Another university caving in to business interests

Food industry critic Michael Pollan was slated to give a talk about the agribusiness at Cal State-San Luis Obispo.  Under the threat of rescinding a $150,000 donation from the chairman of a large agricultural firm, the university cancelled Pollan's lecture and instead put him on a panel discussion with a "meat-science expert," according to the Los Angeles Times.

This pattern of universities caving in to political or donor pressure to cancel controversial speakers is seen all over the country.  Last year, it was William Ayers, education professor at the U. of Illinois at Chicago who saw his speeches cancelled or postponed by the U. of Nebraska, Georgia Southern, and Boston College.  The argument used against Ayers is based on his time in the Weather Underground.  But it was interesting that each of these institutions had first invited him, knowing his background, and then rescinded the invitation after receiving pressure from donors, politicians, the media, or others.

Universities often cite "safety concerns" as the rationale for cancelling speeches by Ayers or other controversial academics such as Ward Churchill, formerly of the U. of Colorado.  I find it interesting that universities somehow manage to handle the security preparations when presidents or other high-profile domestic and foreign politicians come to campus, but are unable (or unwilling) to deal with security when a lowly college professor arrives.

I would have more respect for these institutions if they would admit that they were bowing to political or donor pressures in cancelling speeches by controversial figures, rather than falling back on the safety issue.  But isn't this what academe is supposed to be - a marketplace of ideas, including those that challenge the status quo from all sides of the political spectrum?

These invitation rescissions aren't restricted to left-wing speakers.  A Harvard student group just rescinded an invitation to speak that had been offered to the head of the Minuteman Project, an anti-immigration group.

Saturday Night Live satirizes on-line learning

Inside Higher Ed this morning described how Saturday Night Live had a nice satire of advertisements for on-line colleges. One commenter on the IHE story noticed the similarity between the SNL clip (you can click on these images for larger versions):

and an actual page from the University of Phoenix site:

Just a coincidence?  Who knows, but I'm sure the folks at the U. of Phoenix don't appreciate the humor.

Two higher ed stories on NPR

On my drive home from work yesterday, I caught two higher ed stories on All Things Considered. That's quite a feat, considering that my commute is only 7-8 minutes (I had to have a "driveway moment" to catch the end of the second story). The first story was about the resignation of Joseph White, the soon-to-be former president of the University of Illinois system. You may have heard that UI has been wracked by a scandal over the admission of politically-connected students, whose names were forwarded by legislators and other government officials to a special UI admissions list. While the university's press release didn't explicitly mention the scandal, it's quite clear that it played a role in White's resignation.

We all know that Illinois is a hotbed of political corruption (witness former Governor Rod Blagojevich's attempt to sell President Obama's senate seat), but is what went on at U. Illinois unique or standard practice at more public universities than we'd expect? I suspect that politically-connected admissions occur at many of these institutions, though probably not as blatantly as with a special list as existed at UI. More likely it occurs in a quiet phone call from a legislative or executive office to the government relations office in a university. Undoubtedly, many of these young men and women would have qualified for admission on their own, but the phone call is placed just to ensure that everything goes smoothly.

This reminds me of a situation I encountered in my own career; the circumstances are somewhat different, but it still speaks to the role of political influence over institutions. I won't say at which institution this occurred, but you can check my CV to get the list of four public universities at which I've taught. I will provide the caveat that some of this information came to me second hand, but from a reliable source. I had a state representative as a non-degree student in one of my classes, and after that semester he applied to the doctoral program in which I was teaching. But the program had a certain set of requirements that this individual did not fulfill, so he was turned down for admission. A short time after the notification was sent out, a phone call came from the campus chief executive's office indicating that the state representative should be admitted, which he subsequently was.

The second story was the one that kept me in the driveway to hear the ending. The story described the faculty walkout scheduled for today at the ten campuses of the U. of California to protest the furloughs, budget cuts, and tuition increases imposed by the UC system. UC employees are being furloughed for 11-26 days (which equates to a 4% to 10% pay cut) [corrected after original posting], and faculty have been told they can't take their furlough on days they are teaching. The faculty want the right to be able to distribute the furlough days over their three main areas of service: teaching, research, and service. The argument is that by allowing some classes to be missed, the impact will be more obvious to students and administrators.

I believe that the organizers of the walkout honestly do have the interests of students and the quality of education they receive at heart, and in the NPR story one of the organizers did a good job articulating this. But I suspect that their perspective will engender little sympathy from the general public, most of whom likely have an image of faculty - especially those at UC, who are on average the most highly-paid among the three public sectors in California - as being well compensated for the work they do. Given what others outside of the academy are facing in the economic downturn, I doubt that few of them will be marching behind the UC faculty.

While the term "professor" is very broad-ranging in this country, including everything from very well-compensated, tenured professors at elite research universities, to "beltway bandit" adjuncts who struggle to make a living teaching five or more courses a semester across multiple institutions, it is likely the former image that most of the general public have in their minds when they think about "professors." We probably have to do a better job of public relations if we hope to garner additional support for higher education among the general public, and an even better job if we want more support for faculty working conditions in general.

A questionable strategy for increasing university revenues

This week's Sunday Times of London had an interesting article about a movement on the part of some British universities to increase revenues by accepting more overseas students. "Overseas" in the British universities means non-European Union students, as EU students get treated the same as British students for tuition and tuition loan purposes. Thus, increasing the proportion of overseas students at the expense of British students is a way to increase revenues. The suggestion came from the incoming chairman of the Russell Group, roughly equivalent to the Association of American Universities here in the U.S.

This strategy is akin to those U.S. public universities which increase the proportion of out-of-state students, who generally pay much higher tuition rates than resident students. For example, out-of-state freshmen students entering Penn State's flagship campus at University Park this year pay 85% higher tuition than Pennsylvania residents ($25,134 vs. $13,604, and this doesn't include mandatory fees, which are the same for resident and non-resident students). Many U.S. universities try to keep it quiet if they increase the proportion of out-of-state students, as they don't want to send a signal that they're favoring these students at the expense of residents (whose families subsidize the tuition rate through the state appropriation received by public universities). Some states cap the proportion of students who can come from out-of-state, but many provide leeway to the public universities to decide for themselves.

What is particularly interesting about the British situation is that the universities are apparently being very upfront about their decision, and appear to be unafraid of any backlash from either the government or the public. They've used the rationale that they will likely be facing large cuts (up to 25%) in the general support they receive from the government. That leaves them with few options other than to admit more overseas students, who at most universities pay at least three times the current tuition of £3,225 paid by British students. It will be interesting to see whether the Russell Group universities will move forward with this plan.

The high cost of higher education

I was a guest today on WHYY's (Philadelphia) Radio Times talk show with Marty Moss-Coane. You can stream an MP3 or download it from the show website; my segment starts at 34:45 into the show.