Dear Commons Community,

Coming on the heels of the vote of San Jose State’s Academic Senate, citing a lack of administrative openness and “extremely low morale,” last week asked the chancellor of the California State University system to review governance at the university, The Chronicle of Higher Education has  an article today highlighting the divergent views of two professors who are able to disagree and agree on instructional technology.

On one side is:

“Peter J. Hadreas … a jazz pianist before he was a philosophy professor here, …

“To have somebody in front of you whom you really believe is going to try to find the truth of things even if it goes against the group—to see somebody like that is as powerful as learning what ad hominem and half-fallacies are,” he tells us. “I don’t think the screen can do that.”

He’s talking about online education, of course—a high-profile issue here at the San Jose State University, where Mr. Hadreas is chair of the philosophy department. He says the web is great for transmitting information, but that the most important exchanges occur among humans face to face. Teaching philosophy, for example, is not just about plunging a bunch of data into another person’s brain; it’s also about empathy, spontaneity, and the sense of embarking—together, and in good faith—on the mission of learning. The key, in other words, is trust.”

On the other side is:

“Khosrow Ghadiri, a part-time lecturer in electrical engineering…He believes the web can help hammer home the bedrock concepts at the foundation of his discipline. But he still sees his presence in the classroom as essential for students.

“They need authoritative figures, so that when they ask the question they believe you,” Mr. Ghadiri says.

Sometimes he’ll overhear his teaching assistant give a perfect answer to a student’s question, he adds. “But the students, they don’t believe him. They verify it with me…

he says he understands how philosophy is different from electrical engineering—that learning outcomes cannot be as easily measured, even at introductory levels. And he agrees unequivocally that professors should be in charge of what they let into their own classrooms.”

The Chronicle article goes on to review San Jose’s grand experiment with MOOCs and comes to the conclusion that:

“Nobody knows what MOOCs—and the new companies and technologies that have come with them—will mean to traditional universities and the professors who teach there.”

So let the experiments continue but the lesson is maybe we should let the faculty work out the issues.

Tony

Dear Commons Community,

One of the more difficult chapters in the history of civil rights may be finally coming to a close.  In September 1957, the integration of Little Rock Central High School marked a turning point in this country when nine black children were admitted to the segregated school under federal court order.  Although they had to be protected from angry mobs and needed military escorts, most of these students persisted and were the first black children to graduate from the segregated school.  The New York Times editorial (see below) today comments:

“Last week, the state, three Little Rock-area school districts and two citizens groups agreed that it was time to phase out nearly $70 million a year in subsidies that have helped those districts achieve workable desegregation through methods like crosstown busing and the creation of magnet schools. The payments would end in 2018. A federal judge will hold a hearing in January on the fairness of the agreement.”

Little Rock is a much different place today than it was in 1957 and it is good to see that this chapter in its history will have closure.

Tony

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New York Times Editorial – November 11, 2013

When the Supreme Court ordered an end to racial segregation in public schools in 1954, there was no foretelling what its mandate for integration “with all deliberate speed” would come to mean. In Little Rock, Ark., the site in 1957 of one of the most explosive desegregation struggles, it has come to mean decades of litigation that may now be nearing an end.

Last week, the state, three Little Rock-area school districts and two citizens groups agreed that it was time to phase out nearly $70 million a year in subsidies that have helped those districts achieve workable desegregation through methods like crosstown busing and the creation of magnet schools. The payments would end in 2018. A federal judge will hold a hearing in January on the fairness of the agreement.

Not everyone is satisfied with the quality of Little Rock’s schools, especially in high-poverty minority neighborhoods. But the agreement may bring an end to one chapter in the long fight for racial equality, one that began with the school board’s unanimous decision to enroll nine black students in Central High School and took a notorious turn when Gov. Orval Faubus decided to play to segregationist politics and mobilized the National Guard to block the students. Mob violence followed, persuading President Dwight Eisenhower to send federal troops to enforce the Supreme Court ruling and escort the students to class.

Ernest Green was the first black student to graduate from the high school — an event happily witnessed by the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., who had warned Mr. Eisenhower that any hesitation in Little Rock in the name of states’ rights would “set the process of integration back 50 years.” History grinds too slow on what “all deliberate speed” means, but the news from Little Rock provides hope that the nation can labor beyond its racist past.