Dan Berrett
Inside Higher Ed
1/24/2011
Faculty members from the unions of public colleges from 21 states met this weekend in Los Angeles and committed to launching a campaign with a lofty goal: assuring the future of higher education.
Participants reviewed and many expressed support for a set of organizing principles contained in a draft document called “Quality Higher Education for the 21st Century” that was prepared by the California Faculty Association. It advocates for more scrupulous analysis of calls to reform higher education. “Wholesale embrace of change without careful thought and deliberation can take us in the wrong direction,” the document states, “not toward reforming higher education but, in fact, toward deforming precisely those aspects of American higher education that have made it the envy of the world.”
The document stakes out seven broad principles: increased inclusivity and access for students; a broad, diverse, liberal arts curriculum; less reliance on contingent as opposed to tenure-track faculty; incorporating technology with an eye toward maintaining educational quality; more judicious balancing of short-term cuts with long-term costs; better state support; and the adoption of evaluation metrics that go beyond graduation rates.
The details of the campaign that will come — whether it will be aimed at policy makers, college administrators, the public more broadly, or all three — still remain to be hashed out…
…In addition to California, Nebraska, and New York, states with union representatives at this weekend’s meeting included Arizona, Connecticut, Hawaii, Illinois, Iowa, Kansas, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Montana, Nevada, Ohio, Oregon, Pennsylvania, South Dakota, Vermont, Virginia, and Washington.
Read the complete article at Inside Higher Ed.
Related: Also at Inside Higher Ed, The Sinking States
Both articles H/T Instapundit, Bubble Deflating? States Make More Cuts in Higher Education…