Representing a school whose mission is “to educate in a community of faith and scholarship,” Steve Minnis worried that the federal government would come up with standards that fail to respect that mission and make accreditation difficult.
“I don’t know why anybody would believe that federal government can do anything more efficiently than a private entity,” said Jerry Davis. “We’re better off with regional accreditors dealing with academic matters than we are having that taken over by the federal government.”
“It needs to be out of federal hands,” agreed Mike Austin. “We have the opportunity to make the case, to design our own program. We have to make that case, because if we don’t, it will be made for us.”
“We need to be better at what we do,” said Cheryl McConnell. “The accrediting bodies, the regional bodies, they need to step up and be better at what they do, and the federal regulators will back off.”
The Learning Environment
Cindy Heider argued that the instructional tech demands on faculty at this point are greater than they have ever been, and will only continue to escalate. And with that technology, students expect a certain level of flexibility. “Professors are finding themselves in a world where they have to be a lot more engaged with their students,” said Heider, “not only in the instruction delivery, but with students outside the formal class setting.”
“The constant push to change, change, change is overwhelming at times,” said John Rich. He argued, though, that students who need help the most often hide behind the technology.
“With technology comes tremendous opportunity to have a lot of information at your fingertips,” said Ron Slepitza, “but it also comes with some challenges to help students make wise use of it.”
“Students are just as overwhelmed as we are with how we communicate, how we educate, what are we trying to bring into a frame of reference,” said Prema Arasu.
For Cheryl McConnell, there is a real need to hire the kind of professors who are capable of helping students “navigate the things we can’t even perceive will be out there.” As Sister Marie noted, however, new Ph.D.s are still trained to educate students in the traditional fashion. She sees a role for the university in helping faculty adjust to all of the high-impact learning strategies.
Brian Messer believes that if faculty felt comfortable using the new technology, it actually could create a much deeper relationship with students and a stronger mentorship relationship between student and faculty.
As a historian, Shawn Hull took a contrary position. He is on the verge of banning laptops in class because they are such a distraction. And as to the social media, he argued, they may provide a relationship that is more constant, but not deeper.
Cindy Heider took exception with Shawn Hull’s comment that online education cannot compete with the richness of classroom interaction. “Done well,” she believes, “it is as rich and as deeply a delivery of instruction as anything that can be done in the classroom in terms of a face to face.”
Rich Simpson believes that, at KU at least, students are viewing higher education like a product. “Students are savvy,” he argued. “They sort of know what’s out there.” The downside is that students use different criteria to shop, and the weaker students tend to use unwise criteria like “what’s the easiest, cheapest way that I can get through this?”
Institutions, said Michael Droge, must make the case to students that is built on more than attainment of specific work skills. “I think higher education needs to really get back to the value of the education,” he said.
Steve Minnis agreed. The liberal arts, he contended, provide a foundation in history, art, science, theology, philosophy, culture and language that gives students the foundation to “analyze all that information and make good decisions.”
“The fact is that human cognition hasn’t changed substantially in 40,000 years,” said Mike Austin. Whether it’s on-line or whether it’s through text or whether it’s through e-mails or whether it’s through letters on wax tablets, Austin argued, the strategies haven’t really changed. Only the tools have.