<p>"A brash tech entrepreneur thinks he can reinvent higher education by stripping it down to its essence, eliminating lectures and tenure along with football games, ivy-covered buildings, and research libraries. What if he's right?:
by Graeme Wood, August 13, 2014</p>
<p>I started to read it… but it is so long.</p>
<p>I can’t figure out why a professor would want to work for Minerva long term. Most professors don’t want to teach solely online (it’s boring for them). Minerva offers no community of colleagues, no research facilities or support. The teaching must conform to a pedagogical model that many would find very confining. There is also no job security. It doesn’t sound very appealing. I suppose Minerva could continue to cherrypick celebrity adjuncts from other institutions for a while, but then it’s not really “transforming” higher ed, is it? </p>
<p>I got half way through it and though it’s an interesting idea, I really don’t see students willing to pony up $28k in tuition for a “fascistic” learning experience.</p>
<p>As for the rest of the article, I agree with Madison85; teal deer.</p>
<p>Maintaining those ivy-covered buildings is indeed very costly! It is difficult to put an AC in these buildings. </p>
<p>I thought LACs have already spent less money on research.</p>
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Generalization, eh? Here at UCLA, I’ve had to take three teaching courses. UCLA requires TAs to take a subject-specific teaching training course for every department in which they want to teach, and students who teach writing courses have to take a specialized course in how to teach writing skills. </p>
<p>Moreover, it’s pretty typical for a supervising professor to observe his/her TAs during discussion section at least once every quarter, and TAs are usually offered the opportunity to give a guest lecture during the quarter (especially on a topic close to the student’s interests). There’s a great deal of feedback and opportunity for teaching, and at the risk of bragging, I’ve amassed a sizable teaching portfolio at this point with some pretty glowing student reviews.</p>
<p>Sure, some universities/programs put their students on fellowship for 5 years, and they never see a class until it’s time for them to do their job talks…but certainly not all graduate programs are designed that way. Teaching experience is always considered a plus in the hiring game, especially in today’s highly saturated job market where you have the luxury of choosing someone who’s a star at teaching AND research. </p>
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There’s a wonderful irony in using university-derived research for arguing for their replacement. </p>
<p>Eliminating research libraries and labs entirely would significantly curtail future research, quite a problem for figuring out where the knowledge for these classes is going to come from. Any “improvement” model of higher education must account for that unless it’s considered ideal to teach increasingly outdated information indefinitely.</p>
<p>Actually, it depends on who or what are subsidizing what or who. At some research universities, the whole undergraduate part could be gotten rid of and research could continue solely with research grants. In fact, research institutions like that exist.</p>