The Corporatization of the University

UUP Technology and Intellectual Property Issues Committee

Karen Volkmankaren.volkman@plattsburgh.edu

SUNY Plattsburgh

Glenn McNittmcnittfg@newpaltz.edu

SUNY New Paltz

Expansion of Postsecondary Distance Education in the U.S.

• Distance Education at Postsecondary Institutions 1997-98, published by the National Center for Education Statistics is still the definitive survey

• This survey indicates that 78% of public 4-year institutions and 62% of public 2-year institutions offer distance learning courses

Distance Education at Postsecondary Education Institutions: 1997-98 http://nces.ed.gov/pubs2000/2000013.pdf p. 31

The Pie Chart on the Right Shows Enrollment in Credit-Granting Distance Education Classes

Corporate America Also Tracks University Distance Education

• International Data Corporation (IDC) reports that in 2002 approximately 85% of 2-year and 4-year institutions will offer distance education courses

• IDC refers to increased enrollments as the “elearning market”

http://www.idc.com/getdoc.jhtml?containerId=pr51213

IDC Corporate Analysis on Market Potential

“Elearning” on Wall Street

• Some of larger distance education corporations have graduated from venture capital to publicly traded companies on U.S. stock exchanges

• The Chronicle of Higher Education has created a special index to track the performance of these companies

http://chronicle.com/free/v48/i35/35a03601.htm

Note that the “for profit” higher education companies outperformed the S&P 500

http://chronicle.com/free/v48/i35/35a03601.htm

Why? All companies showed significant increases in enrollments; especially the U. of Phoenix

http://chronicle.com/free/v48/i35/35a03601.htm

The U. of Phoenix is part of the Apollo group.This company outperformed the rest of thefor-profit index.

Distance Education by Category

• State or community college distance education systems

• Course Management System Vendors

• Virtual Universities

• Corporate - University Joint Ventures

State or community college systems

• Mixture of non-profit and for-profit

• SUNY Learning Network (SLN), NYU Online, and U of Maryland University College are examples

• Typically accredited same as home system, such as Middle States or North Central

Course Management System Vendors

• Vendors provide software platform environments for faculty to build their courses

• The course environment simplifies organization and faculty interaction with students without having to know programming

• Generally don’t provide course content

• Examples: WebCT and Blackboard

Virtual Universities

• Completely online institutions

• Most faculty are part time

• Many are aimed at working adults

• Accreditation varies; some have North Central

• Often taught by practitioners; have more practical training focus

• Examples are Capella U., U. of Phoenix, and Western Governors University

Corporate -University Joint Ventures

• Content contracted through corporate entity

• Course offered through university

• Course content is provided in module format for selection into course

• Typically content is created by faculty stars

• Teaching assistants can be subcontracted through company to “monitor” course

A Virtual Revolution: Trends in the Expansion of Distance Education p. 13 http://www.aft.org/higher_ed/downloadable/VirtualRevolution.pdf

Who Are the Corporate - University Joint Ventures?

Watch the WorkCorporate -University Ventures

• Many of these ventures are new on the horizon

• These ventures tend to approach at the system level to gain entry

• They focus on large enrollment classes, such as general education

• They contract with expert faculty to develop various modules for a class

Watch the Work in Your Backyard

• Global Education Network (GEN) approached SUNY Central this academic year

• GEN wanted to provide courses to meet the SUNY General Education requirements

• GEN distributed recruitment emails to SUNY Faculty– See recruitment email

GEN Deals with General Education

• GEN’s premise is that system wide entry level courses are difficult to find enough faculty to cover

• GEN assumes that there is less interest in humanities courses offered via distance learning

• GEN contracts with five or six superstars to assemble course content

Distance Education at Postsecondary Education Institutions: 1997-98 http://nces.ed.gov/pubs2000/2000013.pdf p. 39

NCES data doesn’t support a dearth of humanities courses via distance education

What’s the Story Behind GEN?

• GEN was started by venture capitalist Herbert Allen and Williams College Professor Mark Taylor

• $20 million has already been invested

• GEN originally sought professors from private elite liberal arts colleges to develop content

• Few such institutions have signed on

GEN even seems to be interested in marketing distance education via PBS

Corporatization of the UniversityWhat Core Values Do We Lose

• Academic freedom

• Academic work ethic

• Freedom for research

• Traditional university interaction

Wither Academic Freedom If you’re not the “superstar”

• Dinner Module menu to choose from

• No creation of own class content

• Simplified mass production

• Loss of departmental control of curriculum

• Loss of comparison to traditional class based course

• Different standards of assessment

• Class can be contracted to outsider

Wither Academic Freedom What Happens to Your Tenure?

• How can you be evaluated for teaching someone else’s content?

• Different expectations of both you and your students for the contract course

• Second class citizen of faculty

• Differing expectations of terminal degree

Wither Academic Work Ethic

• Faculty have no reason to be engaged

• Faculty have no opportunity to share research with their students

• Subcontracted faculty are not part of campus life; serving on governance and other campus functions

• Department level work ceases to be relevant

Wither Freedom for Research

• Classes devolve into degree mills

• Devaluation of faculty scholarship

• Students miss opportunity to share and participate in faculty research

• Enrollments, not scholarship are rewarded

• Practitioner level scholarship emphasis

• Devaluation of humanities scholarship

Wither the Traditional University

• No sense of engagement of peers

• Devaluation of university peer system of department and faculty governance

• Reliance on outsiders to teach

• Loss of traditional interaction with students both in class and at campus forums

• Loss of intellectual community

What Will Be the Condition of the University?

What Risks Does Corporatization of the University Ultimately Impose?