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MEET THE EXPERTS
KAY M.
MCCLENNEY
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FRANK
DEFORD
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GEORGE
KUH
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LARA K.
COUTURIER
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LEE
SHULMAN
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PATRICK M.
CALLAN
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RICHARD H.
HERSH
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LARA K. COUTURIER
Director of Research, The Futures Project: Policy for Higher Education in a Changing World
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A few more interesting comments from Lara Couturier, excerpted from her interview.
Q: Is the competition for prestige at the expense of good education?
COUTURIER: A lot of the competition in colleges and universities is not for things that add to the educational experience. They're competing to have better facilities. They're competing to bring students [to campus] who will improve their U.S. News & World Report rankings. Wouldn't it be a better higher ed system if they were competing over who offered the best educational experience? Wouldn't it be better for society if our institutions were competing over who attracts and retains and graduates more students from all walks of life?
Q: What is it like from the perspective of the University president or administration? What are the pressures they face? How do they accommodate the public they serve given the market driven situation that exists today?
COUTURIER: One of the most threatening things about competition in colleges and universities is that each and every decision, when looked at, at face value, makes perfect sense. When one looks at the decision of a college president to build a new stadium or to build a new cafeteria, one can understand why he or she made that decision. The pressures to make those decisions are very real. Students want these new amenities, parents want them. Trustees, legislators, state lawmakers--everybody's pushing for those types of changes on campus�.But what isn't being talked about is the accumulation of all of these small choices across the entire system. When one looks at the diversion of resources to this war of amenities at a national level, and sees that all types of institutions are making similar decisions, we see that the whole system is moving to a very different place. It's becoming a very different system that is moving away from its commitment to serving a public mission and to serving societal needs.
Q. Low graduation rates are another issue of national concern. We visited one small school that has a 99 percent graduation rate. What can be learned from schools with high graduation rates and how can that be applied to other schools?
COUTURIER: There are examples in this country of schools of all types�large, small, public, private, non- profit, for-profit, [2-year and 4-year]--that have very high retention rates. One of the real problems and one of the real tragedies in higher education is that we don't do a good job of looking at what others do well, and trying to replicate those practices. So we have these silos of success that are isolated incidents all around the country, and people just hold them up as really interesting ideas instead of trying to say, "Well, what are they doing and why can't we do that here?"
Q: We learned professors hoping for tenure must divide their time between teaching and publishing research articles. Is there any conflict there?
COUTURIER: The research function in our universities is one of the things that makes our system great, [it] has fueled the American economy. But it has led to an emphasis on research among faculty at the expense of the importance of teaching. We need to elevate the status of teaching. We need to recognize that one of the most important things that our colleges and universities do is to teach students, and to ensure that faculty are rewarded for being good teachers instead of being driven to publish, publish, publish or not get tenure, because the result is that faculty don't feel like they have the�privilege of spending time on teaching.
Q: Given all the concerns regarding the state of higher education and the future, is it possible to get to a place where there is no point of return? Are we approaching that place? How critical is it that we address necessary changes now?
COUTURIER: The system is at great risk and we don't have the liberty of waiting to see what happens. We have to stop now. We have to have this conversation now ... about what does society need from higher education? What do colleges and universities need back from society in order to serve it effectively? We need to�make sure that the right policies and procedures are in place to keep our society functioning at the level that it functions now. Higher education serves society in fundamental ways. It educates our citizens, it helps our students to be engaged civically, it fuels medical discoveries, it helps local businesses to come up with great developments. We need to ensure that those commitments to society can be upheld in the long run. And we're on the verge of walking away from that public mission.
It's not too late. Colleges and universities have brilliant minds in their faculty. They have brilliant minds at their helms. They have resources. They have constituents like alumni who are willing and able to invest time in their institutions. We're at a critical juncture, but we have the opportunity to make fundamental changes now that will improve the system and thereby improve the whole country in the long term.
Q: We talk about colleges as increasingly functioning in a business model-are they businesses? We keep using the words �money� and �competition��
COUTURIER: There are a lot of things that higher education does. That do not produce revenue, that are critically important. If a college has an outreach program--where it works in a local middle school to encourage students to think of college as a possibility for them--that doesn't produce revenue, but it's one of the most important things a college can do. So�while [colleges are] more and more functioning as competitive entit[ies] and while colleges are focusing more and more on the bottom line, we've got to back up from that and say, there are things that colleges do that don't produce money, that we've got to hold on to and preserve for the betterment of our society. |
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MEET ADRIANA, JASON, MATT & BRITNEY
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