There's a video conference on this campus today to "discuss" the UT "system" partnership with Coursera, one of the new large providers of MOOC's, or Massively Open Online Classes. The business model has gotten a lot of attention recently in academic circles as the pace of adoption and instructional change accelerates. We have reached the point at which the Internet becomes a disruptive technology to the 19th-century world of the academy, and the change is making most of us really nervous (to the point where the Duke faculty, for instance, has rejected the whole notion).
Many of my colleagues are planning to show up to the meeting to register "concerns," "misgivings," even "resistance." I wish them the best, but I will not be joining them. I share their concerns but do not believe that the new initiative by the UT "system" is driven by anything approaching instructional concerns. I think the university "system" is under legislative pressure to save money, and also under competitive pressure to remain current on the national scene (in which, for instance, Georgia Tech is planning to offer an entire online Master's degree in Computer Science). In other words, this is a bureaucratic decision that will continue to be implemented by bureaucrats, including but not limited to our department chairs, deans, and provost. We will be allowed to complain if we wish, but the faculty are not the core constituency of the "system."
Do not mistake my tone for anger; indeed, I am convinced that within the next decade the whole 19th Century edifice of higher ed in this country will have been dismantled. I am also convinced that faculty--especially at smaller institutions like the one where I work--must adapt to the new situation or find new lines of work. I imagine that faculty working at larger, R-1 type institutions, will be able to weather the change just fine. We are extremely exposed out here in NWTN, with a shrinking pool of students, fierce competition from private colleges and from a couple of bigger public institutions, and barely-nominal support from the UT "system."**
The question in my mind is, not how do we resist these changes--they are coming no matter what--but how we adapt to them and make them work for us. That's going to take some leadership from the very top at this extremely top-down oriented campus. I wonder if they are up to it.
Scare quote explanation below the fold--
**I have been putting "system" in scare quotes because it is clear to me that the UT "system" is not really a system as much as it is UT-Knoxville, with a couple of minor players sticking on like Remorae, to be discarded when they (we) no longer serve an institutional purpose. I have watched as time and time again UTK does and gets what it wants and assumes no sense that it has a leadership or cooperative role to play. In as simple a matter as sharing library resources, faculty and staff here in NWTN just get stonewalled. Not that I blame them: such are the perks of being the flagship institution. I just wish they were more honest about it rather than mouthing platitudes about how "valued a member of the UT family" my little institution is.
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