The (Re)View from the Tower 2010: Another Year, Another Wild & Crazy Ride | From the Bell Tower
A look back at some of the significant trends in higher education in 2010, and thoughts on what lies ahead in 2011 Steven Bell, Associate University Librarian, Temple University, Philadelphia, PA Jan 6, 2011If there was one phrase to sum up the year 2010 in higher education I'd have to go with "Why is everybody always picking on me?" Seems like lots of folks took their shots at traditional colleges and universities in 2010, and most of what they had to say suggests that higher education is a stagnant industry in decline that better wake up before every degree is earned from an online mega-diploma dispenser. Students are paying but not learning; faculty are the inmates running the asylum; and administrators are out to turn the whole enterprise into your next favorite corporate brand. Has everyone in higher education gone crazy? Judging by the non-stop procession of "just when you thought it couldn't get any crazier" stories straight from the ivory tower (where else are nuns embezzling a cool million?), the answer is yes.
The year of criticism
Richard Vedder, a persistent conservative critic of higher education in his own right, said it best when he wrote "Books criticizing higher education are not new, but recently both the number of them and the intensity of criticism has been increasing...." In this column Vedder points to close to a dozen books published in the last year, or due to appear early in 2011, that focus on what's wrong with higher education. Some may pinpoint a specific area such as athletics, students, or faculty, but all carry a similar message: things are not going well in higher education and something needs to happen soon to shake things up or the whole system is going down in flames.
Maybe the only thing that traditional higher education institutions could feel good about was that their for-profit counterparts were taking an even worse beatdown. Even Stephen Colbert took a few swipes at the for-profits. Since it's popular to kick higher education when it's down, I'm expecting that the tide of criticism against non-profit and for-profit to rise in 2011.
Legislatures want in on the action
Just when higher education thought things couldn't get much worse, you can expect 2011 to bring even greater scrutiny from state legislatures. Maybe the federal government can afford big deficits and tax cuts, but states have to play by the rules of accounting. Low on revenue and short on federal funding, it looks like state governments have public higher education square in the sights of their budget-blasting shotguns. Look at the recent news from one of the hardest hit states, California. There the legislature is seriously considering introducing new laws that would give the state government unprecedented power to control both the UC and Cal State systems, everything from setting student fees to local governance.
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More students, better students
Another issue that received quite a bit of attention last year was who really needs to go to college. One of the biggest developments was President Obama's declaration to greatly increase the number of Americans who earn a college degree. In 2010 he even invoked "the sputnik card" to state his case for our need to reinvent American as an education and research powerhouse. A noble idea to be sure, but it brought the critics out in force, and some would say that too many underprepared students are already a huge nail in higher education's coffin. These students are bait for "dropout factories," where they end up with no degree and loads of loan debt—also an issue for faculty who claim that these underprepared students, along with far too many contingent faculty, are bringing higher education to its knees. The year 2010 similarly saw the rise of a movement among those advocating for just skipping college altogether; who needs the debt and failure?
One of the few bright spots in 2010 was the amazing work of community colleges, which became a refuge and lifesaver for huge number of unemployed Americans and hopeful students with few other options.
Controversial as it may be, I side with the Obama on this one. In 2011 I expect to see more initiatives to allow more Americans to gain access to higher education. In report after report we are told that the surefire path out of an economic crisis is to have a well-educated population that is capable of the learning that leads to innovation. Is there any question as to why China is investing billions of dollars to build a higher education industry that competes with our own—even if their economy is currently unable to absorb all their graduates?
Textbook free-for-all
While it was hardly a new issue in 2010, the challenge of affordable college textbooks emerged as a hot higher education issue. The textbook problem is not without implications for academic librarians, given that the most frequently asked reference question the first week of class is "Does the library have my textbook?"
I ended 2009 with enthusiasm that change was coming in the textbook market, even if colleges and universities had to take the lead away from the publishers; 2010 did not disappoint. One encouraging news item reported that community colleges in Washington State announced a sizable grant to allow faculty to ditch their expensive textbooks for open educational texts and other more affordable options. The federal government also enacted legislation requiring colleges and universities to give students advance information on textbooks to allow them to shop for the best prices. The rapid pace of change is taking its toll on the campus bookstore; we may be seeing more bookless college bookstores in 2011.
Speaking of open educational textbooks, 2010 was also the year in which open higher education options began to truly emerge as a presence. Love it or hate it, Anya Kremenetz's DIY U brought considerable attention to both the open course and edupunk movements.
2010: Year of the Report
Higher education always produces loads of studies and reports, and although I have no hard data on this, it sure seemed like there was a non-stop flood of them on just about every topic you could imagine. Right at the beginning of the year in January 2010 we heard about a new study that showed college students were more depressed than their same age cohort was during the Great Depression, and there was this one on the recession's impact on study abroad programs.
There was no let up throughout 2010, with no signs of a retreat as evidenced by the recently released report on why college graduates aren't getting good jobs. Maybe because there are so few and the competition is intense? Did we really need another study? All right, perhaps we really did need to know that 15 percent of taxi drivers have a bachelor's degree.
The folks who turn out reports on academic librarianship were no slouches in 2010, either. I just received my Association of College & Research Libraries Annual Report the other day, which reminded me of the following reports that all came out in 2010: Value of Academic Libraries; Future Thinking for Academic Libraries; Top Ten Trends in Academic Libraries. The Association of Research Libraries (ARL) was not to be outdone. I'm not even going to attempt to list half of them, but the ARL 2030 Scenarios report is worth a solo mention.
We are about to finish the first year of the second decade of the 21st Century. To the best of my knowledge, and after a little Googling, it's hard to say if a specific name ever emerged for the last decade. Not only was it tough enough just trying to figure out whether it was the thousands, the aughts or the double-ohs, there was never a trend strong enough to emerge as a centerpiece for the first decade on the new century. Having just completed the first year of the new decade, let's hope it doesn't turn out to be the "Report Decade."
Plan on a wild and crazy 2011
By now you are expecting me to make some predictions for 2011. I'm willing to go out on a limb to predict that our students, faculty, and presidents will continue to provide us with a non-stop procession of irrational acts that will leave the rest of us shaking our heads and wondering "what the heck was he/she/they thinking?" In fact, I'm anticipating that 2011 will exceed the "Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World of Higher Education" we experienced in 2010. And yes, I predict that all sectors of higher education, both non-profit and for-profit will get picked on even more, with unprecedented levels of criticism coming from all angles. Well, maybe not the for-profits now that the Republicans are in control.
Whatever happens, you can bet it will be wild and crazy, but then, isn't that what makes this such interesting work? Stay tuned to From the Bell Tower throughout 2011. It should be a good year.
Steven Bell is Associate University Librarian, Temple University, Philadelphia, PA. For more from Steven visit his blogs, Kept-Up Academic Librarian, ACRLog and Designing Better Libraries or visit his website.
