I read this article a long time ago, and it has been sitting in my inbox for a couple of months. I found it the other day and looked at it with new eyes this week after I found out (more to come on this, because I’m totally psyched about it!) that I’ll be teaching a mixed media version of the Advanced Policies and Programs course that I’ve taught since 2003. Really, a similar rationale underlies both innovations: if institutions of higher education are to meet the needs of today’s students (which they must, since they are increasingly expected to compete in a near-clone of the private market, given the continued decline in state investment), then they must find new ways to deliver, package, and market their content. School of Social Welfare perhaps have a particular responsibility here, as we must recruit and retain a diverse student body (in race and ethnicity and socioeconomic status but also in age, life experience, and other dimensions that matter to those we serve) in order to reflect our communities and deliver high-quality, ethical social work.
Still, I’m uncomfortable with the program as laid out here. There are my general objections to privatization–undercutting the public sphere that has a value in itself, eventually eroding support for those same, precious public institutions–as well as some more specific concerns related to the quality of the instruction, the wisdom of making these credits indistinguishable, the loss of the communal learning environment so important in creating educated citizens, rather than just certified professionals.
But I’ve spent time at Fort Hays State, and a lot of time in western Kansas, and I know that the concerns cited are real. I know that the university has been in Topeka warning of dire consequences if funding cuts continue, but they haven’t gotten relief. They need to do something, obviously, or the resource that the university is for an entire region could be lost. But what is lost with this approach? And is there a balance that could have been struck, with expanded distance learning options or some other innovation, that might not have raised the same risks? What do you think? Is this the end of public higher education as we know it? Does that matter? For social workers, how much do you really rely on your BSW or MSW in your daily practice? How connected are you to what you learned there? What options do you wish would have been available to you at the time?
article about Fort Hays State University
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Outsourcing Higher Education?
I read this article a long time ago, and it has been sitting in my inbox for a couple of months. I found it the other day and looked at it with new eyes this week after I found out (more to come on this, because I’m totally psyched about it!) that I’ll be teaching a mixed media version of the Advanced Policies and Programs course that I’ve taught since 2003. Really, a similar rationale underlies both innovations: if institutions of higher education are to meet the needs of today’s students (which they must, since they are increasingly expected to compete in a near-clone of the private market, given the continued decline in state investment), then they must find new ways to deliver, package, and market their content. School of Social Welfare perhaps have a particular responsibility here, as we must recruit and retain a diverse student body (in race and ethnicity and socioeconomic status but also in age, life experience, and other dimensions that matter to those we serve) in order to reflect our communities and deliver high-quality, ethical social work.
Still, I’m uncomfortable with the program as laid out here. There are my general objections to privatization–undercutting the public sphere that has a value in itself, eventually eroding support for those same, precious public institutions–as well as some more specific concerns related to the quality of the instruction, the wisdom of making these credits indistinguishable, the loss of the communal learning environment so important in creating educated citizens, rather than just certified professionals.
But I’ve spent time at Fort Hays State, and a lot of time in western Kansas, and I know that the concerns cited are real. I know that the university has been in Topeka warning of dire consequences if funding cuts continue, but they haven’t gotten relief. They need to do something, obviously, or the resource that the university is for an entire region could be lost. But what is lost with this approach? And is there a balance that could have been struck, with expanded distance learning options or some other innovation, that might not have raised the same risks? What do you think? Is this the end of public higher education as we know it? Does that matter? For social workers, how much do you really rely on your BSW or MSW in your daily practice? How connected are you to what you learned there? What options do you wish would have been available to you at the time?
article about Fort Hays State University
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Posted in Analysis and Commentary
Tagged Kansas, students, teaching