Should Universities pay more for teachers or administrators?

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Permalink Reply by Phoebe Harris Elefante on July 16, 2009 at 7:37am

Fewer teachers, fewer administrators. Use technology to educate everybody at exactly the right pace - personalized for my/your/their needs!

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Permalink Reply by Suzi Shapiro on July 16, 2009 at 8:43pm

This can take more teachers and sometimes more administration.

Online classes take more time to teach because many things must be done in writing or pre-produced.

"Programed-learning" is fine for learning how to use your new appliance, but not for helping you to learn how to think.

While online learning may not need more administrators, it does need technical support staff!

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Permalink Reply by Bruce LaDuke on July 17, 2009 at 1:50am

As the NBIC convergence unfolds, empowered by the deep web and semantic technologies, education will be under increasing pressure to 'open source' knowledge. Instructors will stay in instituions, but knowledge will centralize and move to the civic space. Business then needs to return to performance-based approaches, which are universally applied to any knowledge domain.

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Permalink Reply by Suzi Shapiro on July 17, 2009 at 9:28am

One of my rules of thumb for evaluating information is to remember "Its not that simple."

I have taught at the university level for almost 30 years. I have done some administrative work. I have watched my students get jobs with two years of college that paid more money than I made with a Masters degree or PhD. Most of us do not make as much as you think, particularly given our level of education.
A good indication of the value that a culture places on education is how much it values its teachers.

Most faculty I know work 50 to 80 hour weeks. The increased emphasis on accountability means more documentation and reporting, with no extra time to do it. The demand to do some type of research means you must stay current in some aspect of your discipline. The job has gotten more challenging every year.

An administrative job removes the enjoyment of sharing what you have spent a lifetime learning and replaces it with accreditation meetings, assessment reports, and worry about whether you can hire someone competent to teach a course. Most faculty will not take on administrative duties unless paid more. Some like it and do it well, freeing the rest of the faculty to do what they need to do.

As to the teaching ability of some faculty, teaching skill varies as does any skill. I have had professors where it was a challenge to get anything out of the class. Sometimes it was a bad match between my current skill and their level of teaching when I tried to take a course I was not prepared for. Sometimes I didn't like the subject and I attributed that to the teacher (Nothing like 20/20 hindsight.) Sometimes they made me miserable and I learned more than I thought possible.

I learned to deal with a variety of people. I learned to figure out how to do what someone else wanted. I learned how to get something out of a class, even if the instructor was not the best. All of these skills helped me when I was an employee and had to deal with the boss or supervisor who wasn't clear or I had to do a task that no one would teach me.

Higher education is not just about someone making it easy or pleasant for you to learn something. It is about learning how to be a part of a broader community that extends outside of your neighborhood or your comfort zone. The reduction in government support over the last 30 years is a good indication of the value we place on it as a culture, and lower support means higher tuition.

I could go on, but ....

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