13 December 2018

Seismic change in college curricula

As an English major, I found this story in The Atlantic a bit unnerving:
...in 2015, when Governor Scott Walker released his administration’s budget proposal, which included a change to the university’s mission. The Wisconsin Idea would be tweaked. The “search for truth” would be cut in favor of a charge to “meet the state’s workforce needs.”

To those outside Wisconsin, the proposed change might have seemed small. After all, what’s so bad about an educational system that propels people into a high-tech economy?...

And one of the state’s institutions, the University of Wisconsin at Stevens Point, is the epicenter of that change. In mid-November, the university announced its plans to stop offering six liberal-arts majors, including geography, geology, French, German, two- and three-dimensional art, and history. The plan stunned observers, many of whom argued that at a time when Nazism is resurgent, society needs for people to know history, even if the economy might not. But the university said it just was not possible: After decades of budget cuts, the most extreme of which came under Walker, Stevens Point no longer had the resources to sustain these six majors...

The proposal planned to add majors in chemical engineering, computer-information systems, conservation-law enforcement, finance, fire science, graphic design, management, and marketing. By focusing more on fields that led directly to careers, the school could better provide what businesses wanted—and students, in theory, would have an easier time finding jobs and career success...

By the time the final proposal was released in mid-November 2018, it was less expansive, though still forceful. Six programs would be cut, including the history major...

One thing is sure, however: Financial realities such as those facing Stevens Point are not far off for many regional institutions. “The reality is that we just can’t be everything to everyone, regardless of the public-good value of some of the coursework,” Summers said. “Those constraints are very real.” There are few encouraging signs—if any—that states will once again pump dollars into state colleges to get them back to 2008 levels...

... our role here in central Wisconsin is to anticipate what jobs are going to be needed and to develop programs accordingly." The problem, he fears, is that that alone will never be enough.
The national conversation around higher education is shifting, raising doubts about whether the liberal arts—as we have come to know them—are built to survive a tech-hungry economy.
More in the longread at the link.

9 comments:

  1. As a gainfully employed technical member of a design team at a large medical device company, with a political science degree, I find this distressing.

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    1. As a retired medical researcher and intensive care specialist whose undergrad degree was in English literature/American literature, I agree with you.

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  2. Academia is for fundamental questions and critical thinking.
    Community College is for job training.

    Republicans like Walker who want to destroy critical thinking want to get rid of academia and turn it into expensive community college.

    Glad they voted him out of office.

    Another point. Academia is not better than community college. Community College is not better than Academia. They serve difference purposes. And that's good.

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    1. Thank you for your final paragraph. I taught both at universities and at a community college. Frankly, the most eager and enthusiastic students I had were at the latter.

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  3. Two things:
    1. HOW can Geology be liberal arts?
    2. Educating someone for a job is a sure FAIL today - we're only going to need buggy whip engineers for so long. Teach people how to learn AND keep learning.

    I recommend the Isaac Asimov story "Profession"

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  4. I don't understand how tuition and the cost of books can be so astronomically high yet universities claim they're underfunded? Is it the management layer? Sports? What am I missing?

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    1. Here is a good - and recent - article in The Atlantic:

      https://www.theatlantic.com/education/archive/2018/09/why-is-college-so-expensive-in-america/569884/

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  5. Geology is a science. My father, the geologist, was a college professor and a coal mine inspector. He also made jewelry and mapped caves. This news would have him rolling in his grave.

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    1. I double-checked another source to see if it was geography or geology. Apparently it's both -

      "The chancellor’s proposal released to the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel before a campuswide meeting Monday whittles down the cut to six low-demand science and humanities majors: French, German, history, geology, geography and two degree programs within art (two-dimensional and three-dimensional art)."

      Your dad will probably generate some squiggles on local seismometers.

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