5 ms·

I'm not really sure what to make of this article, as I'm currently a 4th-year student at the main subject, Ohio State. Perhaps as an undergraduate, I am divorce

I'm not really sure what to make of this article, as I'm currently a 4th-year student at the main subject, Ohio State. Perhaps as an undergraduate, I am divorced from the specific administrative and funding roadblocks plaguing research faculty, but in my day-to-day activities I see little in the way of a hurting OSU. The university this past year revamped the student living situation on north campus [1][2]. The university is expanding at a feverish pace because students want to come here; we are gaining recognition beyond being simply a football school and aspiring high school students are not considering OSU to be nearly the backup school it once was. Sure, it isn't as flashy to tell your relatives you go to OSU as opposed to MIT or Harvard, but it's not the disappointment most used to consider it to be. This article exposes much that I've been ignorant to as an undergrad, but it feels to blow some issues out of proportion. Sure, we don't nearly have as much funding as private universities, but that's par for the course for a public university which offers cheap tuition for local students, and is generous with its scholarships. And many educated students leave for "greener pastures" upon graduation, but that also feels natural to me. Most students who come here are from Ohio, and so once they get that diploma, it opens doors in the entire country which they are hungry to pursue. Maybe I'm just a bit too thick to see the apocalypse the author is foretelling. [1] http://www.dispatch.com/content/stories/home_and_garden/2016/08/21/ohio-colleges-new-dorms-encourage-interaction-outside-rooms-not-luxury-perks.html http://www.dispatch.com/content/stories/home_and_garden/2016... [2] https://www.thelantern.com/2016/02/new-residence-halls-set-for-north-campus/ https://www.thelantern.com/2016/02/new-residence-halls-set-f...

chis 9y ago
I dunno, I go to Penn State and I made my choice partly based on the research opportunities here. If these big schools start bleeding research and faculty I could see some dark times ahead.
- matthewwiese 9y ago
  I picked OSU for much the same reason... but your comment appears to agree with mine? You picked Penn b/c you have good research opportunities now, so unless faculty start jumping ship at large volumes in the near future, regular folks like you and I would have made the correct choice, no? The article feels a bit disingenuous to me because it compares funding for hugely popular private universities to those in flyover country. If the author could provide statistics for private universities in Ohio and Pennsylvania that supported the same trend, then I would see his thesis more clearly.
  - Fomite 9y ago
    This is profoundly short sighted.
  - majormajor 9y ago
    You should look at the trends compared to 30-40 years ago in terms of cost, research output, etc (not amenities, undergrad dining situation, etc) for "flyover country" public research universities, not focus on just today and whatever date you graduate. Very few things in America have been quite as good recently at convincing people without a lot of money to spend a ton of money on shit they don't need as the whole "look at our gym and amazing new dorms and beautiful new buildings" undergrad amenity wars.
bradleyjg 9y ago
The American research university is two* institutions uncomfortably sharing an organization -- one has as its mission undergraduate and professional education and the other cutting edge research. Some of the staff involved with the latter participate in larger or smaller ways in the former, but for those that excel at research, especially in STEM, its a more or less voluntary choice how much time and effort they choose to put into the teaching part of the university. There's also plenty of staff on both sides that don't at all overlap. There's all kind of post hoc explanations for why this historically contingent organizational structure is really super optimal and the best of all ways of setting things up, but frankly they aren't very convincing. Probably the least bad is the notion that this structure is the only politically palatable way to subsidize the intellectual output of arts and many of the social science. But even there, I'm not wholly convinced. *Actually more than two. There's also semi-pro sports teams among other things.
- mhneu 9y ago
  >There's all kind of post hoc explanations for why this historically contingent organizational structure is really super optimal... but frankly they aren't very convincing. Disagree. The best place for undergrads to get a top-notch education is where they have the opportunity to work with or even around top-notch researchers and people at the top of their fields. Yes, many faculty don't spend that much time with undergrads, but they spend some. And they spend time with grad students who spend time with undergrads. This is the best way we know how to organize great teaching for undergrads.
  - Fomite 9y ago
    The opportunity to work with research faculty I would otherwise not have encountered literally changed my life.
    - mhneu 9y ago
      Me too.
    - auggierose 9y ago
mhneu 9y ago
No, it's not that you're too thick, it's just that you're right that that only administrators and faculty see the cracks forming. They want to hide these cracks from undergrads. Because undergrads are the main source of university revenue right now. And if undergrads think the school is failing, fewer will come, effectively destroying the school.
- thanatropism 9y ago
  More importantly, an university can be utterly destroyed as a research institution and still place well in the eyes of undergraduates -- it can still have good teachers that teach the material well and have good job placement stats, not to mention have a great dating scene, etc.
  - replicatorblog 9y ago
    Right, this is basically the "liberal arts college," which is a totally fine option. We could also see a shift towards more professional/vocational schools at the secondary level—for art and design, as well as business. Advanced trade skills don't need to be delivered in a liberal arts model, and are actually often worse for it. Not to say that professionals shouldn't get a broad education, but it could take many more forms.
Fomite 9y ago
"I'm not really sure what to make of this article, as I'm currently a 4th-year student at the main subject, Ohio State. Perhaps as an undergraduate, I am divorced from the specific administrative and funding roadblocks plaguing research faculty, but in my day-to-day activities I see little in the way of a hurting OSU." If you were at my university, which is not so different from Ohio State, you would never meet me - save, perhaps, at the fast food places in the student union. I'm research faculty, and not only do I not teach undergrads, there isn't even an undergraduate program in my area - it's strictly graduate students. And forgive me for saying this, but most undergraduates I do encounter are amazingly ignorant of the scope of the university, what it is their professors do, etc. "The university this past year revamped the student living situation on north campus [1][2]. The university is expanding at a feverish pace because students want to come here; we are gaining recognition beyond being simply a football school and aspiring high school students are not considering OSU to be nearly the backup school it once was. Sure, it isn't as flashy to tell your relatives you go to OSU as opposed to MIT or Harvard, but it's not the disappointment most used to consider it to be." Students are one of the few ways a state university now has to reliably bring in money, and as such, they have to compete for them. You are, in essence, the subject of a marketing campaign. "This article exposes much that I've been ignorant to as an undergrad, but it feels to blow some issues out of proportion. Sure, we don't nearly have as much funding as private universities, but that's par for the course for a public university which offers cheap tuition for local students, and is generous with its scholarships." One of the reasons tuition is rising, and the schools that have low tuition are under pressure, is that state and federal funding has dried up, so student tuition and fees are the only lever they have left. Many of these universities, even if they have managed to hold the line so far, are at the breaking point. "Maybe I'm just a bit too thick to see the apocalypse the author is foretelling." Universities have benefits beyond "Did we teach undergrads"? It's those benefits that are under strain.

chis 9y ago

I dunno, I go to Penn State and I made my choice partly based on the research opportunities here. If these big schools start bleeding research and faculty I could see some dark times ahead.

matthewwiese 9y ago
I picked OSU for much the same reason... but your comment appears to agree with mine? You picked Penn b/c you have good research opportunities now, so unless faculty start jumping ship at large volumes in the near future, regular folks like you and I would have made the correct choice, no? The article feels a bit disingenuous to me because it compares funding for hugely popular private universities to those in flyover country. If the author could provide statistics for private universities in Ohio and Pennsylvania that supported the same trend, then I would see his thesis more clearly.
- Fomite 9y ago
  This is profoundly short sighted.
- majormajor 9y ago
  You should look at the trends compared to 30-40 years ago in terms of cost, research output, etc (not amenities, undergrad dining situation, etc) for "flyover country" public research universities, not focus on just today and whatever date you graduate. Very few things in America have been quite as good recently at convincing people without a lot of money to spend a ton of money on shit they don't need as the whole "look at our gym and amazing new dorms and beautiful new buildings" undergrad amenity wars.

bradleyjg 9y ago

The American research university is two* institutions uncomfortably sharing an organization -- one has as its mission undergraduate and professional education and the other cutting edge research. Some of the staff involved with the latter participate in larger or smaller ways in the former, but for those that excel at research, especially in STEM, its a more or less voluntary choice how much time and effort they choose to put into the teaching part of the university. There's also plenty of staff on both sides that don't at all overlap. There's all kind of post hoc explanations for why this historically contingent organizational structure is really super optimal and the best of all ways of setting things up, but frankly they aren't very convincing. Probably the least bad is the notion that this structure is the only politically palatable way to subsidize the intellectual output of arts and many of the social science. But even there, I'm not wholly convinced. *Actually more than two. There's also semi-pro sports teams among other things.

mhneu 9y ago
>There's all kind of post hoc explanations for why this historically contingent organizational structure is really super optimal... but frankly they aren't very convincing. Disagree. The best place for undergrads to get a top-notch education is where they have the opportunity to work with or even around top-notch researchers and people at the top of their fields. Yes, many faculty don't spend that much time with undergrads, but they spend some. And they spend time with grad students who spend time with undergrads. This is the best way we know how to organize great teaching for undergrads.
- Fomite 9y ago
  The opportunity to work with research faculty I would otherwise not have encountered literally changed my life.
  - mhneu 9y ago
    Me too.
  - auggierose 9y ago

mhneu 9y ago

No, it's not that you're too thick, it's just that you're right that that only administrators and faculty see the cracks forming. They want to hide these cracks from undergrads. Because undergrads are the main source of university revenue right now. And if undergrads think the school is failing, fewer will come, effectively destroying the school.

thanatropism 9y ago
More importantly, an university can be utterly destroyed as a research institution and still place well in the eyes of undergraduates -- it can still have good teachers that teach the material well and have good job placement stats, not to mention have a great dating scene, etc.
- replicatorblog 9y ago
  Right, this is basically the "liberal arts college," which is a totally fine option. We could also see a shift towards more professional/vocational schools at the secondary level—for art and design, as well as business. Advanced trade skills don't need to be delivered in a liberal arts model, and are actually often worse for it. Not to say that professionals shouldn't get a broad education, but it could take many more forms.

Fomite 9y ago

"I'm not really sure what to make of this article, as I'm currently a 4th-year student at the main subject, Ohio State. Perhaps as an undergraduate, I am divorced from the specific administrative and funding roadblocks plaguing research faculty, but in my day-to-day activities I see little in the way of a hurting OSU." If you were at my university, which is not so different from Ohio State, you would never meet me - save, perhaps, at the fast food places in the student union. I'm research faculty, and not only do I not teach undergrads, there isn't even an undergraduate program in my area - it's strictly graduate students. And forgive me for saying this, but most undergraduates I do encounter are amazingly ignorant of the scope of the university, what it is their professors do, etc. "The university this past year revamped the student living situation on north campus [1][2]. The university is expanding at a feverish pace because students want to come here; we are gaining recognition beyond being simply a football school and aspiring high school students are not considering OSU to be nearly the backup school it once was. Sure, it isn't as flashy to tell your relatives you go to OSU as opposed to MIT or Harvard, but it's not the disappointment most used to consider it to be." Students are one of the few ways a state university now has to reliably bring in money, and as such, they have to compete for them. You are, in essence, the subject of a marketing campaign. "This article exposes much that I've been ignorant to as an undergrad, but it feels to blow some issues out of proportion. Sure, we don't nearly have as much funding as private universities, but that's par for the course for a public university which offers cheap tuition for local students, and is generous with its scholarships." One of the reasons tuition is rising, and the schools that have low tuition are under pressure, is that state and federal funding has dried up, so student tuition and fees are the only lever they have left. Many of these universities, even if they have managed to hold the line so far, are at the breaking point. "Maybe I'm just a bit too thick to see the apocalypse the author is foretelling." Universities have benefits beyond "Did we teach undergrads"? It's those benefits that are under strain.