The Corporatization of the University
UUP Technology and Intellectual
Property Issues Committee
Karen Volkman
karen.volkman@plattsburgh.edu
SUNY Plattsburgh
Glenn McNitt
mcnittfg@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
The Pie Chart on the Right Shows Enrollment in
Credit-Granting Distance Education Classes
Distance Education at Postsecondary Education Institutions:
1997-98 http://nces.ed.gov/pubs2000/2000013.pdf p. 31
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”
IDC Corporate Analysis on Market Potential
http://www.idc.com/getdoc.jhtml?containerId=pr51213
“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
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 the
for-profit index.
http://chronicle.com/free/v48/i35/35a03601.htm
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
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•
•
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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
Who Are the Corporate - University
Joint Ventures?
A Virtual Revolution: Trends in the Expansion of Distance Education p. 13
http://www.aft.org/higher_ed/downloadable/VirtualRevolution.pdf
Watch the Work
Corporate -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
NCES data doesn’t support a dearth of
humanities courses via distance education
Distance Education at Postsecondary Education Institutions:
1997-98 http://nces.ed.gov/pubs2000/2000013.pdf p. 39
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 University
What Core Values Do We Lose
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•
•
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Academic freedom
Academic work ethic
Freedom for research
Traditional university interaction
Wither Academic Freedom
If you’re not the “superstar”
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•
•
•
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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?