Higher Education—Not Totally Broken, but... | From the Bell Tower
It may take the whole community, including librarians, to fix it Steven Bell, Associate University Librarian, Temple University, Philadelphia, PA Mar 10, 2011
One of my favorite blogs, now defunct, was a project that Seth Godin was behind called This Is Broken. The idea of the blog, which you can get a feel for here, was to have individuals share something—a sign, a service, a process, whatever—that he or she thinks is broken. As Godin says in this must-watch video that shares the seven reasons things are broken, "the beauty of This Is Broken is that no matter how broken something is, someone else will say 'I don't think that's broken.'"
Is higher ed broken?
That thought applies quite well to higher education. It could be the tenure system, financial aid, admissions, and of course, the academic library ("You mean we still need libraries?"). Chances are that if asked, most of us could point to something at our library or institution that's broken.
The beauty of Daniel Devise's recent series of articles on higher education in the Washington Post is that he admits that the industry is not totally broken, and in fact is still admired as one of the world's best systems, and he is cautiously optimistic in elaborating eight ways in which higher education could certainly be improved. Good idea. Let's not constantly put ourselves down, but let's be thoughtful about the ways in which we can build up what we already have, which may in fact require a few repairs here and there.
A reporter worth following
I've written before about the media coverage of higher education, and also about which mainstream newspapers do a particularly good job of covering higher education news. The Washington Post is among the top in this category, and DeVise's College Inc. column is one of the reasons. In this new series of articles about the industry's challenges, DeVise chooses eight particularly wicked problems and radical change options and explores them with industry experts. I like this approach. It offers a sensible discussion of big issues, with enlightened thinking from notable experts in the field. While it's not likely DeVise's series of articles will create any overnight change, we need our major media outlets to delve deeply into higher ed's greatest challenges and provide a platform for these discussions.
The eight issues
They are called problems, but some are potential solutions to the problems, and as you might expect they are interrelated. Here is DeVise's list of eight ways to improve higher ed: (1) Measure student learning (2) End merit aid (3) Three-year degrees (4) Core curriculum (5) More homework (6) Encourage completion (7) Cap athletic subsidies (8) Rethink remediation. You can see how some of these issues are interrelated; for instance, three-year degrees could encourage completion and reduce the overall cost thus reducing the need for tuition subsidies.
Not everyone will agree with DeVise's suggestions, but I thought the point was to bring attention to these major issues and generate some conversation—and it certainly did—particularly the always controversial topic of assessment and quantifying learning.
DeVise also chose an interesting group of industry participants to include in his series. He consults with everyone from university presidents to some controversial critics to the CEO of the sometimes maligned for-profit online provider of college courses, StraighterLine.com. I encourage you to look through these commentaries as they contribute good insights about ways to innovate and improve higher education.
Out of the conversation?
Outside of a few topics of concern to higher education policy makers, such as scholarly communications and the print-to-digital transformation, academic library issues hardly rise to the top of the wicked problems bucket. Parents and students are far more focused on rising tuition, loan debt, and degree completion than they are with whether the library keeps books on site or ships them off to remote locations/or whatever it is we academic librarians happen to be navel gazing about this week. The same could be said for academic administrators and faculty; they've got their own set of issues with which to deal. So where does that leave us?
Be vocal and local
Perhaps the best strategy is for academic librarians to take the most proactive stance possible on their own campuses in promoting the issues that are not necessarily those of concern to our librarian community but to the entire academic community. We should engage in the larger conversations about measuring student learning or degree completion, and be leaders in creating local solutions. Some might think that as academic support professionals it's not our place to venture into the issues that are typically the domain of faculty and academic administrators, but many academic librarians, by virtue of their faculty status and position on key committees, are well situated to participate in these conversations.
If getting actively involved exceeds one's comfort zone, then perhaps just taking the time to become well versed in these issues is a reasonable first step. How many academic librarians reading this column can say they also took the time to read DeVise's series?
We do ourselves a disservice when we fail to keep up with the issues of the day in higher education. If we academic librarians limit ourselves to what's happening behind our own walls, then we are in a weak position to have an impact on creating productive change in broader ways. That would be unfortunate because this profession is made up of a lot of smart, creative, and dedicated folks. They are needed to help fix what is broken in higher education.
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.
