Education

Gilder Lehrman and Dickinson College Partner for Lincoln Online Course

by David Austin Walsh

Abraham Lincoln in 1865.With all the digital ink spilt over massive open online courses recently, it's easy to forget that while all MOOCs are online courses, not all online courses are MOOCs.Take “Understanding Lincoln,” a new online course co-sponsored by the Gilder Lehrman Institute Dickinson College. The course, led by Lincoln scholar Matthew Pinsker, will offer a hybrid approach – a smaller seminar section with a hundred-student enrollment cap, direct access to Professor Pinkser and Gilder Lehrman staff, and the opportunity to interact with other students in digital forums.For-credit students will pay $450 and receive three graduate credits at Dickinson, which can be used as transfer credit at other institutions.For those interested in enrichment, a free section featuring lectures and readings will also be available, along with a certificate of completion for those who finish the course.

SCOTUS Ruling on Affirmative Action Could Give Private Universities Advantage

by John Willingham

Credit: Wiki Commons.The Supreme Court, in a 7-1 decision with Justice Ginsburg dissenting, has issued a ruling in the Fisher v. University of Texascase that will likely require public universities to explore virtually all race-neutral alternatives in their attempts to achieve diversity before being able to use race as a factor in admissions.The ruling was probably the result of a compromise that, while not overturning previous decisions and not ruling that UT’s use of race is unconstitutional, will nevertheless lead to greater difficulty for colleges that want to use race as a factor in admissions.The decision vacates the ruling in favor of UT Austin by the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals and remands the case to the circuit court with instructions to apply "strict scrutiny" to the university’s rationale for using race as an admissions factor.

Loose Lips Don't Always Sink College Presidencies

by Howard P. Segal

Gordon Gee and Dale Lick. Credit: OSU/U.Maine/HNN staff.Cross-posted from the Bangor Daily News.As has been widely reported in recent days, the president of mammoth Ohio State University, Gordon Gee, has been forced to resign his position because of comments he made “off the record” back in December  that were only recently reported by the Associated Press. Speaking about why Notre Dame University not been invited to join the Big Ten Conference (now consisting, of course, of ever more than ten schools), Gee lamented that “you just can’t trust those damned Catholics” to do whatever was needed to join. Gee also criticized the University of Louisville as an allegedly inferior academic institution.

"Being a Professor Will No Longer Be a Viable Career."

by David Austin Walsh

With MOOCs the academic freedom of professors is under siege because professors are losing control of their intellectual property, says Cary Nelson, former president of the American Association of University Professors.

Just How Many History MOOCs are Being Offered Now, Anyway?

by David Austin Walsh

Though many historians are nervous about the potential massive disruption in higher education due to the proliferation of massive online education courses, only a handful of MOOCs are actually dedicated to history. Of four of the largest MOOC providers survey -- Coursera, edX, Udacity, and Semester Online -- only eight history courses actually taught by history faculty are being offered. Popular MOOC provider Coursera only has two dedicated history courses taught by historians open for registration as of June 9, though at least one additional class is in development.EdX, the non-profit MOOC established by Harvard and MIT, also offers eight history classes, but most have a classics or literature focus and are taught by professors from classics, English, or area studies departments. Udacity does not offer history or traditional humanities courses at all, focusing instead on STEM and social science courses.

UPenn's Stephanie McCurry to Lead First MOOC on History of Slavery

by David Austin Walsh

Credit: Wiki Commons/HNN staff.Stephanie McCurry, Christopher H. Browne Distinguished Professor of History at the University of Pennsylvania and a distinguished scholar of the Civil War era, will be leading a new massive online open course this fall about the history of slavery in the United States. It will be based on her popular UPenn course, “The Rise and Fall of the Slave South,” a survey-level class.The course, which has yet to be officially titled, is the product of the partnership between UPenn and the popular MOOC provider Coursera.Professor McCurry says that she became interested in teaching a MOOC after spending three years as undergraduate chair at the university, during which she saw a decline in the number of enrollments in history classes.MOOCs offered an opportunity to shake up the field.“I became interested in pedagogical and curricular questions, and I'd already begun a series of initiatives within my department to move away from standard survey/AP-style courses.”

Corporate Welfare or Education?

by Lawrence S. Wittner

Credit: Wiki Commons.“Who needs the Cayman Islands?” That’s how a May 22 New York Times article began as it described “Tax-Free NY,” a plan zealously promoted by New York State’s Democratic Governor, Andrew Cuomo.

Coursera Contract with UT System Released; History Chair Says No MOOCs at Knoxville This Fall

by David Austin Walsh

The University of Tennessee, Knoxville, the flagship campus of the University of Tennessee system, will not be providing massive online open courses for the Silicon Valley tech startup Coursera in the coming semester, says UT Knoxville history department chair Thomas Burman.“This decision does not affect us at all,” he wrote in an email.Only two classes will be offered on the Coursera platform across the entire UT system in fall 2013: an introductory music course at the Martin campus, and freshman English composition at UT Chattanooga.The Tennessean reports that the Coursera partnership is an internal pilot program designed to familiarize faculty with online courses and new technology. The courses offered by the program will only be available on a for-credit basis to already-enrolled UT students.No history courses are planned to be offered under the program.“When the topic [of online education] came up for a wide-ranging discussion among campus leadership [in 2011],” Bruman wrote, “the widely-shared view, including among the central academic administrators, was that on-line teaching has a place in a limited number of areas here, especially in the professional schools, but is not what this campus is about.”

Why MOOCs are Like the Music Industry

by Alex Sayf Cummings

Every year, I have students in my media history class break into two teams. One side has to argue that the media in America have become more homogenous and monopolized by a small handful of corporate interests -- the Viacoms and Murdochs of the world, and possibly the Koch brothers (if they can get their hands on the Los Angeles Times).The other team argues the counterpoint -- that despite the consolidation of radio stations, newspapers, and other traditional media by a few big corporations, the media have actually grown more open and diverse over the last thirty years, with the proliferation of cable, video, blogs, tweets and texts and so forth. Consumers have more options, not less.

Historians at MOOC Partner Schools Say Faculty Not Consulted

by David Austin Walsh

Image via Shutterstock.“When colleges and universities finally decide to make full use of the Internet,” Randall Stross, a professor of business at San Jose State, wrote back in 2011, “most professors will lose their jobs.”With the proliferation of massive online open courses (MOOCs), Stross wrote in an email to HNN, that time may have come.On May 30, Coursera, the Silicon Valley MOOC provider founded by Stanford University computer scientists in 2012, announced that it had just signed agreements with ten state universities systems to produce and share online courses for credit.The signatories are the University of Colorado, the University System of Georgia, the University of Houston system, the University of Kentucky, the University of Nebraska system, the University of New Mexico system, the State University of New York system, the University of Tennessee system and the Tennessee Board of Regents system, and West Virginia University.

A Brief History of College Cheating Scandals

by Fatima Ahmed-Farouta

Cheating and college sports go hand-in-hand. This is especially true in college football, with its extreme competitiveness and the potential to launch careers. Cheating scandals have embroiled most of the top colleges in the country for decades, and the cases run the gamut from cash payments to players, free (and illegal under NCAA rules) perks, academic fraud, financial aid fraud, and -- of course -- drugs, alcohol, and prostitutes. Here is a list of some of the most prominent and cringe-worthy scandals in the history of college sports:1) 1986: SMU gets the death penalty. In 1986, the ABC affiliate in Dallas revealed that the Southern Methodist University football program had been paying its players signing bonuses of up to $25,000. Further investigations by Dallas media unearthed apartments provided to players rent-free, and an NCAA investigation showed that thirteen players had been paid about $61,000 from a slush fund set up for that specific purpose. This practice had gone on for years, with the complicity of both coaches and top school officials.

At Universities, Too, the Rich Grow Richer

by Lawrence S. Wittner

Ohio State University president E. Gordon Gee at the annual meeting of the American Council on Education in March 2013.Although many Americans believe their universities are places where administrators and faculty members coexist on a fairly equal basis, the reality is that this is far from the case.According to recent surveys by the Chronicle of Higher Education, thirty-five private university presidents and four public university presidents topped $1 million in total earnings during the 2011-2012 fiscal year.

The Problem with School "Accountability"

by Robert L. Urzillo

Image via Shutterstock.As we enter the second decade of the twenty-first century two seemingly mutually inclusive factors are becoming prominent in the debate about improving public education: the high-stakes testing movement and paying and retaining teachers based on test results. These "solutions" have become popular across the political spectrum and while it may sound logical to people outside of the education, those of us on the inside know that this is a simple answer to a complex problem.

Gilder Lehrman's Flawed History of Emancipation

by Alan Singer

Image via Shutterstock.Publishers and curriculum developers are racing to align social studies lessons with new national Common Core literacy standards. Most are clearly motivated by financial incentives -- they want to sell textbooks, workshops, and online packages to school districts anxious to comply with new demands.

Do the Common Core Standards Flunk History?

by Craig Thurtell

Image via Shutterstock.

Let the Teachers Teach

by David Patten

Image via Shutterstock.I have found it! After little thought and less reflection, I have found the answer to the problems of American public school education. Best of all, my solution will cost no money, save the taxpayers millions, and produce a well-educated citizenry. The solution is simple: eliminate any and all high stakes proficiency testing and unleash the power of the teachers to do what they do best, educate our children.

How to Revitalize Public Education

by Mark Naison

P.S. 9 in Brooklyn, New York. Credit: Flickr/calculat0r.I have a very different vision of what public schools should be doing than Bill Gates, Michelle Rhee, Jeb Bush, Arne Duncan, Michael Bloomberg and the current generation of “school reformers.” My vision involves making schools centers of community revitalization where young people's curiosity and creativity are nurtured, where student differences are recognized and respected, where the physical and emotional health of children is promoted, where teachers have long careers, and where parents and community members are welcome.

The Argument for Public Support of the Liberal Arts

by Howard P. Segal

Dormitories at Kansas State University. Credit: Wiki Commons.A recent issue of Time magazine was devoted to "Reinventing College." Several full-page public-service ads celebrated "Milestones in the History of U.S. Higher Education." The first ad had "1862" emblazoned across the top, accompanied by a photograph of President Abraham Lincoln.Why the fuss about 1862? Because the 1862 Morrill Land Grant Act, signed by Lincoln in the midst of the Civil War, created many of America's leading public universities. The law's purpose was to democratize higher education. At the time few Americans attended college, and most who did came from families of means.

Will the Real Abraham Lincoln Please Stand Up?

by Alan Singer

Credit: Wiki Commons/HNN staff.This is not another review of Steven Spielberg’s movie Lincoln.Historians Kate Masur and Eric Foner have already raised what I consider two of the most important critiques of the movie. Masur found it “disappointing that in a movie devoted to explaining the abolition of slavery in the United States, African-American characters do almost nothing but passively wait for white men to liberate them ... Mr. Spielberg’s Lincoln helps perpetuate the notion that African Americans have offered little of substance to their own liberation.” She called the movie “an opportunity squandered.”

School Closings and Public Policy

by Mark Naison

Sign at an "Occupy the Schools" rally in New York City last February. Credit: Flickr/Michael Fleshman.School closings, the threat of which hang over Chicago public schools, and which have been a central feature of Bloomberg educational policies in New York, are perhaps the most controversial features of the Obama administration’s “Race to the Top” initiative. The idea of closing low-performing schools, designated as such entirely on the basis of student test scores, removing half of their teaching staff and all of their administrators, and replacing them with a new (typically charter) school in the same building, is one which has tremendous appeal among business leaders and almost none among educators. Advocates see this policy as a way of removing ineffective teachers, adding competition to what had been a stagnant sphere of public service, and putting pressure on teachers in high-poverty areas to demand and get high performance from their students, once again based on performance on standardized tests.