Change?
Change?
Last Friday and Saturday I had the privilege to host the annual meeting of the Canadian Council of Deans of Arts, Humanities, and Social Sciences, a group of which I have been serving this last year as president. It is always an interesting gathering, with delegates coming from coast to coast, quite literally from St John’s to Victoria, and many other places in between. There may have been times in the history of Canadian universities when it was an easy task to be a dean, but this is most certainly not one of them. Many are struggling to manage crippling budget reductions, along with the other issues which stem from that situation, and most feel very isolated on their own campuses: the proverbial “meat in the sandwich” between their faculty colleagues and the senior administration, neither of whom may have much sympathy for their position. So, it is always good to talk, if only to realize that the problems of our own particular campus are not unique.
The annual gathering is also an opportunity to hear some interesting and provocative speakers, and this year’s meeting included one of my favourite academic bloggers, Alex Usher. His “One Thought To Start Your Day” lands in my E-mail “in” box every weekday morning very precisely at 7:00, and it is invariably a good read. I don’t always agree with Alex, but most of the time I do, and I love the way he has the freedom to say things that I can’t.
As expected, his presentation was provocative, and the subsequent discussion might have continued all day had we not had to move on to other agenda items. One of his remarks that will cause some consternation was that faculty in the humanities and social sciences need to teach more, and spend less time on research. The argument is complex, and I don’t have space here to do it justice … but in essence he argues, as indeed do many of us, that the primary value to society of educating students in the “liberal arts” is to develop their critical skills, not to impart specific bits of knowledge which lead to a specific job. And his point is that we don’t do this effectively by having large classes, nor by having such a large percentage of them taught by sessional instructors. Given that the financial outlook indicates that the resources available to universities will never again exceed in real terms what they were in about 2009, the only way to do this is for each faculty member to devote more time to teaching. Indeed, he made a plea for some serious re-thinking of the current system in which we teach small upper-level classes at the expense of our first-year students … and had he known about our First-Year seminars and ArtsOne “learning community” programs, I am sure that he would have approved. In the ensuing discussion I was interested to learn from a decanal colleague in British Columbia that faculty members at the University of the Fraser Valley teach seven courses per year, but that classes have a maximum of 38 students. An interesting concept!
Alex Usher’s main message was that circumstances are changing in ways that universities need to be thinking about – for example, declining demographics, and the inability of governments to increase funding, regardless of their political stripe – yet no one is having these necessary conversations on our campuses. Instead we are all attempting to muddle along, burying our heads in the sand and pretending that nothing needs to change. The conversation may be exceptionally difficult, but it does need to happen before we all rush, lemming-like, off the cliff. But will it happen? I can very confidently predict that it won’t, at least until such time as institutions begin to hit the wall and declare a state of “financial exigency”.
I am reminded of the old joke about how many professors it takes to change a light bulb. Change?
8 Comments
Is Alex’s full argument on the web somewhere where we can read it? I didn’t find it with a quick web search, but anyone with the original email can search for a specific string.
Sorry, Jim. i don’t think it is on the web anywhere.
You can read some of what he thinks here (http://higheredstrategy.com/blog/), under the April 5 entry titled “No to ‘World-Class’ research in the Humanities”. Not that I’m in the least bit persuaded, John :)
Thanks for this interesting blog post. Like you, I usually agree with Alex Usher, but the April 5 blog troubled me. If readers do look at it, I suggest looking also at the comments for that day, in which several readers questioned the premises, and Alex responded. See http://higheredstrategy.com/no-to-world-class-research-in-the-humanities/#comments
I would question the implication that there is a difference in quality between instruction by permanent faculty and instruction by sessionals. First, the only justification for that argument would be that the research activities of permanent faculty transfer to the classroom, but isn’t that research precisely what Alex would see diminished? Second, the problem with sessional work is not that it is done by lesser teachers, but rather that it is inequitable.
I am also troubled by the fatalistic notion that governments are “unable” to increase funding to universities. I’m not denying that making them do so would require significant pressure, and perhaps even a wholesale shift in public attitudes toward higher education. But where will the pressure / shift come from if not from people who have devoted their lives to working as university educators? This is work that we should all be taking on, and conceding from the get go that the government is “unable” to fund universities does not seem to me a good starting position.
Overcoming governmental fatalism, as Sarah Brouillette suggests, will require critical thinking. But sadly, there is little political will for critique of this sort. The push for increased teaching loads in the name of “critical thinking” is actually a veiled assault on critical thinking, because criticism relies on research, the creative application of research methods, and free inquiry. Research is about HOW to think critically, and if we hope to teach this skill, we must be doing it ourselves. Without it, we lose the vital distinction between information and knowledge, and we surrender to a fatalism that works tirelessly to depoliticize the production of knowledge in the name of some greater (usually economic) “good.”
From my perspective, what is needed is balance. I agree with Stuart that critical thinking is produced by doing research, which is one of the primary reasons why the FASS Academic Plan has the goal of having all students undertake research with a professor as part of their undergraduate experience. But I also think Alex has a point, as do those who point out that if we did nothing but research there would be no income to pay our salaries. We have to find the magic point at which we both maximize the ability of faculty members to have time to undertake research while offering the best possible experience for our students, given the financial resources which we actually have available and remembering that we are not permitted to borrow money or run a deficit. It is not an easy spot to find, and it shifts as resources shift. While I agree with Sarah that we must contineu to press governments, and better still make our case to the public who elect governments, and the Council of Ontario Universities does that daily, I am also aware that the trend is currently in the other direction. One of Alex Usher’s points is that governments of every political stripe in Ontario, since 1990, have been and are continuing to participate in a gradual transfer of resources from education to health care. He doesn’t see this trend being reversed anytime soon, and, sadly, I fear that I have to agree with him.