; research-driven, but
learner-focused.
- Technologically sophisticated, but community dependent.
- Quality-obsessed, but procedurally efficient.
- Professionally attuned, but humanely informed.
Rhodes
on Faculty and the Curriculum
Provost
JoAnn Haysbert (r) of Hampton University in curricular
conversation with Arcelia Johnson Fannin, Dean of Pharmacy.
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In the lead article in The Chronicle Review
of September 14, Rhodes urged a rethinking of the undergraduate
curriculum. Arguing, "As we enter a new century, society's
agreement on what defines an educated person, what constitutes
essential knowledge and common discourse, has essentially collapsed,"
he puts the onus directly on faculty. "Simply stated, faculty
members must recapture the curriculum . . .In fact the greatest
privilege a faculty member can have is to design and support
a curriculum." He sees three major obstacles that have
thwarted curricular reform during the past decade: |
- Standoff between advocates of a core curriculum v. those who
favor a multi-cultural curriculum.
- Student careerism leading to enrollment in vocational rather
than liberal arts majors.
- Fragmentation of the disciplines leading to proliferation of
courses representing faculty special interests.
Asserting that "no model curriculum exists for all institutions,"
Rhodes urges each faculty to get on with what ultimately must be a
"do-it-yourself job. . .a homegrown product," whatever presidents,
provosts, and trustees "may exhort" and consultants may
advise. Rhodes suggests that the curriculum nurture these qualities
in students:
- Openness to others and the ability to communicate with clarity
and precision.
- Self-confidence and curiosity, with the skills required to satisfy
both.
- A sense of proportion and context in the worlds of nature and
society.
- Delight in the richness and variety of human experience and
expression.
- Intellectual mastery and passion in one chosen area.
- A commitment to responsible citizenship, including respect for
and an ability to get along with others.
- A sense of direction, with the self-discipline, personal values,
and moral conviction to pursue it.
Look for Rhodes' new book, The Creation of the Future: The Role
of the American University, just published by Cornell University
Press.
Sir
John Daniels on "Lessons from the Open University"
Sir John Daniels, former president of the United States Open University
and former vice chancellor of the Open University in Britain, is
an especially insightful commentator on the uses of technology for
instructional purposes. His "Point of View" article in
the September 7 Chronicle Review gives away its thesis in
the part of the title after the colon: "Low-Tech Learning Often
Works Best." One of the great traps in the discussion of online
technology, he says, is the tendency to overestimate the impact
in the short-term and underestimate its long-term effects. Two examples
have been assertions that online learning would sweep away books
and campuses. Neither is happening. Even at Britain's Open University
the approach has always been an evolving blend of multi-media materials,
never exclusively an online approach.
What has been learned, he says, with Open University increasing
its enrollment from 60,000 to 150,000 students between 1999 and
2001, is that students turn to new technology for specific services—administrative
services, obtaining documents, communicating with faculty and peers—much
more than they do to study course material. Nor do faculty prefer
grading online, wishing to comment directly in the text or margin
of what students have written. And, only 30% of students register
online because they want an advisor's reassurance about their course
choices. Yet, interactive services such as computer conferencing
have dramatically increased.
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