AFT’s Reaction?

I suppose AFT’s John Lee (http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2007/01/22/bias) would argue that the findings of such a review do not constitute “scientific” evidence of bias.

Publius, at 7:41 am EDT on April 9, 2007

The Rule That Proves the Exception...Or Something

So let me get this straight: one department at one university in one corner of one state is apparently out of control. This, of course, means that Horowitz and ACTA were right all along.

Do they even offer freshman logic in college anymore?

Unapologetically Tenured, at 9:46 am EDT on April 9, 2007

The non-response response

Aside from the sweeping generalizations about campus politics can someone tell me what the content of the response is? If the quotes above are a reflection of what this interim department chair really said, as a public response to a damning and consequential report, then the problem is obvious. Let’s skip the political sniping— read the response as a response. It’s meaningless at best and a set of lies at the worst. Mean spirited, bullying, anti-student behavior is met with “gee, we don’t like the report..."??

Midwesterner, at 10:01 am EDT on April 9, 2007

Report — Accreditation

The history of this case demonstrates the proper use of private accreditation to review and alter abhorrent behavior.

Academia should do all it can to keep the Courts out of higher education. Rarely is the legal decision delivered swiftly. The Courts are underfunded to be prompt.

It will not matter to Mo State where this case is heard. The facts on their side are awful.

As James said in his response to the November 1, 2006, IHE article on the same subject, the worst act was to bring the student up on charges. This proves to me that the department has a systemic problem.

My hope is that the school will be permitted to make corrections. It would be appropriate for the Mo State lawyers to use the Brooker lawsuit to obtain a stay and an injunction to permit the school time to re-group and re-train. It should be permitted to learn as well as teach, rather than suffer extinction. Brooker said she wanted vindication, not money.

To terminate the program as the report suggests would be overkill with nothing gained from the experience. It appears the termination recommendation is motivated by what to do with tenured faculty. Tackle that problem, rather than end run the issues by termination of the program. Short term technical solutions should not be utilized. Education serves the long term goals of society. Accreditation, peer review, and contrary opinion must be allowed to perform.

William Sumner Scott, J.D.

Judicial Equality Foundation, Inc.

wss@jefound.org

William Sumner Scott, J.D., at 1:55 pm EDT on April 9, 2007

Bullying in the academic world? I’m shocked, shocked, I tell you.

Oh my, On Campus, at 1:57 pm EDT on April 9, 2007

So the report says: “It seems that their time is spent in meetings and endless processing rather than productive activities which could move the school forward.” And the Department Chair’s response is:"Etta Madden, acting chair of the department, said that the professors in social work were taking the report seriously and had already started informal discussions and planning meetings to figure out how to make improvements in the program.”

So when a report says they’re spending too much time in meetings, their response is. . . to have a MEETING?

Chris, at 3:55 pm EDT on April 9, 2007

IS the discipline the problem?

I’ve taught at four universities and in every case, without exception, social work was widely regarded as the weakest academic program on campus. It strikes me that the problem may be the lack of standards. This makes a program “easy” for anyone who likes the professors and “hard” for anyone else. Perhaps the solution is simply a more rigorous curriculum in which the criteria for grading are valid and reliable. Even participation can be graded on a quantitative scale that others can replicate.

I hate to hold such prejudices, but even in the “soft” social sciences like my own program, students who simply want to dodge serious writing or (heaven forbid) math seem to congregate in the social work program. Needless to say, these programs never go wanting for students!

So am I right about the discipline of social work? If I’m correct, then social work majors should be people who avoid hard work — i.e. less likely to have taken a rigorous curriculum in high school and possibly less likely to score highly on the SAT (although these are only a partial proxy for work ethic). So in principle, the rigor of a program could be examined by analyzing the students who choose that program (and whether their grades are similar to other departments).

Someone who has conducted this sort of analysis: please tell me I’m wrong about this. I’d like to think that the entire university is challenging and rigorous.

Jeff, Assistant Professor of Political Science, at 5:25 am EDT on April 10, 2007