What's Harvard's future? Second post

Yesterday I posted: What's Harvard's future?

In a New Republic article, Harvard Law Professor William J. Stuntz says it's not very bright:

Fifty years ago, General Motors was on top of the world--and knew it. GM dominated the American automobile market, and the American market dominated the world.
…
What could possibly go wrong?

You know the answer. If you had to give it in two words, you’d say: Honda, Toyota.

Stuntz believes Harvard and other leading American private and public American universities are now in a position similar to GM’s in the 50s. What’s worse, like GM then , they’re smug, ignore critics, resist change, over-reward entrenched employees, and deliver an increasingly inferior product at too high a price.

I said I’d give Stuntz a second read last night and post today. For my latest, I picked what most stood out to me and skipped quite lot.

So reader beware. Better still, read Stuntz’s article here (Registration's required but it's free and easy.)

Stuntz says:

There is little reason to believe that undergrads and graduate students are better educated today than a generation ago. More likely the opposite. Teaching loads of senior professors have declined; probably teaching quality has declined with it.

It’s hard to say whether a decline in teaching quality is tied to a decline in the teaching load of senior professors.

Senior professors aren’t necessarily good undergrad teachers and some grad students are excellent teachers.

But there is a "truth in labeling" issue involved here. If universities are going to give senior faculty a pass on undergrad teaching, the consumers – parents and students – ought to know that.

I recently learned that more than 50% of the undergraduate courses offered at the University of North Carolina –Chapel Hill are taught by grad students and part-time faculty.

Most North Carolinians would be surprised by that statistic. And I think they would ask, “Why is that?”

I have no idea what UNC – Chapel Hill administrators would say in response.

More Stuntz:

The culture of research universities has grown ever more contemptuous of students, especially undergraduates, who are seen as an interruption of one's real work rather than the reason for the enterprise. Which means that, year by year, students and their parents pay more for less. That isn't a sustainable business plan.

It’s very important to note Stuntz is talking about the “culture of research universities;” not individual professors, many of whom welcome and respect students.

That said, I’ll add: Many college faculty tell me time spent with students doesn’t count for much with trustees and administrators; only research matters, especially at tenure and promotion times.

Still more Stuntz

If undergraduate education is too often an afterthought, graduate education is too often a con game. A sizeable percentage of PhDs will never get tenure-track teaching jobs, which are the only jobs for which their education trains them. Since no jobs await them, they hang around longer getting their degrees, all the while teaching classes and doing research for their academic sponsors.

And that’s why, if you live near a large university, you know many people who understand plumbing theory and development but, like the rest of us, you can’t find anyone to unclog your pipes.

Stuntz:

Universities compartmentalize knowledge, chopping it up into ever more and smaller pieces.

I teach and write about American criminal justice. Scholarship on crime and criminal justice is divided among a half-dozen different schools and departments: law, political science, economics, sociology, anthropology, and public health.

Scholars in each of those areas know next to nothing about scholarship in all the others. (I'm no better than anyone else on this score.) No wonder our work is ignored by policymakers; each of us can elaborately describe his own piece of the elephant but none sees the beast whole.

One could tell the same story with respect to dozens of other fields of study.

I’ll come back to Stuntz’s essay over the weekend.

Meanwhile, I hope you read it and comment.