Before, during, or after graduate school some academics (including researchers, investigators, and scholars) struggle with determining what questions they want to answer, disciplines they want to contribute to, or what their overall research agenda is or should be. Although this dilemma may continue throughout a scholars’ entire career, making decisions connected to this process is not as simple as outsiders to this task might think.
Some of the choices regarding a research agenda have to do with the type of job and institution scholars or aspiring ones currently study at, work at, or want to get a job at. One of the first decisions is whether the research will be conducted in a private sector setting (e.g., research consulting organization, social media corporation, etc.), or in the context of an institution of higher education. In the former the choice of research subject is pretty much pre-determined by the organization, while in the latter scholars almost always have free reign to choose the subjects they want to explore, and the questions they want to answer.
Thus, one of the issues that researchers must confront is determining which research setting appeals to them the most, and where they believe that they can realistically get a job that will adequately financially support them. Not everyone who earns a Ph.D. can or wants to work in the private sector, nor at an R1 university. Instead they may find employment at a small college or university that may not place a high value on scholarly research.
Another factor that can influence the choice of research agendas are the subject matters and kinds of research, program and mentorship a graduate student or incoming assistant professor is exposed to (e.g., graduate programs in anthropology are not suited for candidates who are interested in conducting chemistry related research). The kinds of research and questions scholars attempt to answer may also be predicated on where they live, work, or visit.
Many graduate programs attempt to provide students with a variety of different courses, and expose them to different research teams so they can ostensibly make their own choices about what suits them bet. Others pair incoming graduate students with supervisors whom they believe share similar research interests, and rarely do students switch to other advisors or mentors.
Many investigators simply continue the research trajectory established by their graduate school supervisor or mentor they worked with. This has an element of predictability. One knows the landscape, the important conferences, and network. It’s a safe environment that minimizes risk.
That being said, it’s often hard to change subject specializations because of a researchers’ beliefs surrounding sunk, start up, and switching costs. But researchers, however, need to ask themselves if conducting research in the area that no longer interests them or that they believe does not assist them, then it may be time to move on.
Then again a scholars’ research agenda may ebb and flow. Certainly the requirements of securing a job, and moving up through the ranks may drive the choice of research a scholar conducts.
Nevertheless, there are at least six interrelated processes that can guide the choice of a research agenda. They include:
1. Serendipity
Sometimes the subjects and questions that researchers choose to focus on are mainly done through chance. For instance, the investigator goes on a vacation, discovers something that interests them, and over time they increasingly conduct research on the subject.
2. Grants driving the process
Alternatively some scholars make decisions regarding the topics and questions they choose to research based on the availability of grant funding. They learn what funding sources are interested in, determine if they have the knowledge and capabilities to receive a grant from the organization, and if it makes sense to them, they craft proposals that they believe the funders will choose. If the research proposal is accepted then they carry out the research to complete the project.
3. The burning question approach
Another motivation driving some researchers are burning questions they want to answer. These questions may be longstanding, based on lived experience, activism, and originated during at an early age in the persons’ life or they emerged after the person was exposed to different life circumstances. In these cases the question is so fascinating that the person is motivated to find answers to the questions beyond what they read through doing a normal literature review. The question may sustains the researchers’ interest for a long time, or there may be a situation/s where the scholar shifts from one question that they are passionate about answering to another.
4. The discipline determines the unanswered questions
Sometimes researchers, after they become familiar with a subject area, start looking for gaps in the literature or knowledge and then try to fill them in. The gaps are discover after the researcher becomes increasingly familiar with the subject matter.
5. A theory drives the process
Most subfields develop hypotheses, theories, and models. These building blocks are tested by analyzing relevant data. Over time new research methods and data are applied to the hypotheses, theories and models to understand the situations that they do or do not apply to.
6. Access to data may drive the process
Data exists in a variety of different forms and are of different levels of quality. Sometimes it is readily accessible (e.g., in an archive), whereas at other times it is not (e.g., nonobservable). Many researchers chose to answer questions based on this availability and quality of the data to which they apply certain tests.
Knowing and understanding that there are about six interrelated processes may help researchers, have a better understanding of the multiple ways they can go about finding appropriate research topics and fields to explore.
Whatever your motivation, it’s important to keep in mind that research agendas can and do change throughout a scholarly career, and this is predicated on the fact or possibility that over time, not only do interests change, but so do motivations surrounding conducting research and opportunities too. As it turns out there is no one best way for researchers to determine questions to answer, fields to explore or a research agenda. The answer is it depends.
Photo credit:
Joel Kramer
gambling
https://jeffreyianross.com/wp-content/uploads/391616108_76884105b5_o.jpg15362048Jeffrey Ian Rosshttps://jeffreyianross.com/wp-content/uploads/jeffrey-ian-ross-logo-04.pngJeffrey Ian Ross2022-06-05 23:47:302022-06-06 16:10:23What’s the best way to choose a research agenda?
This week one of the deadliest school shootings in American history occurred at Robb Elementary in Uvalde, Texas.
In addition to the 19 school children and 2 teachers killed, 17 injured, and the trauma that it has permanently inflicted on the families, loved ones, and community, the response by the public, law enforcement, activists, and politicians of all ideological stripes was mostly predictable.
The left repeated its’ pleas for more gun control, and the right engaged in thoughts and prayers rhetoric, attributed the attack to a series of real and imagined causes (e.g., mental illness), and offered dubious solutions that have not been supported by empirical evidence (e.g., hardening schools, arming teachers, etc.)
There is nothing new here. But for the general public, whose interest in 2nd Amendment issues, and attention spans that ebb and flow, it’s extremely important to not simply brush aside the arguments, or blindly pick a side, but to critically evaluate the evidence and logic upon which the claims are based. It’s also necessary to understand that many of the challenges facing the criminal justice system are intractable; they have persisted for a long time and that there are no simple solutions.
Although I’m not suggesting that everyone needs an advanced degree in criminology/criminal justice, philosophy or logic, it couldn’t hurt.
What I am arguing for, however, is that it’s now more important than ever for the public to engage in and learn critical thinking skills. This is not simply criticizing something, or using a left leaning perspective (e.g., critical theory). It’s using the methods of logic to examine important controversial issues of the day.
Widely touted to be the magic bullet for higher education during the 1990s, the term “Critical Thinking” has faded into the woodwork of educational trends.
What researchers, especially educators, believed back then, as many still do now, is that many people hold illogical or irrational beliefs and if they are taught basic principles of logic, they may be able to make better decisions.
What researchers slowly learned however, is that most people’s beliefs, no matter how irrational they may sound (or are) to outsiders, when confronted with empirical research to the contrary, are very difficult to change. Many people do not know what constitutes expertise, nor how this is achieved. That is why it is not simply the presentation of empirical evidence, but also the method by which this information is introduced to belief holders.
What the literature and best practices indicates is that there are better and worse ways to teach and introduce critical thinking. A simple search of the web will provide this kind of information. But as educators, and concerned citizens it’s time to implement these kinds of techniques, rather than easily giving up, which is the natural tendency of most people to do.
Photo Credit: Blink O’fanaye
Gun Control March
https://jeffreyianross.com/wp-content/uploads/8424102616_9de13b049c_o-scaled.jpg6922560Jeffrey Ian Rosshttps://jeffreyianross.com/wp-content/uploads/jeffrey-ian-ross-logo-04.pngJeffrey Ian Ross2022-05-27 00:44:512022-05-27 00:44:51Arming oneself with critical thinking skills
The COVID-19 pandemic placed into bold relief how inadequate most of our country’s universities have become for students and faculty alike.
Why? Although the coronavirus prompted most postsecondary institutions of higher education, and instructors who work there to pivot to on-line teaching, the experience was mostly suboptimal and in many cases dismal for both instructors and students.
Undoubtedly many universities attempted to do their best, demonstrated resiliency, made the most out of a bad situation, and the instructional staff learned new skills, improved the ones they were using, and experimented with different modalities of instruction. Students were also given real world life experiences on how to be flexible, learn to learn on one’s own, etc.. That being said, there were and are significant challenges, many of them which predated the pandemic, and most of which still persist.
What happened? I believe that at least five inter-related things happened.
Many instructors felt as if their university abandoned them
In the best case scenarios, administrations got ahead of the pandemic and started sending faculty and other instructional staff helpful e-mails on how to proceed in the event that universities were forced to go remote, and some of them offered beefed up on-line assistance and workshops. In some of these educational environments faculty, chairs, and deans stepped up to the plate and juggled available resources so that faculty could do the best they could in this new teaching environment. In the worst case scenarios administrations told their instructional staff to figure out how to teach remotely and get back to them if they had any questions. The message was clear; you are on your own.
In many situations, however, as instruction moved on-line, the Information Technology systems and departments of many universities could not handle the overwhelming number of instructors who were teaching on-line, and students logging in, all at the same proscribed time. The IT systems were slow, and some of them crashed. When instructors and students reached out to their IT departments, it was like trying to contact an airline after massive flight cancellations; they were either bombarded with requests or missing in action. Most instructors did their best even though they may not have known how to use or master the new technology. But they learned. To add insult to injury, many students did not have access to a personal computer, or a reliable internet connection, or they were fish out of water with on-line teaching protocols. Again many universities attempted to accommodate to the situation.
Support given to instructors was inadequate
Many institutions of higher education were either unprepared or unable to assist instructors transition to on-line teaching platforms. Sure there were off the shelf, or hastily configured skills based learning workshops, but many were not that helpful. Skill acquisition re teaching on-line was mostly done via trial by fire, faking it until you made it, and trial and error experiences. Meanwhile many faculty, staff and administrators fell sick (and some died), or they were thrust in to the position of primary or co-caregiver to an ailing relative, or they assumed additional child care responsibilities. This was particularly disturbing for faculty who had children and spouses who were also working at home and on-line. Again the administration was poorly equipped for this situation. They did not have resources in place to adequately support instructors. Special needs students fell even further through the cracks and the burden fell upon instructional staff to do triage. In some universities they pushed their faculty back into unsafe classrooms and gave them a modicum of PPE, and failed to require students to socially distance, etc.
Faculty and other instructional labor, and Ph.D. students quit
Most people who enter academia know that the salaries are not great. But they are willing to sacrifice the low earning potential for other benefits like flexibility, intellectual engagement, and more nebulous aspirations like the chance to make a difference. But the lack of support from supervisors and senior management, the incessant bureaucracy, and toxic evaluation practices, can wear on the soul.
The reality is that salaries are not keeping up with inflation. Part of the reason is because many state governments are cutting higher ed funding like crazy and university systems are forced to freeze wages, etc. The fact that you need to get an offer somewhere else to prove your real worth to your current academic institution is byzantine. In many cases there was a pull push dynamic. Salaries are low, but the private sector provides many of the same benefits that people who used to aspire to in academia found. Faculty have had it with toxic work environments and they saw how some areas of the private sector seemed to value knowledge workers more. When you look left and right and start hearing stories of your colleagues who are taking early retirement, or who have quit (dubbed the great resignation) because of low salaries and toxic environments then it’s hard not to start asking yourself questions like “what the hell am I doing here?”
Granted some people probably never should have entered academia in the first place, but stories started emerging of graduate students barely surviving on poverty wages, and individuals with doctorates and publications who had been struggling for the past decade with adjunct positions, and struggling to get that first tenure track job etc. When faculty, staff and administrators increasingly can’t afford the rent or to purchase a home in the same city where they teach, something is damn wrong.
Student enrollment decreased
Even before the pandemic, liberal arts college and university enrollments have been declining. Students are opting more for the professions, and trades, rather than the liberal arts. Otherwise, they are unsure of what profession to enter and their parents are unwilling to foot the bill for what might appear to be a lifetime of student debt. Some are taking extended breaks from their studies.
Students disengaged
During the COVID and post-COVID period, faculty started noticing that attendance at classes whether they were virtual or face-to-face was abysmal. And it was not simply butts in seats, but students were not submitting or completing their assignments, sitting for tests, etc. Could all of these students have come down with COVID at the same time? Did they, like faculty and other university personnel, all have caregiving responsibilities that impeded their ability to follow through with the responsibilities of being enrolled? Was the content and the method of teaching be so abysmal? This dynamic is more complex.
How Can We Fix Things?
Most universities do not have the knowledge, skills, and experience to weather this storm and thus they are going to have to evolve or die. We can’t depend any longer on armies of adjuncts or part timers trolling for poverty wages as we currently do to teach. And it does not make sense to lead, manage, or work in institution where the majority of workers and students appear alienated, disgruntled, and where morale is incredibly low.
In some cases it may be too late. Some institutions of higher education will have to shutter their doors. In fact over the past decade we’ve already seen a handful of universities (albeit smaller liberal arts colleges) due to financial mismanagement and a concomitant lack of ability to attract doners, students or research grants follow this path.
Although the Ivy League universities probably do not have anything to fear, other post-secondary educational institutions, to the protests of many faculty, staff and administrators, are frantically putting into place early retirement programs, or consolidating programs, departments, and colleges, and considering amalgamating or joining consortiums in order to leverage their resources, and hopefully benefit from cost sharing/saving arrangements.
Skilled administrators who can rally the troops, and forge connections with other educational leaders and other universities, local businesses and elected politicians may be able to keep their ships afloat.
Meanwhile, the natural tendency is to blame someone, or some group, and we have plenty of scapegoats. We can point fingers at university leaders, an overabundance of senior administrators, faculty, staff and even students. We can also blame parents and elected and appointed politicians who have unrealistic expectations about the goals and missions of universities. The other worn out strategy is to bring in the outside consultants.
But these approaches are not going to solve anything. They may even make things worse. What we need is a major rethinking of the role and purpose of post secondary education and how the institutions that occupy this space are going to achieve their complex and competing missions. What is more important is that we will not have widespread agreement because there are competing interests at stake.
The problem and challenges of the post COVID university squarely rests on the shoulders of the wider society. But most people don’t have the foggiest idea what the purpose of universities are other than to enable students to get a job or a better one upon graduation. Maybe, just maybe, we will have an honest conversation about the meaning and purpose of university education. In that case we should go back to first principles. What is the major mission of the university, and is this the best way to achieve it?
Photo Credit: Sean MacEntee
lecture room
https://jeffreyianross.com/wp-content/uploads/5669490355_b283db4e04_o.png250750Jeffrey Ian Rosshttps://jeffreyianross.com/wp-content/uploads/jeffrey-ian-ross-logo-04.pngJeffrey Ian Ross2022-05-21 14:23:442022-10-02 12:19:23Most American universities are no longer sustainable in their current form
What’s the best way to choose a research agenda?
/by Jeffrey Ian RossBefore, during, or after graduate school some academics (including researchers, investigators, and scholars) struggle with determining what questions they want to answer, disciplines they want to contribute to, or what their overall research agenda is or should be. Although this dilemma may continue throughout a scholars’ entire career, making decisions connected to this process is not as simple as outsiders to this task might think.
Some of the choices regarding a research agenda have to do with the type of job and institution scholars or aspiring ones currently study at, work at, or want to get a job at. One of the first decisions is whether the research will be conducted in a private sector setting (e.g., research consulting organization, social media corporation, etc.), or in the context of an institution of higher education. In the former the choice of research subject is pretty much pre-determined by the organization, while in the latter scholars almost always have free reign to choose the subjects they want to explore, and the questions they want to answer.
Thus, one of the issues that researchers must confront is determining which research setting appeals to them the most, and where they believe that they can realistically get a job that will adequately financially support them. Not everyone who earns a Ph.D. can or wants to work in the private sector, nor at an R1 university. Instead they may find employment at a small college or university that may not place a high value on scholarly research.
Another factor that can influence the choice of research agendas are the subject matters and kinds of research, program and mentorship a graduate student or incoming assistant professor is exposed to (e.g., graduate programs in anthropology are not suited for candidates who are interested in conducting chemistry related research). The kinds of research and questions scholars attempt to answer may also be predicated on where they live, work, or visit.
Many graduate programs attempt to provide students with a variety of different courses, and expose them to different research teams so they can ostensibly make their own choices about what suits them bet. Others pair incoming graduate students with supervisors whom they believe share similar research interests, and rarely do students switch to other advisors or mentors.
Many investigators simply continue the research trajectory established by their graduate school supervisor or mentor they worked with. This has an element of predictability. One knows the landscape, the important conferences, and network. It’s a safe environment that minimizes risk.
That being said, it’s often hard to change subject specializations because of a researchers’ beliefs surrounding sunk, start up, and switching costs. But researchers, however, need to ask themselves if conducting research in the area that no longer interests them or that they believe does not assist them, then it may be time to move on.
Then again a scholars’ research agenda may ebb and flow. Certainly the requirements of securing a job, and moving up through the ranks may drive the choice of research a scholar conducts.
Nevertheless, there are at least six interrelated processes that can guide the choice of a research agenda. They include:
1. Serendipity
Sometimes the subjects and questions that researchers choose to focus on are mainly done through chance. For instance, the investigator goes on a vacation, discovers something that interests them, and over time they increasingly conduct research on the subject.
2. Grants driving the process
Alternatively some scholars make decisions regarding the topics and questions they choose to research based on the availability of grant funding. They learn what funding sources are interested in, determine if they have the knowledge and capabilities to receive a grant from the organization, and if it makes sense to them, they craft proposals that they believe the funders will choose. If the research proposal is accepted then they carry out the research to complete the project.
3. The burning question approach
Another motivation driving some researchers are burning questions they want to answer. These questions may be longstanding, based on lived experience, activism, and originated during at an early age in the persons’ life or they emerged after the person was exposed to different life circumstances. In these cases the question is so fascinating that the person is motivated to find answers to the questions beyond what they read through doing a normal literature review. The question may sustains the researchers’ interest for a long time, or there may be a situation/s where the scholar shifts from one question that they are passionate about answering to another.
4. The discipline determines the unanswered questions
Sometimes researchers, after they become familiar with a subject area, start looking for gaps in the literature or knowledge and then try to fill them in. The gaps are discover after the researcher becomes increasingly familiar with the subject matter.
5. A theory drives the process
Most subfields develop hypotheses, theories, and models. These building blocks are tested by analyzing relevant data. Over time new research methods and data are applied to the hypotheses, theories and models to understand the situations that they do or do not apply to.
6. Access to data may drive the process
Data exists in a variety of different forms and are of different levels of quality. Sometimes it is readily accessible (e.g., in an archive), whereas at other times it is not (e.g., nonobservable). Many researchers chose to answer questions based on this availability and quality of the data to which they apply certain tests.
Knowing and understanding that there are about six interrelated processes may help researchers, have a better understanding of the multiple ways they can go about finding appropriate research topics and fields to explore.
Whatever your motivation, it’s important to keep in mind that research agendas can and do change throughout a scholarly career, and this is predicated on the fact or possibility that over time, not only do interests change, but so do motivations surrounding conducting research and opportunities too. As it turns out there is no one best way for researchers to determine questions to answer, fields to explore or a research agenda. The answer is it depends.
Photo credit:
Joel Kramer
gambling
Arming oneself with critical thinking skills
/by Jeffrey Ian RossThis week one of the deadliest school shootings in American history occurred at Robb Elementary in Uvalde, Texas.
In addition to the 19 school children and 2 teachers killed, 17 injured, and the trauma that it has permanently inflicted on the families, loved ones, and community, the response by the public, law enforcement, activists, and politicians of all ideological stripes was mostly predictable.
The left repeated its’ pleas for more gun control, and the right engaged in thoughts and prayers rhetoric, attributed the attack to a series of real and imagined causes (e.g., mental illness), and offered dubious solutions that have not been supported by empirical evidence (e.g., hardening schools, arming teachers, etc.)
There is nothing new here. But for the general public, whose interest in 2nd Amendment issues, and attention spans that ebb and flow, it’s extremely important to not simply brush aside the arguments, or blindly pick a side, but to critically evaluate the evidence and logic upon which the claims are based. It’s also necessary to understand that many of the challenges facing the criminal justice system are intractable; they have persisted for a long time and that there are no simple solutions.
Although I’m not suggesting that everyone needs an advanced degree in criminology/criminal justice, philosophy or logic, it couldn’t hurt.
What I am arguing for, however, is that it’s now more important than ever for the public to engage in and learn critical thinking skills. This is not simply criticizing something, or using a left leaning perspective (e.g., critical theory). It’s using the methods of logic to examine important controversial issues of the day.
Widely touted to be the magic bullet for higher education during the 1990s, the term “Critical Thinking” has faded into the woodwork of educational trends.
What researchers, especially educators, believed back then, as many still do now, is that many people hold illogical or irrational beliefs and if they are taught basic principles of logic, they may be able to make better decisions.
What researchers slowly learned however, is that most people’s beliefs, no matter how irrational they may sound (or are) to outsiders, when confronted with empirical research to the contrary, are very difficult to change. Many people do not know what constitutes expertise, nor how this is achieved. That is why it is not simply the presentation of empirical evidence, but also the method by which this information is introduced to belief holders.
What the literature and best practices indicates is that there are better and worse ways to teach and introduce critical thinking. A simple search of the web will provide this kind of information. But as educators, and concerned citizens it’s time to implement these kinds of techniques, rather than easily giving up, which is the natural tendency of most people to do.
Photo Credit: Blink O’fanaye
Gun Control March
Most American universities are no longer sustainable in their current form
/by Jeffrey Ian RossThe COVID-19 pandemic placed into bold relief how inadequate most of our country’s universities have become for students and faculty alike.
Why? Although the coronavirus prompted most postsecondary institutions of higher education, and instructors who work there to pivot to on-line teaching, the experience was mostly suboptimal and in many cases dismal for both instructors and students.
Undoubtedly many universities attempted to do their best, demonstrated resiliency, made the most out of a bad situation, and the instructional staff learned new skills, improved the ones they were using, and experimented with different modalities of instruction. Students were also given real world life experiences on how to be flexible, learn to learn on one’s own, etc.. That being said, there were and are significant challenges, many of them which predated the pandemic, and most of which still persist.
What happened? I believe that at least five inter-related things happened.
Many instructors felt as if their university abandoned them
In the best case scenarios, administrations got ahead of the pandemic and started sending faculty and other instructional staff helpful e-mails on how to proceed in the event that universities were forced to go remote, and some of them offered beefed up on-line assistance and workshops. In some of these educational environments faculty, chairs, and deans stepped up to the plate and juggled available resources so that faculty could do the best they could in this new teaching environment. In the worst case scenarios administrations told their instructional staff to figure out how to teach remotely and get back to them if they had any questions. The message was clear; you are on your own.
In many situations, however, as instruction moved on-line, the Information Technology systems and departments of many universities could not handle the overwhelming number of instructors who were teaching on-line, and students logging in, all at the same proscribed time. The IT systems were slow, and some of them crashed. When instructors and students reached out to their IT departments, it was like trying to contact an airline after massive flight cancellations; they were either bombarded with requests or missing in action. Most instructors did their best even though they may not have known how to use or master the new technology. But they learned. To add insult to injury, many students did not have access to a personal computer, or a reliable internet connection, or they were fish out of water with on-line teaching protocols. Again many universities attempted to accommodate to the situation.
Support given to instructors was inadequate
Many institutions of higher education were either unprepared or unable to assist instructors transition to on-line teaching platforms. Sure there were off the shelf, or hastily configured skills based learning workshops, but many were not that helpful. Skill acquisition re teaching on-line was mostly done via trial by fire, faking it until you made it, and trial and error experiences. Meanwhile many faculty, staff and administrators fell sick (and some died), or they were thrust in to the position of primary or co-caregiver to an ailing relative, or they assumed additional child care responsibilities. This was particularly disturbing for faculty who had children and spouses who were also working at home and on-line. Again the administration was poorly equipped for this situation. They did not have resources in place to adequately support instructors. Special needs students fell even further through the cracks and the burden fell upon instructional staff to do triage. In some universities they pushed their faculty back into unsafe classrooms and gave them a modicum of PPE, and failed to require students to socially distance, etc.
Faculty and other instructional labor, and Ph.D. students quit
Most people who enter academia know that the salaries are not great. But they are willing to sacrifice the low earning potential for other benefits like flexibility, intellectual engagement, and more nebulous aspirations like the chance to make a difference. But the lack of support from supervisors and senior management, the incessant bureaucracy, and toxic evaluation practices, can wear on the soul.
The reality is that salaries are not keeping up with inflation. Part of the reason is because many state governments are cutting higher ed funding like crazy and university systems are forced to freeze wages, etc. The fact that you need to get an offer somewhere else to prove your real worth to your current academic institution is byzantine. In many cases there was a pull push dynamic. Salaries are low, but the private sector provides many of the same benefits that people who used to aspire to in academia found. Faculty have had it with toxic work environments and they saw how some areas of the private sector seemed to value knowledge workers more. When you look left and right and start hearing stories of your colleagues who are taking early retirement, or who have quit (dubbed the great resignation) because of low salaries and toxic environments then it’s hard not to start asking yourself questions like “what the hell am I doing here?”
Granted some people probably never should have entered academia in the first place, but stories started emerging of graduate students barely surviving on poverty wages, and individuals with doctorates and publications who had been struggling for the past decade with adjunct positions, and struggling to get that first tenure track job etc. When faculty, staff and administrators increasingly can’t afford the rent or to purchase a home in the same city where they teach, something is damn wrong.
Student enrollment decreased
Even before the pandemic, liberal arts college and university enrollments have been declining. Students are opting more for the professions, and trades, rather than the liberal arts. Otherwise, they are unsure of what profession to enter and their parents are unwilling to foot the bill for what might appear to be a lifetime of student debt. Some are taking extended breaks from their studies.
Students disengaged
During the COVID and post-COVID period, faculty started noticing that attendance at classes whether they were virtual or face-to-face was abysmal. And it was not simply butts in seats, but students were not submitting or completing their assignments, sitting for tests, etc. Could all of these students have come down with COVID at the same time? Did they, like faculty and other university personnel, all have caregiving responsibilities that impeded their ability to follow through with the responsibilities of being enrolled? Was the content and the method of teaching be so abysmal? This dynamic is more complex.
How Can We Fix Things?
Most universities do not have the knowledge, skills, and experience to weather this storm and thus they are going to have to evolve or die. We can’t depend any longer on armies of adjuncts or part timers trolling for poverty wages as we currently do to teach. And it does not make sense to lead, manage, or work in institution where the majority of workers and students appear alienated, disgruntled, and where morale is incredibly low.
In some cases it may be too late. Some institutions of higher education will have to shutter their doors. In fact over the past decade we’ve already seen a handful of universities (albeit smaller liberal arts colleges) due to financial mismanagement and a concomitant lack of ability to attract doners, students or research grants follow this path.
Although the Ivy League universities probably do not have anything to fear, other post-secondary educational institutions, to the protests of many faculty, staff and administrators, are frantically putting into place early retirement programs, or consolidating programs, departments, and colleges, and considering amalgamating or joining consortiums in order to leverage their resources, and hopefully benefit from cost sharing/saving arrangements.
Skilled administrators who can rally the troops, and forge connections with other educational leaders and other universities, local businesses and elected politicians may be able to keep their ships afloat.
Meanwhile, the natural tendency is to blame someone, or some group, and we have plenty of scapegoats. We can point fingers at university leaders, an overabundance of senior administrators, faculty, staff and even students. We can also blame parents and elected and appointed politicians who have unrealistic expectations about the goals and missions of universities. The other worn out strategy is to bring in the outside consultants.
But these approaches are not going to solve anything. They may even make things worse. What we need is a major rethinking of the role and purpose of post secondary education and how the institutions that occupy this space are going to achieve their complex and competing missions. What is more important is that we will not have widespread agreement because there are competing interests at stake.
The problem and challenges of the post COVID university squarely rests on the shoulders of the wider society. But most people don’t have the foggiest idea what the purpose of universities are other than to enable students to get a job or a better one upon graduation. Maybe, just maybe, we will have an honest conversation about the meaning and purpose of university education. In that case we should go back to first principles. What is the major mission of the university, and is this the best way to achieve it?
Photo Credit: Sean MacEntee
lecture room