Magical Thinking on Online Higher Ed to Spread to Legislature

From the Sacramento Bee Capitol Alert blog we learn that legislative Democrats are going to be educated on online higher ed: (excerpt)

Senate Democrats will be gathering for a policy retreat at the Stanford Mansion today...  Democrats will be mapping strategy for the year ahead, and Capitol Alert has learned that online education guru Sal Kahn will be speaking. Kahn's presence underscores the serious attention online education has been getting, including from Gov. Jerry Brown and Senate President Pro Tem Darrell Steinberg, as a way to educate more students for less. The University of California regents have lent their support to the idea as Brown pushes the university system to find ways to lower costs...

Full article at http://blogs.sacbee.com/capitolalertlatest/2013/02/am-alert-republicans-push-for-a-new-leader.html

Here - for the umpteenth time - is the problem.  The governor says that the state doesn't have the money UC says it needs and doesn't want tuition to rise.  His only solution is "online education." Sal Kahn runs a business that pushes online ed.  Yes, it's a nonprofit but when you go on its website, none of the folks involved look like they are wondering where their next meal will come from. https://www.khanacademy.org/about/the-team  So he isn't going to tell legislators that while online ed will undoubtedly be used more over time, it isn't a budget solution  for UC.

Actually, we have some advance audio of the event:

Read more here: http://blogs.sacbee.com/capitolalertlatest/2013/02/am-alert-republicans-push-for-a-new-leader.html#storylink=cpy

The Moral: It's a Good Idea to Avoid the Rush

From Inside Higher Ed today...

Maybe it was inevitable that one of the new massive open online courses would crash. After all, MOOCs are being launched with considerable speed, not to mention hype. But MOOC advocates might have preferred the collapse of a course other than the one that was suspended this weekend, one week into instruction: "Fundamentals of Online Education: Planning and Application."

Technology and design problems are largely to blame for the course's problems. And many students are angry that a course about online education -- let alone one offered by the Georgia Institute of Technology -- wouldn't have figured out the tech issues in advance, or been able to respond quickly once they became evident... 

Full story at http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2013/02/04/coursera-forced-call-mooc-amid-complaints-about-course

The true moral of this tale is not that online education can't "work" but that seeing it as a magical device that will solve the squeeze between limited state funding and gubernatorial decrees about no tuition increases is just plain silly.  The governor needs to do what his dad did, i.e., set an orderly process in motion to develop a new Master Plan.  This process cannot simply consist of the governor sitting in at meetings of the Regents and the boards of the other two segments and making erudite statements.  Rather than doing research on why the governor is technically president of the Regents - which Gov. Brown said he is undertaking - why not do research on how the original Master Plan was created?

Here is an online start for such research:

Part 1:

Part 2:

Yeah, sure. We believe you, Mark.

From the LA Times:

...Governor Jerry Brown suddenly became active in UC policies and Mark Yudof resigns. Is there any connection?
There is really no connection because I've been pondering [resignation] for a long time. The governor is extraordinarily intelligent, he is extraordinarily passionate. It does require some energy to respond to his ideas, but I'm fine with that. That would not be a reason to move on. If anything, I have some confidence that out of this passion of the governor, some very positive things for the university can come...

Of course, we believe you, Mark...

...But there were the good old days:

You can read the full LA Times interview with Yudof at:
http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-yudof-20130203,0,7317927.story

California GOP pushes higher ed tuition freeze/cheap degree

From the Sacramento Bee today:

What's a marginalized minority party to do? It's a key question for Republican lawmakers staring down a newly enshrined Democratic supermajority. Part of the answer so far seems to be a renewed emphasis on higher education. Both Sen. Anthony Cannella, R-Ceres, and Assemblyman Jeff Gorell, R-Camarillo, have introduced a pair of bills that would freeze tuition at the University of California and California State University for the seven-year duration of the higher tax rates mandated by Proposition 30...

In a written response to the budget, Republican Connie Conway, R-Tulare, called the tuition freeze bills an effort to "ensure that this revenue goes to boost higher education funding and prevent tuition and fee increases at our public colleges and universities, just as the voters intended."...

Assemblyman Dan Logue, R-Marysville, has also introduced a pair of higher education bills. They would create pilot programs enabling students to obtain a degree for $10,000 and $20,000, respectively, an effort to hold down ballooning tuition costs...

Full story at: http://www.sacbee.com/2013/02/03/v-print/5161070/minority-california-republicans.html

This might not end happily: 

Another UC capital project that seemed like a great idea

From time to time, we have noted that UC capital projects don't necessarily work out as planned. While we have generally raised this point in the context of the UCLA grand hotel, other campuses are not exempt.

The Sacramento Bee carries the interesting report from UC-Davis excerpted below:

Before construction began, UC Davis laid out a vision for West Village, its new on-campus community, as a showcase of energy efficiency that would provide affordable housing for faculty and students. Nearly two years after the $300 million development opened, it has not yet fulfilled those expectations. Its student apartments have experienced high turnover. Single-family homes for faculty and staff have not materialized. And the developer can't quantify whether the project is meeting its goal of using no more energy than it produces from solar panels. As for being affordable, West Village apartments have some of the highest rents in town.  ...West Village isn't actually run by UC Davis. The school contracted with private developer Carmel Partners to build and manage the community...

The project received $22 million in public funding, including $14.5 million from UC Davis to pay for streets, utilities and other infrastructure, and $2.5 million from the California Energy Commission to explore renewable energy...

Full story at: http://www.sacbee.com/2013/02/02/5159639/west-village-complex-has-yet-to.html

Of course, $14.5 million is small potatoes compared to the UCLA grand hotel cost  But I guess we think big.  Seems like there must be a lesson here somewhere:

Read more here: http://www.sacbee.com/2013/02/02/5159639/west-village-complex-has-yet-to.html#storylink=cpy

Listen to Radio Interview with President Yudof on UC Future

Yesterday, KPCC's Airtalk with Larry Mantle featured an interview with the heads of the three segments of higher ed in California: President Mark Yudof of UC, Chancellor Timothy White of CSU (and until recently Chancellor of UC-Riverside), and Brice Harris, Chancellor of the community colleges. The full broadcast ran about three quarters of an hour.  I have pulled out just the Yudof excerpts which run about one third as long.

As blog readers will know, Yudof has resigned as UC president, effective August.  So he may now be a bit freer to say what he wants - but, of course, not totally free since he continues to serve and will have to deal with the governor for several more months. He discusses tuition (frozen for now), pensions (which he cites as the major rising cost factor for UC), the rising student-to-teacher ratio (which he says is why other costs have not risen), and faculty pay (which he says is below what private institutions pay but faculty at UC do it for the social good).  He stresses that the state doesn't pay for research which brings in outside funding.  Also discussed are elitism, the $10,000 degree pushed by various governors, state support, online education and larger classes.  Since the state won't pay and tuition can't rise, the only solution is some mix of larger classes, online ed, transfers from community colleges, credits for work experience.  Will this hurt quality? He hedges but says that's what is coming.  Yudof is annoyed, and says so, about media complaints concerning high executive pay.  UC pays less than the privates, you have to pay attention to the labor market, and that there is the social good argument. (Administrators, like faculty, work for less than market due to the social good.)  He would like to see UC take 30,000-50,000 students more than it does due to population increases and the rising Latino population.  And he would like to see regular faculty do more undergraduate teaching.

You can hear Yudof's comments at the link below:

Concerns about Justice Dept. intervention in university library electronic reserves

Inside Higher Ed today has an article concerning a matter on which we have posted in the past.  Increasingly, faculty put material on reserve for students.  Typically, such material is not available to the general public; some kind of password or course registration is required.  Publishers have sued regarding copyright violation in a case involving Georgia State U.  So far, the library there has prevailed.

Apparently, the U.S. Dept. of Justice wants to intervene in the case, and the suspicion is that the intervention will be on the side of the publishers who are appealing a lower court ruling.  You can read the details at:
http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2013/02/01/library-supporters-worry-us-may-back-publishers-copyright-case

Not surprisingly, university librarians are distressed at this possible intervention.  One librarian notes that in olden times (not so long ago), paper format reserves were kept on library shelves for students to read and no one complained. 

Bottom line: University librarians are fearful that the Obama administration - despite its general enthusiasm for technology and education - is about to do them wrong: