Academically Adrift

Arum, Richard; Roksa, Josipa.  Academically Adrift: Limited Learning on College Campuses University Of Chicago Press (January 15, 2011) ISBN-10: 0226028569. 272 pages

This article describes how American public education is still in the toilet.  Once again American corporations are questioning whether schools teach any writing or critical thinking skills at all.  College graduates must be able to think critically and analytically with sustained logical thinking.  Schools need to be creating new social capital where student gain the knowledge and skills that are rewarded in the market place, before all industries are outsourced to other countries.  The article then jumps into some history on the educational system.

The first passage addresses how college bound freshman anticipate the parties, fraternities and social functions of college long before considering any requirements necessary to begin studies or any serious career pursuits.  Students are perceived as adrift, unprepared and devoted to personal and social interests before academics.  There now has developed an abundance of evidence that academic efforts have declined further in recent decades.  Studies discussed in the article indicated that full-time college students worked a full forty hours a week in pure academics in the 1960s while todays’ students complete only 27 hours, which is less than the typical high school student.  This is true for all students in all disciplines, demographics and locations.  Students are finding easier and faster ways to get through with less and less true academic work.

Interesting enough this problem with true learning is not only on the student side.  George Kuh’s research found a general willingness of faculty to “disengage” through a “compact” described as a faculty student agreement of “I’ll leave you alone if you leave me alone.”  Thus, faculty have become more willing to allow students to get by with good grades with very little academic effort.  The funding shortfalls and cutbacks in education, while billions are given to corporate subsidies and defense conglomerate, has essentially guaranteed this.  Colleges and universities are allowing more adjuncts and graduate student teachers to replace tenured faculty for undergraduate training.  Another statistic discussed is that tenure faculty taught 78% of classes in 1970 while only 52% in 2005.

The majority of full tenured faculty must pursue scholarship, research and publications instead of education training or thoughtful attention to undergraduate classes.  As mentioned in this article Ernest Boyner noted that in 1969 21% of faculty agreed tenure was difficult without publishing, while in 1989 42% agreed.  Additionally, in regards to other important elements for college faculty tenure including classroom observation, student recommendation, student academic advising, and course syllabi the levels of importance of these were 13%, 9%, 5% and 5% respectively.  The only significant element for tenure regarding students was how they complete teacher evaluations.  This is completely contrary to education, since the best teachers should be challenging the students instead of making it easy and convenient for the students to give a good evaluation.  This was further expanded on by the article saying how student evaluations actually tended to encourage faculty to “game the system by replacing rigorous and demanding classroom instruction with entertaining classroom activities, lover academic standards and generous distribution of high course marks.”

Additional distractions leading to lower efforts in undergraduate teaching for tenured faculty include such activities as “output creep,” “academic ratchet,” the “academic revolution” and the “commercialization of higher education” initiated by the Bayh-Dole Act of 1980 which allowed universities to patent work completed with federal grant funding.  Thus, faculty are encouraged to publish and excel in professional development to support new research funding.  Research work leading to patent development has also shifted the administrative functions of universities.  The typical administrator moving up from teaching positions is a thing of the past.  One example expressed in the article is how one in seven university presidents now comes from outside academia.  Professional search consultants are used by more than 50% of the institutions today while only 12% in 1984.  This had resulted in university presidents earning salaries over $1 million which continues to significantly shift the function and identity of these institutions.

Review: Academically Adrift: A Must-Read. By Richard Vedder

January 20, 2011, 10:53 am

http://chronicle.com/blogs/innovations/academically-adrift-a-must-read/28423