November 30, 2004
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Topic: Update
Well…i’m in Baltimore/DC now. My internship is starting, slowly…mostly doing a lot of reading now to catch up w/ everything they do here, and learning about what’s available. In a couple of days I’ll start carving my niche more, and see what I can contribute. I have 2 months to not only learn and meet people, but hopefully to accomplish something, or at least leave some sort of a mark, however small, in the world of higher education.
I’ve spent the morning reading through the report produced by the National Survey of Student Engagement. I’m growing optimistic that such a large survey (160,000 first year and senior students from more than 470 schools) would recognize the “unacceptable waste of human potential,” but also discover that schools ARE responding by creating “pathways to engagement.”
I see my role as two-fold…to continue to magnify the waste of human potential beyond simple statistics like, “40% of first-year students and 25% of seniors NEVER discuss class with faculty outside of class,” into things like, “I literally spent most of my four years doing the bare minimum to get by, and now, I’m struggling to find a job that I love, and I’m struggling to make sense of the world I live in.” I think the combination of testimonials combined with statistics can provide a powerful tool to spur the changes that are occuring on campuses across America.
Second…is I hope to contribute in some way to these new “pathways of engagement.” The NSEE survey, together with the American Association for Higher Education (AAHE…oh so many acronyms) are coming out with a book in March that highlights 20 colleges and universities that do a good job at promoting student success. Here’s their criteria that all these schools share:
1) A “living” missiong and a “lived” educational philosophy’
2) An unshakeable focus on student learning
3) Clearly marked pathways to student success
4) Environments adapted for educational enrichment
5) An improvement-oriented campus culture
6) Shared responsibility for educational quality and student success
I have a pretty jaded view of higher ed., because of my own experience. Reading things like this remind me of reading my brochures for college. How does the reality on the ground compare to this survey, I wonder? It will take me some time to see what some of these effective schools look like, but, all I can do now is recognize that my college was not, nor is it close to being, an effective school. While my assumption is that schools may be moving in a better direction, I am left questioning the entire enterprise of higher education. How can a system that openly admits is not providing the best learning environments for students, continuing to obtain higher and higher enrollments? I’m all for helping higher ed. to improve, but, I feel that while there may be new developments in how colleges operate, I believe there will also have to be new developments in regards to going to college at all. It seems most of the reasons for going are myths…even down to getting jobs. It’s a networking man’s world, and the most important thing is to develop yourself as much as possible as a person (travel, experiences, read, discuss, learn, work, explore, wonder, risk…why limit people to school?)
Comments (4)
good luck on getting started and immersed…enjoy the time…
Since you’re talking about the “squandering of human potential” and inability to find fulfilling employment, then you may want to take a look at one of Marx’s earliest works, Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844. The stuff in there on alienation of labor may be interesting to you – though of course Marx would argue that this alienation is a symptom not of education, but of capitalism itself (including capitalism in its present, multinational, neocolonial stage), of which education plays a somewhat different, ideological, supporting role. The place of the education system is to function as one of many ideological apparatuses which together allow for the reproduction of the productive forces and the relations of production, the synthesis of which forms the conditions of production. Those students of “higher education” are being designed for a life of cubicled wage-slavery, whether they like it or not. Their place in the international division of labor, as structured by the capitalist mode of production, is one of middle management or “service.” No weekend squash game or backpacking trip will rescue them from this. I think, in fact, it will only serve to further alienate them. I think that’s why you are asking these very important questions yourself.
Of course, even if you don’t agree with the conclusions of this analysis then you may still find Marx’s analysis useful to your own project. After all, basically the whole of Critical Theory comes out of this.
Hi, I found your site on a blogring thing. You have an interesting theory in which I may have heard before. As a soon to be graduate of Penn State University, I only understand that the higher education I just went through has left me betwixt at what to do with my life in the so-called, “real world”. But they tell me everything will be okay because my resume will say , Penn State. Who knows? Interesting site.
Good luck with new ” job” I too read the glossy brochures when my daughter was planning her college education , they never seem to live up to them when she got there