Focus 580; Prof Scam: Professors and the Demise of Higher Education

Good morning. Thanks very much for being with us today. Certainly I'd like to start out by having you talk a little bit about how it is you feel we've gotten to this point. It's my it's my understanding from from the book that you don't feel that things have always been this bad and that somehow the kind of professor you see us having today is a fairly recent development at least it's a post will War Two phenomenon if the prop is the professor. How do we get the kind of professor that we have. Well it's it's difficult to say exactly when this current situation developed but in the book I trace it back to the 19th century with the use of the term in university. Clearly the university changed radically since then. I think that the world works. But I think what's happened is more of a matter of degree. What you have is who once was a model of this to be modeled like think of the best university professor the professor's teacher and. Professor is research or what we've seen since World War 2 particularly at schools like

University of Illinois. Is the shift of priorities so radically that now there's only a single model of the successful professor which is the professor as researcher and that what you have is the celebration of the Prophet specializations hyper specialization and the narrowing of the focus of the professor into their own specializations with the concurrent flight from teaching the value of teaching and I pay but before we get into it is there's probably no it is you are well aware that probably no university in the country I think with the possible exception of Harvard that I deal with more frequently in the book than the University of Illinois in fact at the University of Illinois Pennsylvania was one of the big case studies. In the book and I'd be glad to talk about specifically what I did you know first of all well before that just let me ask one more general question and that is you know if if it is true that we have shifted our definition of

Professor at least when we think of what they should be doing we've shifted them from a teacher to a researcher. People have are less generalist than they were before and have narrowed their field of interest into very specific kind of ideas. And also if I think as you say in the book an awful lot of what's done now in higher education is driven by the need for or the desire for grant money and the kind of money that can come from consulting all of that. You know it was this change a result of circumstances always it was a driven by outside circumstances or do you think that the faculty chose this path for themselves a little bit of both. There's no simple answer. Clearly what happened after World War 2 was the flood of grant money academia suddenly became a ticket to considerable influence and Apple for those who were successful researchers society meets certain demands on the university that the university responded to by doing much of this research. But clearly

I think that the kinds of priorities today are driven internally by the props laureate as a as a profession that it has. The power within the university and I think that what you see that reflected in me in the curriculum which tends to follow the interests of the departments and of the professors themselves clearly not the implicit needs of the student. And so in a sense I think that the proper story it has to bear a disproportionate share of the of the blame for the kinds of things that for example I thought of University of Illinois. Well why don't we get specific and since you feel that the University of Illinois serves as a good example for the kind of things that you see happening all over in higher education. Tell us what you found at the University of Illinois that concerns you. Well let me first of all talk about why I picked the University of Illinois one of the interesting things about the University of Illinois is that over the last. Years it's gone through I think it's a remarkable exercise in introspection and almost all the things that I'm going to be talking

about at the University of Illinois were included in the reports published by the administration or or from or from faculty members. So a lot of this is that that's very unusual by the way that a university would go through a process that would highlight its its failings I suppose. So dramatically so much of what I have is actually from the university. I think by the way I just want to say before we get into what is it I'm I'm sorry that the administrators are not in the position to actually have a dialogue with them they're going to be coming on after me and I won't have a chance to respond to them I've never been triple teamed before. That's that's that's the first. But specifically and by the way before we're done I would like to be able to give you some question that that had I been had a chance to go on with them I would have been OK to discuss at the University of Illinois like a lot of the large state universities around the country and it's not unusual in that

what you have is and I think that the so-called Mann report which I cite heavily in the book found that that because of a what would he what would his command that command that would take up and students would through already complex on the part of the. First the research had been emphasized so heavily that the that the faculty felt very strongly that there was that the reward system now really devalued people quite a bit as a result. Student writing was poor and often neglected by the faculty advising programs spotty and that gets quoted as one not one penis quoted in the book I think faculty advising should be seen as its serious business but I talk to my faculty unplumbed blue in the face and most still don't take it seriously because of the emphasis on research. It's very heavy reliance on teaching assistants present professors at University of Illinois and many of the teaching assistants cannot speak understandable English. The curriculum is badly fragmented and there's no consensus any longer at the University of what a

well-rounded liberal arts education ought to be and that the faculty is convinced actually across the board that despite the rhetoric and the listeners you're going to hear quite a lot of that from ministers in the next hour saying how they're going to emphasize picking up what it is. The fact of the faculty doesn't believe that. Any one professor say samplers always talk about home porting teaching as a school but no one believes them in fact when when it comes to decisions on tenure and promotion and hiring. Despite that rhetoric it doesn't count for much of anything. So when you have the phenomenon of large people of large classes large lecture halls having a teaching assistant be one of the things that was striking about the universe people and again this comes from the man report with the university publications and department chairman to be at a class with many juniors and seniors in it and found that for 80 percent of the students 80 percent of the juniors and seniors. This was the first

class that that actually. Ask them to write a term paper in the first quarter which is a rather startling finding. And another senior told Dr. Mann that he had been at the University of Illinois for years but in that four years had only had a single professor in his major So what I'm what I think of the University of Illinois was that despite the fact over the years there had been numerous attempts at reform numerous analyses of what the problem was that little had been done and that in fact the situation had gotten rather badly out of whack and that even the administrators at the school had their moments of candor wouldn't it. So do you do you think that the reason that that the university has been so resistant to change or at least it has failed to address some of these problems adequately again does that go back to the faculty. You seem to

say in the book that you're you know when when professors are Challenge do they tend to draw their weapons in a circle and and I have been very resistant to any attempts to change their way of doing things is that again the root of the problem do you think. Yeah I think it is and I think that the University of Illinois is a very good example of that. One of the lines in the book I said By the mid-1980s. Civil and I was like a drunk would taken a vow of abstinence. Forty or fifty times the record is littered with with reports and analyses. Think boy you know are writing programs terrible its do something about it and 5 years later it is another one saying let's do something about it. Five years where does another one think where we really ought to do something about this. Same thing with the question of advising and hundreds of teaching assistants in the curriculum. I think in one period I said between 1035 in 1958 alone University of Illinois had sent its up to developing a coherent core curriculum at least 10 times before even the big movement

and I think that the question is why is it that that periodically somebody rises up and says boy you know we really need to address ourselves the problems of undergraduate education it's really gotten out of hand. They do a study and here to report and then nothing happens. And part of that is I think goes back to what the discus where power is in the university unlike most organizations which are like the parent with the power and the top universities like an inverted pyramid where the a lot of the power is focused. Right at the bottom with the king of pop's laureate and in the book I quote I scarcely heard often on next hour and this pocky about Pollock university and what I'm saying. Friend of the faculty they are of the university. There is nothing that can be accomplished without them and there is nothing that can be accomplished against it and I think that really in a sense sums up the history of the frustrated refinement. First of all we're talking this morning with Charles Sykes. He's the author of the recently published book

profs scam professors and the demise of higher education. Mr. Sykes is himself a son of a college professor he also has been a reporter for the Milwaukee Journal and editor of the Milwaukee magazine The book is very critical of higher education. We're talking with him this morning and we welcome your questions and comments if you have them as you're listening to Mr. Sykes even if you agree or disagree you'd like to. Within 3 3 3 9 4 5 5 toll free in Illinois 800 to 2 2 9 4 5 5. I have to say that you know on this program I've interviewed quite a few authors and in most cases there are people who are critical of the thing that they're writing about there. They are not not praising it but I have seen. I have read a few books that are as unrelieved Lee negative as yours is and I wonder. I suppose I just have to keep asking myself what you know what your motivation is what exactly is what exactly drives your criticism of higher education. Where does it come from.

I think that part of it has to do with my experience as a professor at the University of Wisconsin Milwaukee where a lot of the phenomenon that's around the universities there and frankly where I'm coming from is that I think that America has many of the students that I dealt with parents in schools like university when you're being ripped off. I think that the gap between what the university says and what it actually delivers is appalling. And I think it is a very serious problem. I think that in the book I talk about the. That University of Illinois like other great university holds out a certain image of itself to the public brag about its faculty brags about its programs. But then when students come there they find that they often don't even see these exactly members if they do their blurbs in the parking lot and the contempt on the part of some of the professors for students many of whom are making significant sacrifices the families make significant sacrifices because I think it is I think shocking and appalling. Now although he said that the book is

on relievedly negative the fact is that one of the heroes there are heroes in the book and some of those heroes are professors who devote themselves to teaching and really care about teaching and the fact that. Back to the book is devoted to a professor at the University one of the places that got to have an economics department was one of those outstanding teachers that I encountered in my travels around the country. He is unfortunately in a chapter called be an endangered species. And what we talk about there is what happens to be if you have an outstanding professor. Now a lot of the criticism that I really want to stress best of the University of Illinois do not come from meat. They come from the mouths of professors and an official report of the University of Illinois itself and the chapter on the press about tap is is is entirely in his words when he talks about the indifference of his colleagues the fact that he keeps the thousand person classroom and that he does this because he Lightwood doesn't want his his

colleagues come to them because they're very indifferent to the quality of education that we talk about because I have 13 teaching assistants all but one of them is a non-American. Some of them don't speak English the whole structure of this. It is not to put a qualified person in front of a class. Now some people may regard that as negative but I regard that as a cry from someone who cares deeply about higher education appears deeply about the quality of education the students are getting and donates and that sense I think the university has to deal not with with my book but with the perception of its own faculty. I have some callers here I'd like to involve them in the program we'll go right to the phones and take someone here in line number one our first person. Hello. Yeah. Good morning. I call mine me David because I knew you'd be disappointed if I did. My theory I have read your book and I sure will and I'm going to buy a copy of this tape. But my theory is it isn't any

tax funded or large insurance funded institution. Why it becomes so solidified that innovation takes two or three generations. And my other point is that if you sit back and look at it you can see that the education public education. Has formed itself into a church where only the duly consecrated know what education is and want to take a place and when it should be done and what it should cost. And I think this is should be it's totally teacher centered and this is exactly the opposite of what we need in these days of rapidly expanding or turning over knowledge because the kids come out of the school with that

virtually no independent learning capabilities nor the ability to produce materials teaching materials that will. Permit them are or that other other people can use the people who are going to take the information directly from the publishing them in a prior to the task still being typical union behavior and not union bashing being typical union behavior or why the teachers are more and more making themselves indispensable. And I have a pretty clear prove future based on only this. Can you show me where I'm wrong please. Well I certainly agree with almost everything that the caller had to say and I am also very concerned about the teacher concerned because in a sense would you have a school like University of Illinois is some of the best the brightest young people in the country and they are

coming. And these are the people who are our hope for the future and what they're getting is a faded overdose of the pain and the indifference of much of the faculty. And what we have is we have a system that seems to be set up for the benefit of the faculty and it is very it's really quite rigid and resistant to change. And and fortunately I think the fight is going to pit him and his price for this. Let me ask you a question Mr. Sykes. Think some people might make you argument that by the time a person gets to college they should be in large part teaching themselves that going to college is not like being in elementary school and we expect something very different from the people who are teaching in those two context. What do you think about that. Well at the University of Illinois student who arrives ought to be prepared to teach themselves at least in the first two years because they're not going to get much help from the faculty. Now that may be very different from the expectation of their parents who are paying out a good deal of money of the

taxpayers. But again I think that that's a rationalization for for the priorities of the university. And clearly highly motivated is going to do quite well at a large university. All right. Racine Wisconsin but too many people fall between the cracks and the problem is that at large university like and Berkeley was another school that I spent a good deal of time at and what people who've looked at those and not myself have concluded is that not only students fall between the cracks but that their chance of getting anything like a coherent education is extremely difficult because of the way the curriculum is structured and the way the system is structured. The fact that advising is something that you know one of the key things is the students ought to at least have good advisors who tell them something. And one of the department advisors put it in the book at the University of Illinois I think that advising is done badly by a lot of people is reflected in the research

Kempsey that advising is a part and parcel of teaching even though it's required of faculty in this college many faculty do a terrible job because it doesn't count in the reward structure. The problem is the reward structure to school like University of Illinois is so skewed that it is constantly driving professors away from their students. And to me that you can rationalize that to try to justify that. Beginning to talk to people themselves but I think that what that does is surrender the tradition of higher education. OK let's go back to the phones and talk with someone else here Lie Number three next Hello. Hello there go there. Hello yes go ahead please. I have two questions one do you know anything about surfaces occasionally as a complaint that there are too many graduate student teaching who do not have an adequate command of the English language and the other is

I think you mentioned that you mentioned Harvard a great deal in your book. Would you make some comparisons between Harvard and the University of Illinois. All these things that you can comment here now hang up. OK two extinct question the first question is about the foreign speaking graduate students an interesting thing in that I have. Talk to the country about this book. There is no subject that has received more attention than the foreign speaking foreign graduates today this is a very significant problem throughout the country in some departments has been in the sciences as many as. And they're not I'm not referring to the University of Illinois Missouri. Two thirds to three quarters of the grad students who are teaching classes are foreign Some are foreign graduates. And many of them do not speak understandable and this is a complaint that I have gotten just about everywhere. I don't mean to pick on the foreign graduate students because they have every right to be here. But to

me this is the most dramatic piece of evidence I can imagine forward with a contempt that undergraduate teaching is held in this country. The fact is that not only have the professors abandon the undergraduate class but that they care so little what happens in those classes that they put in their place people who lack. Minimal communication skills. And this is something that the professor of economics and University of Illinois talks about in my book very very eloquently and dramatically. And frankly if I were on your second hour or the administrators had agreed to come on with me I would ask them to directly answer this question one of the callers left which is how can you justify at a school like the University of Illinois putting a teaching assistant in front of undergraduates who may not be able to speak understandable English. Now they may say that doesn't happen it's an administrator's that doesn't happen but the fact is the students the faculty members say it does happen. And to me that is the part

and I'm glad that the fun part was about Harvard. One of the reasons why I focused on Harvard was the Harvard instance of the model for universities around the country and it sets the tone and many of the same thing. If you find that the universe of all you find at Harvard at Harvard had the big classes already has professors who don't think Harvard has is not a particularly warm and cuddly institution for underclassman you do find heavyset teaching assistant then in fact heavy usage teams don't speak English so instead Harvard has that he has set the tone for universities and I think that what you have around the country schools will emulate that particular model. And in the rise to increase their prestige they tend to imitate it. So quality of undergraduate education at Harvard is not is not is frankly not outstanding. A lot of the great schools in the country have the reputation based on their research and

on their graduate schools and this often does not reflect on the quality of their undergraduate education. OK let's go to another caller on our toll free line here. Number four. Hello. Yes I'm a professor at another Illinois University. Not this campaign Urbana and I can get part of an answer as to why we have students who graduate students with bad English skills classes are not part of it happens because we have small numbers of students of any sort who want to live can pursue careers in math. That's one example. Two thirds of our students come in thinking that they're going to major in their business or in computer science. In both cases something that requires math. We have so darn many students we have to turn the waiting rooms. I mean American companies offering a person working for them in order to take anybody who looks like the preferred practice and say please help us out. Pick another option. That's a very difficult problem. But I think part of it is that consists of whether we have the money to hire additional mathematicians as one example. I have

another problem with what you're saying. Not a problem for me are you. I understand the system and I don't like it. But a problem in explaining to the rest of the world for perfectly good intentions that ended up with a system which punishes and punishes things which we are supposed to do in addition to research what happens is that youve co-directed a system in which a professor and judged by peers. But we have to weigh what we can't have people judged by the members of their own department sometimes or stress. The other kinds of things interpersonal stuff we want to avoid serving other parts of the university to review the provocations of our professors. Now when I'm on such a review committee I'm forced to try to search mathematicians but my math is pretty burnt out in our church where we would have been judges get past this guy published online. But we publish in the right places. If you're doing research that mathematicians think is right. That's a rather standard. Matter of fact I would be much

happier if I could read the man's work and say hey this is a good restaurant etc. it's not for this guy to publish all kinds of stuff that's wait until he has something to say I don't think option at the church under circumstances which are supposedly going to lead to new true judgment and Iraq. But the caller raises a very question which is how a system develops to perfectly good intention and in fact there's no question about that it is being the desire to evaluate people on the basis of research if the research was. What was particularly valuable if it really was expanding the bounds of human knowledge then it would be a marvelous thing. In fact what the caller referred to I think of the pressure to publish in volume and what that's done to the system. And again I talk about Tyler from University of Illinois talked talked about that he said you know there once was a time when you could spend a few years thinking through an important intellectual problem. But now the

pressure is very very intense to publish quickly as possible. You have to turn out six articles you know six articles to get tenure. You can't write books. If you write books then it's all in the oven and you don't have anything to show on your feet and you're not going to survive it. People were turning out of my department have no particular interest in pursuing intellectual questions what they want to produce is articles you can publish in that. Hyper specialized journals you know filled with all kinds of charts graphs and everything. And what's done is obviously someone who's not a health specialist has no way of evaluating that and the value of the work itself is becoming highly questionable. But the empire is built on the basis of that. Now one thing I argue in the book which I know is quite controversial is that out of the ocean of academic research I ask you to mount that valuable to me piece and I think that that sort of academia is a dirty little secret. We're talking this morning with Charles Sykes. He's the author of the book prophet scam it's recently been published it's a

book very critical of higher education professors in particular. This is focused 580 money as David engender We're talking this morning with Charles Sykes. Mr. Sykes is the author of the book prof's GAM professors and the demise of higher education. He is himself the son of a professor he was a reporter for the Milwaukee Journal and editor of Milwaukee magazine his book has been recently published. It is very critical of higher education and professors in particular. We have several callers here will get right back to the phones give you the opportunity to react to some of the things that Mr. Sykes has to say. All you need to do is call us. 3 3 3 9 4 5 5. We also have the toll free line that's 800 to 2 2 9 4 5 5. Goody in Illinois only sorry to say for those Indiana folks who go here to another color. Next up on the line number one. Hello. Hi. Yeah I just like to make a comment to which I would invite him to respond. I had 14 years in higher education both in the arts and the

sciences the public and private schools. And in my observation there's a normal curve in terms of professors just as there is in any other sector of life in the private sector in business. There are some really bad people and some really good people. And I'm wondering if he's aware of the fact one of my degrees was from Harvard. I had one full professor there who was teaching five courses and he was also on the forefront of research in his field people all over the world voted him to taking those five courses because he said they've got to be taught and we have to teach one. But I've got to communicate this and this was one of the professors one of several professors I had at Harvard. Who received standing ovations from the students and their lectures on occasion and I just want to know if he is aware of the fact that there are some very good people out there and perhaps something could be learned from them rather than just bashing the whole system.

Well absolutely I do know that there are people like that and in fact that's why I devoted one scepter to professor University of Illinois was a gifted gifted and talented teacher. Couple of problems. One is is the keening priorities of the university. Yet every school I went to I searched out professors like the one the caller's talking about the really committed teachers and many of them had received tenure 20 30 years ago and you know in an era which the balance of the priority was was a little bit more rational I think. And I asked them if you were coming up through the system now would you get tenure and almost invariably they told me I'm afraid not because now you have evaluated solely on your ability to publish and he did a little scholarly journals and I care too much about teaching if I was teaching three or four year college kids five classes and I was known as a teacher there would be no way I would get tenure here. And in fact I have a chapter in the book called The crucifixion of teach in. It

starts off with the story of a Harvard professor who had standing ovations in his lectures. In fact one Harvard papa Lord for teaching. Name is Alan Brinkley. The next year he was denied tenure and at the time that Alan Brinkley would deny tenure to three of the last four professors who won the teaching award had been denied tenure and throughout the country professors Pliny from Harvard Yale Northwestern University Illinois on down was said to you. The situation has gotten so bad that if you are known as a teacher if you win a teaching word it's almost the kiss of death. It's a negative. So what's happening is not that there are not outstanding professors within higher education. It's that many of these outstanding people are being driven out of the economy those who are in now are going to be replaced. I don't deny that there are wonderful professions now my quest is 20 years from now who's going to be. Who's going to replace him. Because the people coming up through the system now are being told in no uncertain terms what they how they're going to be evaluated and how to survive. And the fact is that

right now I don't. Standing for a researcher with a lousy teacher is probably going to get tenure whereas an outstanding teacher who does not do all that much research. There's no place for him at school like Harvard or at the University of Illinois. Well let me and that really concerns me. Let me again sort of follow up on something that the caller had said. The observation being that in every profession you're going to find a range of talent you find people that are great and fun sometimes people that are not so great. Should we really expect university professors to be any different or or have a higher percentage of excellence than any other profession. No probably not but that's not my point my point is that what you have is the system that is fundamentally biased against certain kinds of excellence and the kind of excellence that the system is biased against is exactly the kind of excellence that is most important to America's undergraduate students which is teach that in the face but those professors who really devote themselves to people who care about their students who deal with them one on one at the possibly at the

expense of publishing for some obscure journal that has a circulation of 150 people and never read by anyone that professor is going to get it from. It's disadvantages and increasingly there is no place for that kind of professor at at the big university. And I think that is a fact I think frankly that's tragic. Let's take another caller here a Lie number two next. Yeah. I teach at the University of Illinois. I've taught here for over 20 years and I recognize what Mr. Sykes is talking about when he talks about the imbalance between rewarding teaching and research. And in fact the HEU report the so-called Q report which was issued by a committee appointed by the Senate says virtually the same thing that he does. The interesting question is whether this report will be implemented that is to say to give equal recognition for teaching and for research and publication. Now that question whether it will be implicated whether it will be implemented relates to the point that I want to make

now. I agree with Mr. Sykes on this imbalance where I see the system very differently from having worked within it is in the power distribution that he describes that is to say all the power at the base inverse pyramid. And in fact it seems to me that the University of Illinois perhaps is a bit peculiar in its form of organization. Because formally departments have a choice between headship in sheer forms of organization the chair form of organization is a more democratic form the power lies in an executive committee in the department the headship the head his total power its like Leviathan. And each head looks at the looks up at the next level at the Dean where the school director and the dean and the school director looks up at the vice chancellor and they look up to the Chancellor and my perception and many other faculty members and certainly the perception of the universe of the Union the UPC here on campus an affiliate of the teeth. Is it one of the major issues here is

precisely governance that the university is governed from above and that the only way something like the Q report is going to get implemented is if the signals come from above and are sent down. And I might tell you that while there is formally an option in the form of governance here it is very difficult for a department to switch from the head to a chair form of organisation because the higher administrators do not wish it. It is very difficult for the faculty advisory committee elected body to overturn decisions of decision making. What I'd like him to address here because I think is. The specificity of the University of Illinois which perhaps he is missing in those blaming that those of us on the faculty who really feel quite powerless in many cases I simply don't dispute what you say. I don't particularly deal with that question in the pocket. It's a very interesting point let me ask the quality question. What do you think you think that the recommendations of that report will in fact

implemented. I have severe reservations that it will and I say that not because they don't want to see it heavy Asli agree with the recommendations but I think that there is almost the kind of ideological hold which has taken place that in fact research is the most important thing that we have the great research library in that we select out the people who are researchers basically. And we've convinced ourselves of another myth another of the logical myth that is to say that good teaching and good research go together so you judge the person on the basis of the research you consume the good teaching unless there's horrible evidence to the contrary. So I think it's a I think it's a really uphill battle to get the Q report implemented I mean I'd like to hear. But since the Berdahl and some of the other people addressed that question because it would seem to me a rather revolutionary prospect. I hope it's not yet. What's interesting about this is that the University of Illinois and because of the. You report on going to them and report what the

problem is is no secret that the situation is very well documented it's very very forcefully argued it's there you continue to pick it up and see what the problems are a lot of the problems I've been talking about a graduate education. The real question comes now having identified these very severe problems. What will the university actually do. And when I was there I found a great deal of skepticism of people who one person dubbed the man reported quote in the book a thing called the operation will spin it is something you have to go through every few years to show that the more things change the body stay the same. But in fact having identified the severe problems what will the university do about them. And the track record. Bar is very discouraging. I have to say that at university you can subvert all is as well known as someone who has taken a very positive approach to that and seems genuinely committed to improving undergraduate education. But I think that over the next few years what happens will be almost a key study in the reform of higher

education. We're moving into our last 10 minutes. Charles Sykes is our guest He's author of the book profs scam professors on the demise of higher education. I have a couple of other people on hold and I want to make sure that we can get a man before we have to finish. So I want to go on to our next caller that's on line number three. Hello. Yeah I agree with the last caller teams me that everybody agrees on what the problem is it's not at all controversial to say that this is the problem but the question of analyzing what the why is your guest points out that the structure is so I just tell professors and everybody else that the important thing is research though it seems to me a bit absurd to then turn around and say well OK we're going to blame the professors for doing you know essentially that which they're told OK if you don't do this you get fired. The real question seems to me is how to change the structure of the university so that it will reflect what it is supposed to reflect in the I've been here since the fall of a two

graduate student and seems to me that the many parts of the university that have sort of been sold off. To private corporations many parts of the engineering school for example are in some sense economically autonomous and don't have to answer to anybody at the same time. When the recommendation is put across that there should be more undergraduate mathematics instruction. The money is not forthcoming to do that though. I get the feeling that problems are being addressed in isolation and that there's a lot of hot air because you can go on all day about how you can improve undergraduate mathematics instruction but nobody's going to pay for it. So I think a lot of us get a little skittish because we understand that the structure is such that we don't have any benumbed graduate student and I teach and we understand very well that we don't have any say in what's going on. But every once in a while these criticisms come up which have a good

basis but the criticism their use for is often something insidious like for example I teach a math barmen there are other who are there for instance to teach in that apartment. Quite often it happens that criticism comes against the foreign CA's which is not at all justified. Students haven't even gone to the class. Though I can't go to that class for NPA and they don't speak English. It will transfer into my class saying you know I can't take one class paid big just because they had a foreign foreign sounding name. I never even went to class. So there's a danger. Once you recognise all these problems if you have a very kind of simplistic and naive analysis uses the fish's conspiracy about rich liberal professors are just doing your time in research and not recognizing that it's an institutional problem. The constraints have been set up by by the layer of managers in the university. What is their institutional agenda whether you

know in the universities the corporations. Good question than I agree with but with most of what you have to say I think that the system we get talking about unfortunately. Yes the professors and Gregson's are often victims of this system. Now who created the system is another question. And I argue in the book that over the years that the system is essentially created by the proper story it is the fool that doesn't necessarily mean that all individual professors are or are responsible for but the good the caller does raise an interesting question. As for the complaint about foreign Peking incident of course there are some illegitimate complaints on the other hand it is. Genuine problem it is a real problem and I think that it ought not to be dismissed totally out of hand. Let me just ask you I want to make sure that you have an opportunity to talk about what you think should be done to change things and you do have one chapter in the book where you outline specifically some of the things that you think it would be good to do. How how would you like to see this. The system as it is changed.

Well I think that its got to be done on a school by school basis. I think at the heart of it is to reorient the priorities of the university say that undergraduate teaching is at least our top priority that our reward system is balanced that there is a place in this university for people who are outstanding teachers who regard that as their primary job to do that you have to change the fundamental reward structure of the universe you got going to have to do reports and say nice things about undergraduate kids but you're going to have to sell it to the professors because frankly you know we don't want a professor of earth this rhetoric again and again and again and it. Don't believe it because they know the two words are not there. And that's going to be crucial. A school like University of Iowa is not going to be changed easily and there are no simple answers for it. What might work at one school might work at another might not work in another. But I think that that that alone would be something I do want to go back to one thing the caller said which is that everybody recognizes what the problems are and I'm glad to hear him say that. But in

fact throughout the country you'd be surprised how many universities simply refuse to acknowledge that these problems of undergraduate education take place who just simply deny that there's any problem at all and won't even deal with it what's different about the University of Illinois I think is that you have administrators who are candid to say there is a problem. Now whether they'll do anything about it is something I don't know. Yeah let's go. I guess I should get on to some more callers again because we got about five six minutes left. Let's go on to our toll free line for another caller. Oh yes I I agree. I did before so I teach in higher education although not at U of I and I agree with a lot with what the likes of Mr. Sykes said I think though I I definitely disagree about the power base that he mentioned and what I would suggest in terms of not so much historically have the promise come about but in terms of power it starts with accreditation Association they accredit universities and departments and the like.

And they said standards of research and I don't know how long that goes back. And so it starts with accreditation associations and universities then accept the standards and it becomes a full circle with the professor at the victim and the victim simply trying to comply with the steps of the troop. Yes and then there's the second part of it that troubles me is one who within the system is that once you get in the circle you find that a lot of people that are judging your work like being put in the chair don't do any research at all. Which if makes it ludicrous. Well the caller makes a good play. Obviously all professions are not in control of their destiny. In the book it is very difficult to simplify an argument in a book to talk about what the academic villages which in a sense are the various discipline. Run by the professors which establish a pristine mechanisms which control the terminals which determine what the priorities are and these are also reflected credit thinking and yes BS. This is where the standards come from. I

trace that back to the proper story to the whole but clearly in individual cases it can be very very impressive. Let's go on to another caller here line number one our next person. Yes I teach at the University of Illinois and I'm calling partly to say that I do sympathize with some of what this speaker is saying but I also think there is an important dimension left out. I guess I agree with some of the points concerning the reward system. But I think that there is a tendency in so far as you have I is trying to set up a reward system only to look at numerical statistics and I tell you. That that more than the pressure to do research is getting in the way of quality teaching. Let me just illustrate a bit more. Most of my colleagues and people I know. And other departments and I certainly am this way really enjoy certain aspects of teaching and are quite committed to doing what we consider to be a good job. That is we enjoy thinking

about the course of course design thinking about ways to improve pedagogy and meeting with students individually has been very important to me. There are things I don't like however I don't like trying to be a crowd pleaser and I find that the pressure is in that direction because the measurement will come out in what are here called ICC evaluations by students. Another measure is number of students we get in our classes and I find that now with the new talk about how we have to look more towards quality teaching. There is an awful lot of emphasis on numbers that would seem to be emerging whereas if in the past this is definitely happened to me if I were to say to to a chair or two. Perhaps some members of the department isn't that serious of administrators. Will I turn down an invitation to give a paper to conference because I'm teaching a new course and I really want to put a lot of time into that and I just don't think I should take time away from that to give this paper or write this paper for a book. They would be really disturbed you know. He would let me know

that my priorities were wrong and I'd be surprised. So I think that we are very much discouraged from putting a great deal of time into the preparation into meeting with students at the same time that we may well be punished if we get low teaching a valuation so I think that the reward system is skewed in a slightly different way from the way you've been talking. No I think it's very interesting and in fact the numbers game played by campuses is a very important phenomenon to understanding what's going on with the curriculum and I do talk about that in the book. So I am familiar with it then. You raise a very valid point. I want to try and squeeze one more person to let me just the moment yeah go ahead. You want to say that you know because I said earlier in the show and I'm sorry that I don't have a chance to engage in a dialogue with three high powered administrators next hour. I can understand why they would want to be on to be able to answer as I said I've never been trouble before. I want to have a chance of course

to respond to anything that they say about the book and I know this may sound a bit crass but. I do feel it's something of a disadvantage there. The book is available at the book center in the ally na Union and for people who have any questions about it or points that I may not have made clear I would simply refer them to that and if there are any points raised by the administrators that I don't have an opportunity to respond to I hope that they can get a copy of the book to deal with and certainly contact me in Milwaukee if they have any questions. OK good enough. Nother color here on our toll free line. Hello. Hello hello. Yes go ahead. I recently retired from 30 years of teaching and research in another state university you know Illinois and part of Illinois. For my from all this experience I think that is to say that accurately is an accurate description of the situation as it is

in higher education. I mean I once taught a course on research literature. Was it. It might have been 15 years ago that Hans Bader the Nobel Prize physicist at Cornell calculated that if the Physical Review grows over the next 10 years at the same rate it grew over the last 10 years it will be larger than a year. The volume the sheer volume of literature that is being published deny its availability to people even in the field. I couldn't keep up with literature in my own specialty. Furthermore the cost of this literature to the to the library is overwhelming the library. We simply can't keep paying for the enormity of the cost of the scientific. I happen to be inside of the literature that's being published by

researchers. In my own field at least that is in science. The least qualified person taught the freshman and sophomore class. No professor that was a professor I would teach these courses. Those who did not have a Ph D. Or had less experience than others with a person three four 500 students introductory course a general education course. So I I have no question I just want to confirm for my own 30 years of experience with this. Oh there's one other thing. Years ago the medical schools of this country were in rather disarray. There was no uniform qualified uniform education of doctors. I don't remember the name of the report but a report was done which

revolutionize medical education in this country. And after all that is graduate education. And now today there are no medical schools or be they're all class A as I understand it. They're all qualified and it came about through the need the disarray in the teaching of. A quick idea I think the caller I'm going to have to jump in because we're at the end of our time. I just wanted to give you Mr. Sikes a chance if you want to make a final comment to go ahead and do that. No I really appreciate the caller's comment and I think that people who have been in academia for a long time will recognize many of the things that I talk about in props camp that in a sense a lot of what I'm talking about is not particularly new. It's been happening for quite a long time. My argument is that it's that the fans are increasingly troublesome and while I'm certainly hopeful that a school like the University of Illinois because I got a comp that the administrators who are about to come on have have at least had the candor and the honesty

to address to acknowledge the existence of many of these problems. My home state University of Wisconsin administrator simply will not acknowledge there's anything wrong with undergraduate education when it stands in that sense. Chance for Bergdahl and his colleagues are way ahead whether in fact they'll be successful. I'm not sure. OK I will have to leave it at that I want to thank you very much for talking with us and for people who are interested in reading more on the topic you might take a look at our guest book. His name is Charles Sykes and the book is Prof Skinner professors and the demise of higher education. Thanks very much for spending the time with us. Thank you.