Curmie started his college-level teaching career in 1979. This fall, he will pass the 200 mark in total number of sections of courses taught—not counting independent studies and practicums. He has seen literally dozens of ideas and strategies (not to mention jargon) come into favor and then fade from view when it was discovered that the flavor of the month was more often than not just a re-packaged bad idea from a decade ago.
This is not to say that all changes in curriculum or instruction over the last 40 years have been bad, but roughly 1/3 are just fancy new names for what has been done for years. (Call it “acting” in a theatre class and it’s to be scorned as not really academic; call it “role-playing” in business management or law, and it’s a brilliant new approach to pedagogy.) The overwhelming majority of what’s left are demeaning (to faculty and students alike), counter-productive, time-consuming, anti-intellectual exercises in meditative bean-counting because the average university administrator lacks the expertise, the intelligence, and/or the moral courage to tell corporations to train their own damned employees or provide a few options of where politicians can shove their quantification fetishes. Our job is to prepare students to be citizens of the world, not merely workplace drones, and certainly not ovine lackeys conditioned to vote against their own best interest because the talking head on the TV said to.
In other words, after nearly four decades in the classroom, Curmie has developed a rather discerning olfactory sense when it comes to the presence of bovine fecal matter in the pronouncements of the educationists, most of whom have little to no actual classroom experience. So it was that Curmie detected that familiar aroma when reading a recent article in the Chronicle of Higher Education. It doesn’t really matter which one; they’re depressingly interchangeable. In his own personal page, Curmie posted this:
It turns out that Goucher is indeed eliminating majors in math, physics, religion, studio art, music, theatre, Russian studies, elementary education, and special education. Minors in German studies, Judaic studies, and book studies are also disappearing. The college isn’t in financial trouble, quoth President José Bowen, but Goucher is committed to affordability, and blah blah blah. “Affordability,” by the way, translates into a quarter-million dollar pricetag for a four-year degree. Yes, that’s before scholarships and financial aid, but even after those are figured in, we’re almost certainly looking at something well into six figures, and that’s a healthy chunk of change in Curmie’s neighborhood. (And let’s not pretend that loans qualify in any legitimate definition of “aid.”)
Goucher, of course, is exactly the kind of small college that is going to be hit hardest by politically-driven cynicism about the value of higher education, declining support for student aid programs, and unprecedented demand for superior facilities and equipment: small enough that a change of only a few students can profoundly affect the bottom line, far more expensive than state universities but insufficiently selective to make a degree from there carry immediate gravitas.
Many of these schools are scrambling for whatever enrollment boost they can find. Sometimes this results in innovation (Goucher’s justly renowned study abroad program, for example). But often it’s more of a gimmick, (e.g., the elimination of transcripts in admissions decisions). Moreover, all too often, schools like Goucher show far too much willingness to sacrifice their stated mission to achieve a short-term financial boost. More disturbingly, they can be tempted into betraying their raison d’être even when their numbers are perfectly fine; this year’s freshman class, for example, is the third largest in the college’s history.
Thus, the elimination of these majors makes no sense, even as President Bowen intones that Goucher is somehow bucking the trend to move away from the liberal arts:
Yeah, yeah, they’re not eliminating departments, just majors, and there will still be coursework available in all of those areas of study. But it isn’t the same, and Bowen knows it. How does Curmie know? Because Bowen isn’t an idiot, however much he may be acting like one at the moment. He may be behaving like a corporate minion with neither the intellect nor the interest in education to lead a college, but he’s no dummy. Bowen is Stanford-educated, with an undergrad degree in chemistry, Master’s in music composition and humanities, and a PhD in musicology and humanities. He has a distinguished career as an educator and administrator—a little too much of a TED Talk huckster for Curmie’s taste, but certainly not without relevant skills.
This is not to say that all changes in curriculum or instruction over the last 40 years have been bad, but roughly 1/3 are just fancy new names for what has been done for years. (Call it “acting” in a theatre class and it’s to be scorned as not really academic; call it “role-playing” in business management or law, and it’s a brilliant new approach to pedagogy.) The overwhelming majority of what’s left are demeaning (to faculty and students alike), counter-productive, time-consuming, anti-intellectual exercises in meditative bean-counting because the average university administrator lacks the expertise, the intelligence, and/or the moral courage to tell corporations to train their own damned employees or provide a few options of where politicians can shove their quantification fetishes. Our job is to prepare students to be citizens of the world, not merely workplace drones, and certainly not ovine lackeys conditioned to vote against their own best interest because the talking head on the TV said to.
In other words, after nearly four decades in the classroom, Curmie has developed a rather discerning olfactory sense when it comes to the presence of bovine fecal matter in the pronouncements of the educationists, most of whom have little to no actual classroom experience. So it was that Curmie detected that familiar aroma when reading a recent article in the Chronicle of Higher Education. It doesn’t really matter which one; they’re depressingly interchangeable. In his own personal page, Curmie posted this:
Just read another of those all-too-ubiquitous articles about how universities need to adhere more closely to their “business models.” This one concentrated on increasing efficiency and reducing costs. I’ve got an idea: we could stop throwing pots of money at consultants who have no idea what they’re talking about and who offer only two flavors of advice: the intuitively obvious and the utterly inane.A friend commented that Goucher College has just announced the elimination of a number of majors and courses of study. Curmie hadn’t read about that yet, so it was off to the Google machine.
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| José Bowen: smart, wrong, and deceitful. |
Goucher, of course, is exactly the kind of small college that is going to be hit hardest by politically-driven cynicism about the value of higher education, declining support for student aid programs, and unprecedented demand for superior facilities and equipment: small enough that a change of only a few students can profoundly affect the bottom line, far more expensive than state universities but insufficiently selective to make a degree from there carry immediate gravitas.
Many of these schools are scrambling for whatever enrollment boost they can find. Sometimes this results in innovation (Goucher’s justly renowned study abroad program, for example). But often it’s more of a gimmick, (e.g., the elimination of transcripts in admissions decisions). Moreover, all too often, schools like Goucher show far too much willingness to sacrifice their stated mission to achieve a short-term financial boost. More disturbingly, they can be tempted into betraying their raison d’être even when their numbers are perfectly fine; this year’s freshman class, for example, is the third largest in the college’s history.
Thus, the elimination of these majors makes no sense, even as President Bowen intones that Goucher is somehow bucking the trend to move away from the liberal arts:
Despite many competitors shifting away from a traditional liberal arts model, Goucher remains almost uniquely committed to being a modern liberal arts college. We have long resisted the temptation to adopt more of the vocational programs currently in vogue with segments of the American public. Any new programs we offer will be interdisciplinary and in the liberal arts tradition. We have chosen this path carefully and strategically.Curmie isn’t saying Bowen is lying, but the odor wafting from Bowen’s pronouncements is strikingly redolent of the cow pasture. Because, as Inside Higher Ed’s Colleen Flaherty points out, these are “programs that are considered part of any liberal arts college’s mission.” Precisely. OK, specific area studies majors often thrive until a key faculty member retires or leaves, then wither. This may be the case with Russian studies, German studies, and Judaic studies at Goucher. A thriving Philosophy department could pretty much make up for the loss of a religion major. And so on. But you can’t call yourself a liberal arts college without majors in math, physics, and the fine arts. You. Just. Can’t.
Yeah, yeah, they’re not eliminating departments, just majors, and there will still be coursework available in all of those areas of study. But it isn’t the same, and Bowen knows it. How does Curmie know? Because Bowen isn’t an idiot, however much he may be acting like one at the moment. He may be behaving like a corporate minion with neither the intellect nor the interest in education to lead a college, but he’s no dummy. Bowen is Stanford-educated, with an undergrad degree in chemistry, Master’s in music composition and humanities, and a PhD in musicology and humanities. He has a distinguished career as an educator and administrator—a little too much of a TED Talk huckster for Curmie’s taste, but certainly not without relevant skills.
It is therefore particularly disappointing that Bowen, of all people, would spearhead an effort to strip his college of its legitimacy. Because let’s be totally honest here: every day Goucher continues to advertise itself as a liberal arts college is another day it lies to its students and to the public at large. This kind of abandonment of the core principles of the liberal arts is bad enough when it happens at a place like the University of Akron, which announced it is cutting some 80 (!) degree programs, including (as at Goucher) undergrad degrees in math and physics, plus humanities courses (French, art history…). But at least Akron is up front about its priorities: it wants to become a technology leader, and to foreground programs like polymer science, biosciences and cybersecurity. Curmie doesn’t know diddly about any of those areas, but he’s pretty sure two of the three have nothing to do with the liberal arts. Curmie thinks that’s misguided, but Akron apparently wants to be in the job-training rather than education business. So be it.
Goucher, however, wants to pretend to be something it no longer has a right to claim. The major advantage of a true liberal arts education is that students can readily find their way into disciplines they had no intention of studying when they were 18. Curmie changed majors in college. José Bowen did so nine times! But if we want to get purely pragmatic, it’s simply a statement of fact that programs without majors tend to have more difficulty attracting and retaining good faculty. I think I can speak for the majority of the profession when I say that we’d rather work with people who actually want to be in the room.
Not having those majors affects the quality of students, as well. This is—or at least should be—especially significant in areas like the performing arts, which contribute directly to the quality of life for the entire campus and indeed the larger community. Whereas Curmie has worked with a number of non-majors who have done excellent work, a stroll by the laughably horrible skits presented by the students on the orientation staff a couple of weeks ago suggests that a credible theatre program depends on students who are in fact serious about the work. I suspect this is even more true in music, especially on the instrumental side.
Indeed, instrumental music may provide an apt metaphor for what is happening at Goucher. There may be more interest in violins and trumpets, but if there’s no bassoon or ‘cello, it’s not an orchestra. Similarly, students may be more interested in economics or political science, but it’s not a liberal arts college without full courses of study in (at least) physics, math, and all of the fine arts.
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