So I was browsing Pharyngula when I should have been getting some lunch, and was saddened to see an ad for the University of Phoenix there next to PeeZed’s lucid and fiery prose. One can make an argument (and Phoenix certainly does) that Phoenix is providing an important service to people who can’t quit everything and spend four years in college. The profit motive clearly confuses things in deep and unfortunate ways, though (much like the college athletics mess in the U.S.), and the recent blistering NY Times article nicely discusses many of the issues at hand.
I realize that the ad was almost certainly arranged through ScienceBlogs rather than PeeZed directly. Still, to see Paul’s writing next to that ad was nearly as jarring as a banner for a church (or Republican Party) fundraiser. He (and pretty much all of us at UMM) have hitched our wagons to a style and philosophy of education that emphasizes personal contact, face-to-face interaction, and an emphasis on ideas, critical thinking and analysis, and our students’ development rather than profit.
Hmph.
Hmph, indeed. Given that you enjoy the intellectual give-and-take of PZ, ScienceBlogs, and probably other blogs as well, surely you realize that you can have the personal contact and interaction and an emphasis on ideas, critical thinking, and analysis without being face-to-face?
While UoP’s motive is profit, I can assure you that losing students (and thus enrollment $$) is a great way for state legislatures to decide to cut your budget, so even non-profit U’s like mine have taken to embracing the “student as consumer” marketing viewpoint.
The point to this rambling comment, I think, is that the overarching motivation of the university doesn’t necessarily impact the style of education you describe above, nor does teaching online. One of my bosses had to develop and teach an online course for the ed. dept. at my university, and she worked her butt off, had regular correspondence with her students, and definitely emphasized critical thinking, ideas, and analysis (she regularly bounced ideas off me during lunch hours/after work hours). I’ve had friends who have taken online courses and have said they were some of the most challenging and worthwhile courses they’ve taken.
Of course, there are equally online courses that are a breeze, a shoo-in, with lazy and worthless instructors. But then, one hopes the lazy and worthless instructors will be drummed out of the corps, just as they are when they’re teaching in person.
(got your blog from PZ’s recent blogroll update)