Re: [xmca] Is College Moving Online? : The New Yorker

[Helena Worthen <helenaworthen@gmail.com>]

Apropos of this discussion of what's happening in the higher ed industry,
the survey that many XMCA people helped with, by filling it out and
passing it along, has been wrapped up and analyzed.It's about the working
conditions of online instructors.

I'd be happy to send along the full version of the report to anyone who
wants to see it (actually, I'd be really gratified if people wanted to
read it!).  

An edited (down by half) version of it will be published in the AAUP
journal, Academe, in the fall. But in the meantime, this stuff is
accelerating and faculty are starting to push back. It's been front page
news in the NYTimes recently (Tamar Lewin, specifically -- see her April
30 article, which tells about "mentors" who work for Udacity).

The New Yorker article is good, and very New Yorker-ish. Good research,
comprehensive, but definitely the view from the Ivy League. Two sectors of
higher ed? The "selective" and the "non-selective"? It's usually broken
out as four -- the  private non-profits, state colleges and universities
(public), the community colleges, and the for-profits.

But it leaves out what has shifted the center of academic faculty culture
over the last 40 years: that now 75% of all faculty are contingents. (This
doesn't include the for-profits, where no reliable figures on how many
people are employed are available -- but they are all contingent, whether
full-tme or part-time).

Helena Worthen 

On 5/13/13 11:34 AM, "Glassman, Michael" <glassman.13@osu.edu> wrote:

>What is ironic beyond belief is that this Mr. Frog's Wild Ride of MOOCs
>and kooks is being led by our supposed "great universities."  Perhaps
>this is the logical outcome of hubris gone insane.  One is left to wonder
>if Socrates' students could have convinced him not to drink hemlock if
>they could have arranged a meeting with an investment banker, a couple of
>million up front, and the real possibility of an IPO, thus changing
>Western civilization forever.
>
>
>________________________________________
>From: xmca-bounces@weber.ucsd.edu [xmca-bounces@weber.ucsd.edu] on behalf
>of Andy Blunden [ablunden@mira.net]
>Sent: Monday, May 13, 2013 11:16 AM
>To: eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity
>Subject: Re: [xmca] Is College Moving Online? : The New Yorker
>
>There seems to be a determined drive to get teachers and teaching out of
>the education system doesn't there?
>I was going to ironically remark that it would be easier just to sell
>library cards to people, then I realised that libraries are also
>disappearing and in any case the students are too busy in the jobs to
>visit the library and everything's on line anyway. It seems that we are
>moving inevitably towards issuing certificates on the basis of
>satisfactory scores on multiple-choice test cards on the college web
>site, and giving up all pretence of being involved in education. Sad.
>
>Andy
>
>David Preiss wrote:
>> Dear colleagues,
>>
>> Relevant as related to the email Mike recently sent:
>>
>> 
>>http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2013/05/20/130520fa_fact_heller?curren
>>tPage=all
>>
>> DP
>>
>>
>> David Preiss, Ph.D.
>> Director
>> Escuela de Psicología
>> Pontificia Universidad Catolica de Chile
>> Av Vicuña Mackenna - 4860
>> 7820436 Macul
>> Santiago, Chile
>>
>> Fono: (562) 3544605
>> Fax: (562) 3544844
>>
>> web: https://sites.google.com/site/daviddpreiss/
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> __________________________________________
>> _____
>> xmca mailing list
>> xmca@weber.ucsd.edu
>> http://dss.ucsd.edu/mailman/listinfo/xmca
>>
>>
>>
>
>--
>
>Andy Blunden
>Hegel and CHAT Symposium <http://xlchc.ucsd.edu/symposia/>
>
>
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