Changing the Nature of Higher Education - Research Paper Example

 Introduction Higher education in the United s consists of variety of educational s that offer the assistance of well experienced faculty. Strong research throughout the years together with valuable experience has made the colleges and universities in the United States world’s most prestigious institutions. As European University Institute reports, more than 30 of the highest ranked 50 higher educations are in the United States and the credit can be attributed to the colleges’ and universities’ well-resourced faculty (USA, academic career structure, 2010). To achieve the desired results in improving the quality of rendering higher education, faculty development is highly essential. The faculty must adopt a more innovative approach than the rigid policy adopted by many of the higher education systems. The roles that the faculty plays are traditionally influenced and formed by those employing institutions. Such traditional faculty role has also been impacted by numerous societal factors. This paper will discuss the evolution of the faculty in higher education in the United States throughout the history. It will be tracing through the colonial to modern period to find out the societal context that influenced the evolution of faculty in higher education. Finally, the paper will discuss how the future will be influenced by the past and present elements. The History of Higher Education The higher education in the colonial era had been under the administration of queens, kings, and bishops for centuries. The faculty at these institutions faced daily scrutiny from the administrative board and received immoderate approach from the directors who appointed them. In fact, as Thelin (2004, p. 12) states, the academic freedom and the rights of the teacher in respect to the “hiring and firing” received little consideration from the authorities. At this period, a class president usually reported to the board of administrators rather than the faculty. Analyzing through the college statutes and bylaws of the colonial era, one can trace out the clear evidences of an organized endeavor to confine the faculty authority. For an example, there was an authorized provision for “College Senate” in one of the institutions, but the bylaws stated that the membership could be drawn wholly from the board of administers and college governors, and not from the faculty. From these, one can assess that the creation and refinement of the structure is a legacy of the colonial colleges which in turn defined and shaped the higher education system in the United States to the present day. However, Thelin (2004) suggests that we do learn many straightforward incidents from Adams about Harvard in 1858. The classes were small and had about one hundred students per class with a total enrollment of about five hundred. Its faculty could enjoy a high local prestige in the society but were not well paid (p.63). This practice in the Harvard was implemented with intent to encourage them for developing the habit of self-criticism and even self-doubt. By the end of the 19th century, various systems in the German higher education such as ideal of advanced scholarship and doctoral programs with graduate students had influences over the United States’ higher education system. The American university in the 1890s typically was the historic college that was internally renovated and enhanced by new programs. It seemed like a smorgasbord for students and a few of them opted for a bachelor’s degree from there. It was the Morril Act of 1862 contributed to the expansion of the state college into the university model of federated units (Thelin, p. 104). However, the faculty’s teaching overload remained the same even with the expansion into new system. Only token allowances were granted for graduate courses and seminars while curricular offerings were for undergraduates. The implementation of new academic systems resulted in a relatively flat structure having all programs cramped to the undergraduate level. Such circumstances created changes in the faculty system overtime. It enhanced many institutions in hiring faculty in various streams, especially in the sciences. These changes occurred with the societal initiatives and the new teachers brought an increased interest in various researches and scientific inquiries to the campus. Such changes in the faculty arrangement in the higher education system contributed mainly to the natural and physical science streams. The changes also influenced other streams such as economics, history, political science, and psychology in positioning faculty and offering courses in the higher education system. On the other hand, the American hybrid model introduced into the system seemed to have lack of sufficient central planning. The American university of the era was contrary to the anticipations and claims published in the manifestos and proposals of the university builders. Factors Influenced the Evolution A major factor that influenced the changes in faculty system was the contributions made by Charles Eliot (Net industries, 2011). He gained fame though often referred as notoriety by implementing bold modernizations at Harvard College. He introduced an elective system from which some colleges formulated provisions for electives in student curriculum, while others sustained the same course of study. There have been evidences about implementing more provisions for specialized departments. The faculty identification was the factor highly impacted by the provision to conglomerate the colleges. The states’ silence on issues of higher education campus enhancement in the 1880s was not a result of the governments’ disinterest towards research, applied science or technology. It did not imply that colleges or universities were systems for large-scale government projects. And so scientists faced ongoing inspection from the Congress who was always seeking for practical and productive results. However, the federal government invested highly in scientific surveys and researches. Furthermore, philosophical arguments and extravagant designs were some of the factors that influenced the nature of faculty for some years. Thelin (2004) writes that, given this environment of arguments and competition blended with ambition and wealth having no expert jury to impose standards ended up in high shakeout rate among the ambitious institutions, especially in the period between 1880 and 1910 (p.112). The general practice in this era was competing for right faculty and raiding the faculty of competing institutions. Enhancing sumptuous facilities was a common practice implemented by some of the institutions. This phenomenon was identified at Clark University and the Catholic University and losing their top rank between 1900 and 1910 (Thelin, p.112). Regarding the Clark University, the additional concentration on graduate studies and too much emphasis on behavioral science resulted in insufficient operating budget. This weakened financial position made the system vulnerable to the other competing institutions and in turn affected the faculty management. A faculty raid conducted by University of Chicago put an end to its decline from the top rank of universities. This undertaking could improve the faculty conditions in the higher education system to certain extent. Philanthropic bequest from the industrial organizations acted as an important factor in developing the models for academic structure for higher education in the United States. This process had an effect on the campus of corporate model of board of board of administrators and faculty and staff. In the same way, as Zimmer (2009) points out, faculty raid carried out by President Harper of the University of Chicago also had influences on the higher education structure and on the position of the faculty within the structure. He was a managerial mastermind and inventive leader with strong aspiration. He was admired by all the college administrators across the nation as he raided the faculty of Clark University in order to boost up the behavioral science stream at Chicago. The faculty had higher advantage for demanding better facilities and imbursement at this stage. However, the ordinary faculty governance had no authority over the highly commercial athletic department approved by Harper, which had direct accountability only with the president and the board of administrators. Later on, when there occurred the issues of national conference and national journal, the host institution of a scholarly journal had a distinguishable place for the faculty serving as editors. With the creation of the American Association of University Professors, the academic freedom was institutionalized in the higher education system of United States taking the power off the individual campus. The main aim of the implementation of institutionalization was to provide reassurance and rights for faculty members who claimed to have been deprived of their academic rights and violated by enraged heads or argumentative board of administrators. Thorstein Veblen (1965) introduces new faculty ethos regarding their rights in his writings. He exasperated trustees and administrators alike using his radiant, humorous writing about the “theory of the leisure class” and “conspicuous consumption” (Veblen, 1965. P. 42). His satirical explanations of university board of trustees as mislaid businessmen gave him both praise and scorn alike. A major issue in the mid 1900s in the evolution of faculty was that women academics in the coeducational university met with marginalization at every phase. They were asked to be simultaneously a part of and apart from the typical faculty culture. For example, the women faculty was not allowed to enter the faculty club or participate in academic processions. J.Franklin Jameson was a person who contributed to the faculty changes overtime. He left Brown University in 1901 to work in the faculty at Johns Hopkins, and played an important role as an influenced director of the American Historical Association (cited in Schlup and Ryan, 2003, p.255). He utilized the association as a forum to express his hopes for a developed higher education system for the United States which offers scholarship. His strategies also included plans for building up a strong base for advanced faculty system. He suggested that the teaching loads were usually heavy as most of the professors at colleges as well as at universities had not acquired a Ph.D. And in addition, many of them used to spend much of their time doing research and publishing their articles. Remarkable Events In order to empower the higher education system, the CFAT suggested utilizing the incentives of faculty pension plan to encourage American colleges to function in a desired direction. Thelin writes, “one development that was probably unavoidable was that growth and specialization created a need for an academic bureaucracy—a structure characterized by departments and deans, supplemented by regional and national structures” (Thelin, 2004, p. 154). However, the complexity that made the American university distinct was faculties were treated as labors. By the mid 20th century, the faculty was considerably developed and diversified. There were faculty within the American university who were able to read, write, and teach Japanese, Italian, and Russian. In this era, much attention was given to win the war involving physical science faculty in defense-related research, analysis, and development, which included the atom-bomb and hydrogen-bomb projects. In the 1940s there had been steep down in the regular student enrollments as a result of the military draft. The lack of students and teachers forced the board of trustees and the faculty to implement moratorium on enrollment at Harvard Law School as well as in other advanced graduate programs. Future Projections & Conclusions According to Gardiner (n.d.), now, the wide diversity of our students are still to come together with the nation’s imperative need for well-educated graduates and growing dissatisfaction with the quality of our graduates’ knowledge, skills, and values. And so the faculty in the higher education system in the United States system needs to undergo a thorough reformation process. It must create honors colleges, freshman seminars, and interdisciplinary fields. This reform also needs to reward the faculty who showed more commitment to their profession. A quote from the New Criteria (The Higher Learning Commission, 2003) provides brief idea of what faculty should be prepared for the future: “as we move farther into the twenty-first century, the structure of those organizations will become increasingly complex and increasingly flexible to provide higher quality learning in a n age of transformed technology” (Handbook of accreditation, Chap.3). At this juncture, providing quality education to the changing populations of students becomes essential. The roles of the faculty are impacted traditionally and formed by the employing institutions. One of the societal factors that will influence the faculty system in the future is regional accreditation standards. In fact, it can cause tremendous influence on an institution of higher education which in turn results in significant change in faculty roles. As Gurak & Duin (2004) notes, the New Criteria brings about convincing evidence about the impacts of apparent traditional faculty roles and also make Ohio one of the nineteen sates for accreditation. The future faculty system in the higher education must be effective which can replace teaching with learning as the two are powerfully intertwined. It is evident that teaching that does not lead to student learning cannot be said effective. In short, the effectiveness of teaching must be in the learning achieved by students. In short, as suggested by Sun (n.d.), in the future, higher education system faculty teaching needs to be evaluated for its effectiveness and the effectiveness needs to be verified by student learning. References Charles Eliot (1834-1926) - Harvard: From college to university, recruiting a superior faculty, the elective system. (2011). Net Industries. Retrieved from http://education.stateuniversity.com/pages/1951/Eliot-Charles-1834-1926.html Gurak, L. J & Duin, A. H. (2004). The impact of the internet and digital technologies on teaching and research in technical communication. Technical Communication Quarterly. Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Inc, 13(2), 187-198. Retrieved from http://web.nmsu.edu/~jasheppa/courses/572_sp10/additional_readings/gurak_duin_technology.pdf Gardiner, L. F. (n.d). Faculty development in higher education. The National Academy for Academic Leadership. Retrieved from http://www.thenationalacademy.org/readings/facdev.html Handbook of accreditation. (2003). The Higher Learning Commission: A Commission Of the North Central Association, 1.1-15.2. Retrieved from http://www.antiochne.edu/assessment/hlchandbook.pdf Schlup, L & Ryan, J. G. (2003). Historical Dictionary of the Gilded Age. USA: M. E. Sharpe. Sun, J. R. (n.d). Transformed faculty roles in a transformed higher education. University of Rio Grande/ Rio Grande Community College. Retrieved from http://ocair.org/files/presentations/paper2003_04/jrsuntransform.pdf Thelin, J. R. (2004). A History of American Higher Education. USA: John Hopkins University Press. USA, academic career structure. (2010). European University Institute. Retrieved from http://www.eui.eu/ProgrammesAndFellowships/AcademicCareersObservatory/AcademicCareersbyCountry/USA.aspx Veblen. T. B. (1965). The Theory of the Leisure Class. US: Forgotten Books. Zimmer, R. J. (2009). Speeches & publications: University of Chicago’s 500th convocation. Office of the President: The University of Chicago. 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