Well, time for my annual post.
This article caught my eye:
"University of Virginia: Proving Me Right Since 1819"
http://bit.ly/17JrOcC
Last night, I had dinner with a handful of members of the class of 2005. We discuss the Sullivan affair. Politics aside, I wonder if the espoused rationale of Dragas and Jones (UVA's lack of leadership in online education, lack of leadership globally, etc.) wasn't spot on.
It's hard to look at EdX - where, incidentally, an old Richmond political science professor is now a VP - and not think that it could eat both the bottom of the education market generally (read: community colleges, corporate training programs) and the bottom of the "college" market (read: bad four-year colleges). The question arises: what's the bottom of the four-year college market? It's probably not places that create original research. It's also probably not places with a sufficient political interest (read: better-known state colleges). But small, private universities that are several times the cost of their public alternatives and/or provide little of the cachet and connections of the top 10-20? Maybe.
What flows from that realization is pretty scary. What if ol' Fly the Coop was right? If you can't get the raw materials, and there's no improvement on the margin between the high cost but undifferentiated solution (Richmond) and the low cost solution (EdX, UVA, apprenticeship), how can you justify it? Let's not kid ourselves: the answer used to be "socially." That is, it was socially unacceptable for a sufficiently rich person's child to (1) not go to college or (2) go to a "bad" school. I'm not sure that even holds anymore, but I'm not rich enough (slash, at all) to know.
The only thing that differentiates Richmond from the slippery slope between Bucknell / Rollins and Lake Forest / Pine Manor is E. Claiborne Robins. His gift was enough to keep us out of the cemetery. It had the added benefit of inspiring enough other gifts to make us competitive amongst those schools whose fortunes were not theirs to lose. Give credit to the presidents Modlin, Morrill, and Heilman - and yes, Cooper - for doing a reasonably good job of shepherding us down that path. Give credit to the faculty for stepping up their game. Give credit to the students and alumni for embracing change (when I was a freshman, men lived on one side of the lake...a lot changed in just four years).
Now, we're competitive. But we're again facing an existential crisis. I like Ed Ayers. I think he has been a healer, and was the right person for the job. Still, I wonder if he wasn't miffed when Sullivan came back, taking the job for which he doubtlessly longs. I wonder if we shouldn't be a little miffed, too. The Campaign for Richmond is nearly complete! That's fantastic, since none of my friends at dinner last night were asked to give to it. Was that a reflection of its low ambitions? Of my lack of importance (probably)? Of it being a "healing campaign," not a real fundraiser? To be sure, the physical reorientation of the University is a huge deal. Ayers will get credit for leading a successful major campaign, which is a resume item he needs. But I don't think that's enough for us to look confidently to the future with the knowledge that we'll thrive, or even survive.
When I was a student, I found a folder of University Senate materials. One contained some strategic planning notes (sorry for being oblique here...with all the Beast, the details are hazy). A call had been made for suggestions to alter undergraduate education, and one faculty member had suggested that Richmond drop classes and adopt the tutorial model of Oxford or Cambridge. Maybe it's not that change per se, but I think that remark reflects the kind of change that Richmond actually needs. We need to be utterly different. We probably aren't going to do that by dominating particle physics, or dance, or football, or any other single discipline. But we might be able to do it by developing a very unique experience that...oh my god, I'm saying it...actually "transforms" something into something else. Bright minds need to already be great achievers. That's not enough, not anymore.
But maybe transforming young people into global citizens, because they spend half of their college experience abroad. And play a sport each semester. Or work in meaningful jobs in our New York and San Francisco campuses. Or take no classes and get a doctoral-level education in four years. I don't know. But those sound way more powerful in this age.
This article caught my eye:
"University of Virginia: Proving Me Right Since 1819"
http://bit.ly/17JrOcC
Last night, I had dinner with a handful of members of the class of 2005. We discuss the Sullivan affair. Politics aside, I wonder if the espoused rationale of Dragas and Jones (UVA's lack of leadership in online education, lack of leadership globally, etc.) wasn't spot on.
It's hard to look at EdX - where, incidentally, an old Richmond political science professor is now a VP - and not think that it could eat both the bottom of the education market generally (read: community colleges, corporate training programs) and the bottom of the "college" market (read: bad four-year colleges). The question arises: what's the bottom of the four-year college market? It's probably not places that create original research. It's also probably not places with a sufficient political interest (read: better-known state colleges). But small, private universities that are several times the cost of their public alternatives and/or provide little of the cachet and connections of the top 10-20? Maybe.
What flows from that realization is pretty scary. What if ol' Fly the Coop was right? If you can't get the raw materials, and there's no improvement on the margin between the high cost but undifferentiated solution (Richmond) and the low cost solution (EdX, UVA, apprenticeship), how can you justify it? Let's not kid ourselves: the answer used to be "socially." That is, it was socially unacceptable for a sufficiently rich person's child to (1) not go to college or (2) go to a "bad" school. I'm not sure that even holds anymore, but I'm not rich enough (slash, at all) to know.
The only thing that differentiates Richmond from the slippery slope between Bucknell / Rollins and Lake Forest / Pine Manor is E. Claiborne Robins. His gift was enough to keep us out of the cemetery. It had the added benefit of inspiring enough other gifts to make us competitive amongst those schools whose fortunes were not theirs to lose. Give credit to the presidents Modlin, Morrill, and Heilman - and yes, Cooper - for doing a reasonably good job of shepherding us down that path. Give credit to the faculty for stepping up their game. Give credit to the students and alumni for embracing change (when I was a freshman, men lived on one side of the lake...a lot changed in just four years).
Now, we're competitive. But we're again facing an existential crisis. I like Ed Ayers. I think he has been a healer, and was the right person for the job. Still, I wonder if he wasn't miffed when Sullivan came back, taking the job for which he doubtlessly longs. I wonder if we shouldn't be a little miffed, too. The Campaign for Richmond is nearly complete! That's fantastic, since none of my friends at dinner last night were asked to give to it. Was that a reflection of its low ambitions? Of my lack of importance (probably)? Of it being a "healing campaign," not a real fundraiser? To be sure, the physical reorientation of the University is a huge deal. Ayers will get credit for leading a successful major campaign, which is a resume item he needs. But I don't think that's enough for us to look confidently to the future with the knowledge that we'll thrive, or even survive.
When I was a student, I found a folder of University Senate materials. One contained some strategic planning notes (sorry for being oblique here...with all the Beast, the details are hazy). A call had been made for suggestions to alter undergraduate education, and one faculty member had suggested that Richmond drop classes and adopt the tutorial model of Oxford or Cambridge. Maybe it's not that change per se, but I think that remark reflects the kind of change that Richmond actually needs. We need to be utterly different. We probably aren't going to do that by dominating particle physics, or dance, or football, or any other single discipline. But we might be able to do it by developing a very unique experience that...oh my god, I'm saying it...actually "transforms" something into something else. Bright minds need to already be great achievers. That's not enough, not anymore.
But maybe transforming young people into global citizens, because they spend half of their college experience abroad. And play a sport each semester. Or work in meaningful jobs in our New York and San Francisco campuses. Or take no classes and get a doctoral-level education in four years. I don't know. But those sound way more powerful in this age.
