Building a Green Curriculum

When administrators and officials discuss sustainability on campus, the conversation is often directed to the biggest projects with the greatest potential to effect real change: buildings. It's not uncommon to hear of the newest and greenest building set to be designed at any given university.

Such ambition can even reach the heights of Wake Tech, which hopes to create an all-LEED campus. However, this ambition all too frequently falls short, and campuses don't go green enough. Other efforts, such as green landscaping, are left to pick up the slack.

While this effort to increase campus sustainability continues, a recent survey indicates that the green movement has been falling out of favour in curriculum. The result has been a push to revive the inclusion of sustainability, across all curricula. More and more, simple awareness measures are being tied into the course material, from using world oil consumption in a polynomial differentiation question, to using an exhibit on local food practices for teaching methodology in sociology.

This effort aligns with the green movement itself, utilising more of a grassroots approach and relying on individuals to make a difference. And so the opportunity and the tools are there for instructors to do their part in promoting a green campus. The buildings, we hope, will follow.

Online Access

Minnesota State announced yesterday that one-fourth of the state's college credits will be earned through online courses by 2015. The move comes not too long after a recent study announcing increasing rates in online enrollment across the US.

It's no surprise that the wavering economy is cited as the source of these increasing rates. After all, online education not only provides greater access to students -- in the sense of geography and affordability -- but also saves government tax dollars, a sure incentive. But growth in online education is not a new issue, just as access and affordability are not new issues. What may be new is a growing recognition of online education, a noted barrier up until now.

Now, the biggest question seems to be concerning faculty. Instructors are reporting that online courses actually take more of their time to prepare for, raising questions about proper compensation. Yet everyone seems to agree that a model can be found, that faculty can make their way online to try to catch up with enrollment rates.

And it is this shift in concern, from recognition of degrees to faculty compensation, that best illustrates the growing movement of online education, more even than the staggering increases in rates of enrollment. And as this movement gains momentum, so too does accessibility.

Leaders in Pay

The Chronicle has released its annual survey on executive compensation, thereby spurring the annual, if not perpetual, debate on the price tag that comes with university presidents. And with growing economic concerns, there is a heightened scrutiny this year, especially among public research universities where it appears paycheck growth is the most lucrative.

But what is fair compensation? An internationally established principle of fairness, as outlined by an associate professor at Santa Clara University, ties the executives' pay ceiling to the workers' salary floor. In the US, for instance, most state governors are paid less than five times what their college-educated employees earn; this is often seen as a standard for fair pay. So if a contract staff member earns $49,000 a year, a multiple of five would set the maximum fair compensation for the university president at $245,000.

Of course, that's the fair pay argument, and generally looks at what is not being paid rather than what is. What, then, are some other arguments? Going back to the Chronicle's survey, it is apparent that presidents at public master's-degree universities tend to earn less than leaders of public research institutions. In fact, the median of $226,000 falls well shy of the $427,400 earned at research universities, where "the similarities [in tasks faced by presidents] are greater than the differences."

However, the single biggest argument this year is the current state of the economy. David Skorton, President of Cornell University, argues that "[w]e all must work to aggressively and systematically reduce costs to gain savings, even if relatively marginal, and use those savings to slow the rate of tuition increases."

And there are many presidents who share this viewpoint. James Ramsey, President of the University of Louisville, turned down a six-figure bonus to take the same raise as everyone else: $700. James Drake, President of Brevard Community College, received a 53-percent raise of $100,000 and said he would give it back to students to help pay for textbooks. Richard McCormick, president of Rutgers University, received a $100,000 performance bonus and announced he would donate that same amount to the university for financial aid.

Presidents earn their salary in part for their leadership, and responses such as those above illustrate visionary leadership in difficult times. The PR doesn't hurt either.

Recognizing Realities

The National Association of State Universities and Land-Grant Colleges is encouraging colleges and universities to be more transparent with their budgets. They argue that if universities want to be persuasive about funding, they must show where the money is going.

John Lombardi, President of Louisiana State, said that most universities have "obscure, confused and mucked-up budgets" in order to maintain competitiveness with other institutions. Cross-subsidization of budgets gives university leaders messaging control and allows for maneuvers "like the common practice of using undergraduate tuition to help finance research programs."

Of course, these are American post-secondary institutes, where the battle between public and private institutions is at the foreground. This makes the transparency argument all the more compelling north of the border, where a look at economic realities in depth and across the board can help ensure that public institutions are indeed serving the public.

Such a view could very well generate the sort of response that was seen at Brown University. In recognition of the "economic difficulties that many of [the] students and their families are facing", the institution is allowing students to register for classes regardless of debts they may owe the university.

Now, it's worth noting that this move may have been as much a matter of preserving enrollment as it was a matter of being sympathetic to students. But this only goes to show that a recognition of current economic realities is all that many students ask for.

The Pursuit of Prestige

The annual National Survey on Student Engagement was released today, effectively carrying on its tradition as a counterpoint to the obsession so many institutions have with national and global rankings.

This year's report title says it all, highlighting "The Imperative to Look Within." According to the study, "90 percent of the variation in undergraduate education quality occurs within institutions, not between them." Hence the call for universities and colleges to abandon the potentially misleading rankings and to instead focus on their students.

The timing of this call is perfect. It comes on the heels of another study, released just this past Saturday, which indicates that chasing rankings may actually weaken institutions. Like NSSE (or "Nessie"), the study goes on to argue that universities "should focus on carrying out their basic missions and improving their academic offerings".

Thus we see that Nessie's counterpoint is one of perspective: institutional priorities can be based on views from within or from without. And studies demonstrate that there is a wrong choice.

Learning 2.0

It all started with Google. Web 2.0 then flourished with Wikipedia, and has been increasingly finding its way into the higher education learning environment. Even Blackboard, a giant among learning management systems, is embracing the movement by developing a plug-in for a popular open-source alternative, Moodle.

Discussion of the topic is growing. Educause recently released a free eBook, written by multiple authors, exploring the future of computing in education. The book not only addresses the increasing presence of networks, but also the open-source software and social-networking tools that seem to be nearing ubiquity.

And now more and more people are calling for a change in how we teach and how we learn. Mark Wesch, from Kansas State, has become popular through his many YouTube videos about learning in the digital age. His contemporary approaches show the age even of such devices as Blackboard and Clickers, and he embraces the collaboration that Web 2.0 inherently invites.

One of his lectures, "A Portal to Media Literacy", examines the modern classroom and presents the benefits of collaborative learning. With a proper use of emerging technological trends, he improves both the engagement and quality in his classroom by having students build upon the traditional lectures and readings.

The video is well worth a watch. Ignore the questionable arguments and the educational gimmicks, but consider the approach and tools used. Such methods work to lead "the student well beyond the acquisition of a body of knowledge and into the domain of active learning, curiosity, and insight."

The Cause or the Symptom?

Recently, studies have been released that indicate the possibility of contract staff eroding the quality of education for students. According to the studies, part-time staff fail to provide important student services outside the classroom, even to those who need them most.

But who's to blame? One of the study's authors is careful to note: “We are not treating these faculties in a way that they are feeling valued.” The implication, of course, is that faculty cannot provide support to students if they are not themselves receiving support. After all, part-time staff are notoriously overworked and underpaid -- a point stressed last week, as Fair Employment Week was recognized here on campus.

In the end, quality teaching is not simply in the realm of professors. Any erosion of this quality is a greater institutional problem, and oversimplification of the matter does not benefit anyone.