Perceptions of College & Indicators for Accountability

Essential Questions Everyone Should Ask About College or An Elephant In Higher Eds Living Room?

Salvo A. Lavis TC 660H Plan II Honors Program The University of Texas at Austin May 7, 2004

Daniel T. Slesnick, Ph.D. Department of Economics Supervising Professor

Michael Starbird, Ph.D. Department of Mathematics Second Reader

ABSTRACT
Author: Title: Supervising Professor: Salvo Lavis Perceptions of College & Indicators for Accountability Daniel T. Slesnick, Ph.D.

Why go to college? Because I have to. Because I want to get a good job. Because thats what you do after college. College is a necessary step in America today. Students and society demand higher education, and the university and its professors supply its content. Given that college is so important, how does the University of Texas ensure the goals of suppliers and demanders are met? How do faculty members view the goals of their work, and how does that relate to the students goals? Is a college education connected to the reasons that students and faculty are in college in the first place? And whos accountable for ensuring a connection? Much educational research concerns best practices. My study explores the behavioral societal factors that bear on college experiences, and ultimately how they affect the effectiveness of the university. In first-hand interviews with some of UTs best faculty members and surveys of students at various stages of their college careers, I ask if we can use perceptions of college as indicators for accountability.

Introduction & background

Every year the University of Texas at Austin unleashes over ten thousand new graduates into the real world, which for most people means the job market. But aside from a diploma on the wall, what does the undergraduate have to show for his or her college education? Today, a college education is an essential tool in the arsenal of any job hunter. Common advice regarding education goes like this: If you want to get a good job, you have to go to college. Just as common: It used to be that you needed a high school diploma for that job. But now you need a college degree. Some even add that soon enough, graduate school will follow in the footsteps of college in this respect. From the economists point of view, this demand for education is important for a couple big reasons: First the opportunity cost of education is very high, as expected lifetime income increases substantially with the attainment of a bachelors degree. Second, the barriers to entry into low-to- mid level jobs (and above) are also great. College education is now inextricably linked with eligibility for higher than base- level jobs. What about the demand for college is related to the education the university supplies? Does the necessity of a college degree for work lead to increased demand for education? Or is it the other way around? Meaning, what about that degree is changing students into better employees? There are two economic models that can address these issues: the theory of human capital, proposed by Gary Becker 1 , and that of market signaling, for

See http://www.econlib.org/library/Enc/HumanCapital.html for a concise overview of Beckers human

capital theory and other economics work.

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which Michael Spence won the Nobel Prize in 1992. 2 The human capital theory stresses that knowledge and skills acquired in formal education directly increase future productivity of the worker. School produces this productivity increase by teaching [students] marketable skills andproductivity is later rewarded when the graduate enters the labor market, according to economist John D. Owen. The gain in the individuals productivity takes two forms, improvements in cognitive achievements and socialization.3 This kind of transformation is clearly exemplified in trade schooling: learning how to fix leaks, draw blood, or wire circuits increase the effectiveness of plumbers, nurses, and electricians at their respective jobs. Arguably at the University of Texass professional schools, this model holds nicely. The Nursing, Pharmacy, Law, Engineering, Social Work, Education, Public Affairs, and Business Schools ostensibly relay capitalizable knowledge to their graduates, who then directly apply that knowledge in their post-college jobs. One must question if this is the case in the College of Liberal Arts or Natural Sciences? Given that most liberal arts grads dont pursue professions immediately related to the content of their studies, the human capital theory seems challenged from the start. Furthermore, while students enroll in professional schools with the expectation of future employment in the field, this also doesnt hold for liberal artists, whose post-college

More information about Spences Nobel Prize is available online at the Nobel website:

http://www.nobel.se/economics/laureates/2001/spence-lecture.html. For a digest of signaling theory, Nature provides a good article: http://www.nature.com/nsu/011018/011018-7.html.
3

John D. Owen, Why Our Kids Dont Study: An Economists Perspective (Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins

University Press, 1995), 33.

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paths are on the whole undecided. The second theory to consider, as mentioned, is that of signaling. Since employers desire hard-working recruits who complete duties according to company specifications, they turn to indicators of a prospective employees work skills. More technically, in the market for labor prospective employees have substantially more information about possible employers than the companies have about their applicants. This asymmetric information of the labor market leads to the need for differentiating factors among applicants for jobs. The college diploma serves as one such signal, indicating that someone endured the work and effort of college to attain the goal (graduation) in the end. This demand for greater information about applicants is rational on the part of employers, since like any actor in an economic game, they seek the most bang for their buck. Requiring a signal about applicants abilities helps ensure more effective hiring of hard workers. Yet it bears noting that the signal alone does not speak to the technical skills of the worker per sejust to the fact that he or she acquired the signal, presumably through high quality work. But as opposed to the human capital theory of education, the signaling theory does not require learning any particular proficiency; it may happen, but its not relevant to the signaling theory. Conversely, one might full well possess capitalizable abilities yet not obtain a signal required for employment. Understanding how the human capital and signaling theories apply to the decision to attend the university encompasses a large part of my thesis investigation. Given that college is important to future income and viewed as a necessary step, from a behavioral point of view we should understand choices actors make when demanding education.

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Furthermore, we should understand how the demand for college affects choices actors make at the university. Shouldnt those reasons be observable, and can we devise a method of measuring the effectiveness of the college process?

Examine elementary, middle, and high schoolswhat we can collectively label lower educationand youll find that guidelines set by educational boards expect students and teachers to live up to rigid standards. At the lower level its easier to identify conc rete, curricular goals of the educational system. Functional reading, writing, and arithmetic at various grade levels are unquestioned benefits for growing youths. Furthermore, these skills are observable and testable. The trademark standardized tests of accountability in primary and secondary education, for better or worse, are designed to evaluate teacher and student performance. Even if they dont work effectively in practice, at least in theory they evaluate learning skills. Designers of the system care about ensuring accountability. Even the staunchest critics of standardized testing still express interest in ensuring that education is a useful exercise. Several faculty members at UT with whom I spoke held disdain for standardized tests, voicing concern that testing averts attention and motivation away from learning and toward performance for the test itself. They identify the goals of education as something other than will this be on the test, yet they dont oppose successful classrooms in any way. Even without tests, we desire a system that does its job. Though standardized testing might avert the goals of higher education for the sake of

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evaluation, this doesnt mean that some commitment to accountability is undesired. As my research indicates, the ill-defined and institutionally unsupported goals at the higher level fail to meet criticism about accountability at all.

In an economy where possession of a college degree statistically forecasts higher expected lifetime income, and where college is so necessary, focusing on the meaning of the degree itself seems critical. Since suppliers and demanders all want the best college education, shouldnt there be concern for accountability in higher education? Of course, by accountability we use a lowercase a since were not implying standardized tests. Rather, lets ask: whos accountable for making a college education concurrent with the goals that it is supposed to fulfill? How is a college education connected to the reasons that college is demanded in the first place? The Department of Education, which concurs with the importance of college, states on its website: Today, more than ever before, education is the fault line between those who will prosper in the new economy and those who will not.4 Deciding not to go to college doesnt just mean lost opportunities to read Shakespeare; it means a lost opportunity for higher wages. Given that college is so important and expensive, and given that the classroom content of college defines academic work for four years, how can accountability apply to university education?

Because of the non- uniformity of curriculum and observable ends of higher education, statistical analysis seems inappropriate as a first step in evaluating the effectiveness of

http://www.ed.gov/students/prep/college/thinkcollege/early/aboutus/edlite-whatistce.html

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higher education. Its not even clear what indicators one would start with. In this sense, perhaps all that matters is what people thinkdoes it seem like college is effective? This thesis aims to answer: Can we use perception as an indicator for accountability? Or, more explicitly: Can perceptions of the college experience indicate if teachers and students are going about their jobs at the university in a responsible and effective way? To go about this study, I propose an indirect behavioral approach: look at the motivating factors behind the college market. What are the stated goals and missions of the actors involved? These actors include students, faculty, the administration, and the government. Ultimately, we hope to understand what divergence of actors goals might indicate about the success of college from anyones perspective. Are needs and goals being met? And is UT accountable to different constituencies by any metric?

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Research Description
Research in the field of education is plentiful. While I am not an official student of educational psychology, classroom organization, curriculum planning, or anything of the sort, my 17 consecutive years of entrenchment in formal education do make meand all college studentsexperts at attitudes and experiences of the schooling process. I aim to step back from education. Hardly do students or teachers take a birds eye view of the educational process, asking about the meaning behind it all. What do students and teachers think about college and its significance? In browsing academic literature on education, a surprising gap appeared in information on motivating goals. One can find plenty about teaching methods, but almost nothing about why students and teachers might want to get together in the first place. After frustration from library rummaging, I realized that my best research plan involved taking advantage of the professors and students right here at UT. Graduating without interviewing faculty and taking advantage of their stories seemed a waste of an opportunity. I decided that interviews and first- hand responses would make this investigation most effective and meaningful. For the economists reading this, I note again that statistical analysis was not the best approach for my investigation. To conduct a statistical analysis of teacher attitudes would have required constructing a scale with which to quantify results. I did not want to present a list of qualities or attitudes and have people rank them, nor did I want to assign such qualities to professors after their intervie ws. From the start, I felt qualification of responses was more important then quantification. And if you think about it for a moment, what would I quantify? Limiting myself to specific, quantifiable Lavis 7

indicators didnt seem concurrent with my original ideas. With no index for perceptions, no obvious dimensions for analysis, and no clear objective indicators to quantify, statistics dont answer my question. My research is not about whether approach A or B is more effective for teaching history, or if it fosters learning. Rather, from a behavioral point of view, what do students and teachers perceive as reasons for being in class (and college more generally)? Where does the burden fall for designing the educational experience? The bulk of my research involved getting a clear picture of what the faculty think about higher education. As it turns out, they carry the enormous responsibility of designing the meaning of college. I began my research interviewing faculty, since I knew conversation would familiarize me with the concerns facing the supply side of the educational market. In the light of professors responses to my interviews, I planned then to formulate student questions aimed at addressing the same issues that the faculty talked about. To draft an interview list, I selected a few professors that made good impressions on me during my time at UT. In addition, I chose a few more faculty who received teaching awards, student acclaim, and colleague praise. If any professors at UT think about their goals of teaching, I assumed that my interviewees would be part of that group. My initial list included professors that have made a difference in my career, along with those recommended to me by other teachers and specialists in the field of education. The list grew as I gathered references from my interviews. In the end, my interview set included a mathematician, a physicist, an educational psychologist, a biologist-turned-educational psychologist, a poetry professor, an English literature expert, a philosopher, two economists, and a policy advocate. I also drew from

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conversation with some of my own professors and advisors. The quantity of people in this set turned out not to matter as much as the quality of the interviews. The more teachers I interviewed, the more I realized how in-sync their views on the goals of good teaching wereespecially compared with the demand side of the market. Approaches to the classroom were different, but the higher goals of teaching were remarkably similar, even across these various disciplines. I could have written a lot about my interview with any one of these people. They all provided insight and aid for my research, due in no small part to their thoughtfulness as faculty. I realize that while these specific professors are some of the crme de la crme at UT, they are in no way an exhaustive or exclusive collection of such people. Also, these teachers were not meant to be part of a random sample. I was not looking to find out what the average teacher at UT thought; the notion of conducting such a project seemed meaningless. Interviewing a random sample of professors surely would have given me a different set of responses, likely including various faculty who didnt think much about their classes beyond the textbook. This is a safe enough assertion to make, based on personal involvement in college for four years. I set out to investigate if perceptions of the college experience indicated if teachers were going about their jobs in a responsible way. Once again, I was not looking to determine what the average professor was thinking, or what the best and the worst had to say. The important thing was that ostensibly, if anyone involved in teaching has thought about the ways that education ought to be evaluated, the best professors have. Out of necessity to get truthful, unabashed responses from the people I interviewed, and also because of confidentiality requirements, I agreed not to reveal the identity of my

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participants beyond their position at the university. Departments and titles as referenced in this paper are correct; references to gender may or may not be. Only where indicated, as in the case of a state representative, are true identities revealed. To record my interviews I bought a digital voice recorder, which enabled me to discreetly record the interview without putting people on the spot. Furthermore, I could upload the recording to my computer for easy transcription and review. I compiled a large set of feasible questions before I started my interviews. The whole list, with which I entered my interviews, is attached in the appendix of this paper. Some of the most pertinent included:
How do you determine what a student should take when he/she comes to college? How much of what a student learns should be real life applicable? How should a student change in those four years? Many students see class as an impediment to their livesuninteresting or not stimulating. Why do you think this is? How do department members coordinate what a student should retain coming out of a course?

This list is not exhaustive, nor did I touch on all these questions with every interviewee. Rather, they were principles behind my work. From experience in radio journalism, I find that the best way to interview is to come prepared with a list of potential que stions as icebreakers. The conversation then directs itself toward pertinent topics in due time. But questions on paper are very useful. Armed with my voice recorder and a notepad, I approached my set of UT faculty to conduct the interview part of my research. Faculty interviews, which all took place in professors offices, lasted roughly forty- five minutes. I transcribed the audio recordings to pull quotes for reference. After most of my faculty interviews, I approached students with a survey. Once again, Lavis 10

aiming for statistical significance in my answer pool was not the objective. I opted to assemble from the horses mouth viewpoints. I find it analogous to a reporter standing on the street looking for quotes to support or oppose certain themes. What respondents said doesnt necessarily indicate every students opinion; they simply reflect certain viewpoints. A copy of the full email survey is included in the appendix of the paper. My student survey went out in a mass email to an introductory Government 310 class which is required of all graduates of the university. Therefore, the class presumably contains a fairly representative cross-section of UT. However, the response rate from a class of over 450 was tremendously pooronly 20 students responded. However, the 20 responses provided me with a level of congruence about perceived goals that I expected, as well as a variety in quotes about perspectives on education. Also, they were not answering questions for numerical manipulation. Further resources used in my investigation included institutional Mission Statements and a speech given at UT by the Chairwoman of the Texas House of Representatives Committee of Higher Education, Geanie Morrison. I also browsed a number of books and articles pertinent to academic goals. However, the largest part of my reference comes from synthesizing first-hand interviews.

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Faculty Perceptions
The only sample of people worse about understanding what goes on in the education world than students themselves is the faculty. (--Physics professor)

Ironically, while society rates college education as a must- have, the providers of higher education dont agree that everyone should attend. A professor of educational psychology (EP) asserted in our interview: EP: I personally think we ha ve too many people in the outside world saying that a college education is a base requirement for [positions that students easily could have handled without college]. I think there are a lot of positions where they require a college education where they dont need it. And thats a problem. SL: Because it sends a lot of people to college? EP: Yeah. Unnecessarily. Because I think youre rightthere are a lot of things people really dont need college for. And Im not saying that those are not good things. But why should this person spend all this money just to get this diploma, which allegedly certifies that theyre smarter than everybody else? Excuse me, but I dont think so! She not only thought the expectation of attaining a university diploma was undue but unfair as well, since to expect that everyone should go to college is a tremendous drain on everybodys resources, including the students. But unlike economic models of resources, teachers dont simply consider dollars per student but attention and motivation required for learning. An English and poetry professor said, I believe philosophically that students want to learn, but when youre in a system where theyre forced to learn[pensive pause]. Pressure to be in college, and in class, is both an asset and a Lavis 12

liability for teachers. On one hand they reap the benefits of a larger audience; on the other, they face a more dilute, distracted student body. No professor I interviewed thought college was meant to be an exclusive club, but they all shared the sentiment that personal motivation was key to high performance. Its like skiing, analogized a science professor. No pain no gain, but you gotta want to ski! To professors, the desire to learn wasnt just a means to good grades but the whole reason that students should be in college in the first place. Good professors cherish passion for learning and value dedicated students. Enthusiasm from students fuels their want to teach, and the faculty I interviewed expressed desire to get students thinking as they hadnt before. However, economic consequences of a college degree were very much on the backburner for the faculty I interviewed. Of much more importance was stressing the drive to learn. And though learning is abstractly defined by different teachers you ask, it always involved aspects of personal drive, enjoyment, and growth.

After sharing the observation that everyone is expected to come to college with a noted professor of physics, he reflected and responded, Maybe the entrance exam should just be a simple question: do you really have fun when youre learning? Do you really have fun when you know more about something? Is that fun? If its not, dont come! But students hardly ever view schoolwork as fun, and you dont need to survey students to find this out. If you just ask professors, they will tell you the same thingafter all, theyre the ones trying to elicit some kind of response from students. Professors: aside from your top students who are obviously deeply interested in class (or perhaps just grade-grubbers), can you say with deep conviction that theyre in class for fun? Does the

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fun of learning rank high among their goals for coming to collegecan you honestly say this is the case? Furthermore, implicit in the faculty view that college is not necessary is the idea that students should make a conscious decision to come to college or not. Ideally, a high school senior would sit down at the end of twelve years of lower education and question herself, Is learning and school enjoyable? If she answers affirmatively, then the student should come to college; if not, she should explore non-academic opportunities. As is clear from the automatic jump to college, however, this is not the case.

In the course of reviewing my interview responses, I came to understand how faculty view college as an opportunitywhich fits nicely with the model of college as a conscious come/dont come decision. Along with viewing learning as fun, one should appreciate it as an opportunityi.e. not required, but a valuable option to better oneself. To preface his statement about the intellectual sophistication of math, one teacher asserted, to me its a question of an opportunity. He later expounded: In the math world, to me the real tragedy of the habits we have is tha t mathematics and the experience in math classes could be so significant to the development of the intellect, and its missed opportunity. And thats too bad. Because I think [math] could change [students] lives. An educational psychologist wished that her students would be willing to try things, take risks, persist in the face of failure, take an error not as a horrible thing but as an opportunity to learn. This opportunity refers to future payoffs from the content of class itself. The best faculty understand long-term benefits to an individual and design classes to approach such goals.

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However, long-term in their case reaches beyond a diploma. The opportunity to learn in college, for a professor, is a chance to change intangiblesways of thought and means of appreciation. Ideally, students would have fun learning, experience new ways of thinking about problems, and carry the content of their educationnot just their diplomabeyond graduation

Curriculum
Theres a tendency in math education to direct all of the lower level courses in a linear direction toward calculus. And then its not clear what happens afterwards. And I think the fact is most students would do better to have a different kind of experience, particularly than the precalculus classes. (--Professor of Mathematics)

You dont need a Ph.D. to recognize an important but subtle quality of college professors: they all love school. By definition, a professor thrives in the university. They were the members of their classes who got the good grades, who found academic passions in college, whose enthusiasm granted them entrance into doctoral programs, and whose endurance allowed them complete a Ph.D. By the time a professor can hang her doctoral diploma on the wall (which is almost universally a requirement for university professorship), she has come to love her subject area. The professor couldnt have made it that far if she didnt. Along with lifetime investment in a particular field comes the opinion that ones particular area of expertise is tremendously important. As the mathematician quoted above noted, I think mathematics can contribute an incredible amount to the intellectual sophistication of any thinker. A philosophy professor explained, My view as a philosopher [is] that what I want to do is expose [students] to something that opens up Lavis 15

a whole new realm of possible ends and values. This applies in the most liberal of arts, too. I only taught things that you need for life, said a poetry professor. Thats why I chose English. To university teachers, their proficiencies are both professions and fundamental ways of thinking about the world. How, then, do they go about designing a curriculum for students passing through the ivory tower? A UT educational psychology professor asserted that each UT faculty member should ask himself, Why am I teaching? Teachers should question the courses they teach, and know why its important to teach them. This particular psychologist affirmed that for required classes, faculty better know why its required. And it shouldnt be required just because somebody says oh they need 3 hours of that. Thats a hell of a reason to require a class. Its worth noting that the university does not dictate to the departments what or how they should teach. Academic freedom and professional opinions are important in this design nonetheless, how do the departments design meaningful learning experiences, given that love of learning is a big faculty goal? My discussion with the educational psychologist about class requirements continued: SL: So should the department sit down and EP: Absolutely! SL: Decide why EP: Absolutely! Not only that, they should sit down and say how they all fit together. Do they all do that? SL: From what Ive seen they dont. EP: And from what Ive seen they dont either.

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She was not the only professor who noted this. In fact, no professor didnt! This bears repeating: of this faculty with whom I spoke, none of their departments formed consensus about what the classes meant in terms of learning, which is what college should ideally be about. Most often, departments didnt even meet to try! This means there was no discussion about what classes majors or non- majors should take, what competencies should be taken away from the classes, what skills were important to impart, or what proficiencies were most necessary to emphasize. In fact, in most departments, there was no discussion about what the major meantthat is to say, aside from requiring X number of hours in the department, the content of the major was not addressed on a departmental level. A professor of mathematics and I spoke about this: SL: On a departmental level, is there good discussion about teaching methods, about what it is that students should be taking away from classes? Math professor (MP): No. Theres no discussion. At this departmentnow, at colleges where the education mission is more central, then there would be those discussions. Butthe main focus of the University of Texas at Austin is research. [] SL: So when someone comes to be a faculty member here, theyre brought on because of research. And some of them just happen to be good teachers, and some of them dont? MP: Thats right. Thats not a criterion for being hired. But there are some people who are very much interested. And the chair of the department is interested in various educational issues. So there are some very excellent teachers in the

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department. Upon hearing this, I wondered if this was viewed as something acceptable, or if it bothered him. He replied: I dont view that astheir [other professors] job at the university. And in a large sense its not. So I guess Ive come to see it more asthat the university is a very big place, and there are lots of people who have a variety of ideas and its like a city: you dont expect every single person you meet to be interested in promoting the welfare of the city. People are in this business or that business or the other. I think thats the way to view the university. The picture that emerges is one of each classroom standing as a bastion of learning at best, yet possibly unlinked to other classeseven in the same department. But as education psychology will point out, such a structure hardly promotes learning for all undergraduates; more control is needed. Some professors said the idea of departments and other faculty managing the content of various professors classes goes against academic freedom. This is to say that its not for one professor to step on the toes of another, since autonomy in the classroom is something a teacher earned over years of study, research, and teaching. To insist upon certain goals in a teachers classroom would be to impose upon the professors ability to make these decisions for herself. A philosophy professor asserted that within his department, each of us values our autonomy. And to start poking into what somebody else is doing with their course would be to risk reciprocal poking into of ones own courses. So theres very little of that. At this point the discrepancy between two very big mantras of higher education becomes

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apparent: on one hand, faculty all value autonomy in the classroom; on the other, they value progress of thinking skills in their students, which requires a degree of coordination that impinges upon autonomy. A physicist shared the best example of the clash of educational philosophy at work: in the physics department, discussion about goals is diverted to an emphasis on subject material. Professors discuss which topics a graduating physics major should know: thermodynamics, relativity, modern theories of gravity, and so on. But my interviewee observed: Whenever we talk about curriculum it ends up being a list of content items. [] We never get down to these discussions of could they teach themselves? How do you give them the tools that they could teach themselves any physics subject that they wanted? But we never get to that discussion. This kind of discussion devoid of objectives works to the detriment of students, he explained, since focusing on bits of information alone doesnt address long term learning goals (the point of classes, according to faculty). The professors I interviewed, most likely due to their established teaching quality, saw this as a problemand pointed to classroom incentives as an exacerbating factor.

Grades and Incentives

Salvo: Do you think that having tests and grades are a necessary means of evaluating learning progress? Professor of Educational Psychology: Of course not. [pause, cringes] Man, this is just a huge area! I mean its lik e enormous.

Of the faculty I interviewed, none of them held grades as indicators of the higher qualities of learning they admire. One professor of educational psychology reminded me that sometimes the best studentswhich he took to mean the most motivated to learn and Lavis 19

insightful in the classwere not the recipients of the best grades. Likewise, some students earned good grades through a kind of academic rigor devoid of affinity for classjust knowing how to say the right things on tests and papers. I asked a physics professor, what do you think a grade should indicate about a student after the class is over? What does that indicate about? Do you think it has meaning? No, not much, he replied. There are tops to the curve, and there are bottoms to the curve. But theres this big unwashed middle that its just notthe sorting and the ordering in there couldnt matter less. Especially when talking about a grade on one test or paper, surrounded by external factors that have nothing to do with the class or its work, clearly a grade couldnt mean much. An educational psychologist also shared the irrelevance of grades in evaluating learning: The grade, and the focus on the grade, and the illusion is that the grade is somehow an effective measureit isnt. No faculty I interviewed expressed even remote enthusiasm about having to grade. Even faculty not flatly critical of grades as a means of evaluation still questioned a grades ability to indicate student learning in the abstract. A philosophy professor noted: This is the great challenge of evaluating. This is obviously what youre supposed to do. Anybody can come up with some sort of method that will assign a reasonable distribution of grades to people. Of course this gets back to the larger questioneach course youve got to think about, well, what is the most important thing for them to learn from this course? I dont think theres a simple answer for that question. Though he indicated that a well-designed exam could test for targeted skills, he still asserted that grades were weak signals of learning.

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As for improving grading systems, the only thing that saves [professors] is that we give lots of [grades], so that the huge noise factors tend to cancel out, cited a physics professor. There is in that large-scale average some information about the individual. But it is true that since most classes are what you might call factoid-driven, that kind of thing can start to dominate the average. More importantly than measuring, designing a preferable grading system requires analyzing the larger question as posited: What is it about my class that I want to impart, and therefore to test for? Along those lines, many professors prided themselves in seeing through grades. If I tell a class, and theyre not grade grubbing, think about this, said a poetry teacher, they ought to be intellectually interested enough to go off and think about it. She added that spotting the intellectually disinterested or grade grubbing may not be obvious from the students point of view, but its just night and day from the professors. Can I get extra points if I do X? [raising her hand and mimicking a student] The same philosophy professor who talked about designing evaluative tests had this to say with regards to grades and student motivations: I certainly know the difference between students who are still just going through the motions because they want the grade and those for whom that little light bulb has turned on and theyve just gotten to the point where theyre interested in the philosophical question, dont much care about the grade anymore. They just want to learn the philosophy. You certainly see that difference, and the point of the whole exercise is to: A) get as many of those light bulbs on as you can, and B) once theyre on, to nurture that and develop it. Professors hope that students begin to exhibit qualities of intrinsic motivation, which

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means they work for the sake of learning and personal gainnot grades or other external rewards. Grades would somehow supplement personal drive to be in class, absorb material, synthesize, and learn. But as a philosopher speculated, if students just went to lectures if they felt like it and there were no tests or grades or anything to think aboutI suspect if we did that wed become a kind of Club Med with classrooms. Nobody would actually do much work. Certainly this doesnt reflect a model of students learning because of intrinsic motivation. In this light, the adverse effect that professors claim grading has on motivation is a greater problem than grades difficulty in measuring learning. For if grades become the sole means of evaluation, the only thing that stands on a transcript as a record of performance, then students begin to work for the grade. In this case, grades not only remain imprecise measurements of learning, but they take on an importance of their own. Grades become the motivating factor for learning, frequently supplanting higher goals as the end of education. This is to say that if ideally grades evaluate learning and motivate work toward that learning, their implementation turns them into an aim of their own. One classic example of this behavior at work is the will this be on the test phenomenon, which anyone whos been a student or teacher will recognize all too well. During the course of the semester, students are eager to call out a teachers deviations from the syllabus. Topics presented in class which stray from the established contract of material send students on edge. Teachers are, of course, acutely aware of this phenomenon. You can see students switch off when a professor says, no this wont be on the test but its good to think about. It irks professors. Of course, as much as hard-

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working faculty try to engage students with the material for the sake of interest, one must concede that working for the grade is completely rational behavior within the incentive system of college. Students know this, teachers know this, but it seems to get ignored like a leaky faucet. I asked faculty whom I interviewed why they thought giving grades was important, and what it indicated about the student, if anything. A professor of physics related: Were required to provide a level of differentiation that the university seems to need, but you cant kid me into thinking that 10 years after a students out of here, whether they got a B or an A or a C is gonna matter one epsilon of difference in their life. A poetry professor (PP) noted: PP: After about late 70s, early mid 80s, students got very professional about their work. It meant grades became much more important. There used to be something called the gentlemans Cthats no more. Students are very stressed. SL: What do you think accounts for that? PP: The job market. The sentiment that grades played into the post-college job search was common. An educational psychologist said, We have to give finals and grades and turn in our annual reports. He later added: When you go out and find employment youre graded. If you dont fulfill your responsibilities A through Z, youll be released from your position. So thats your gradeyou wont take home a paycheck anymore. All of these professors who talked about the importance of learning, of not viewing education as a means but an end, recognized grades as pertaining more to training for job responsibilities than to educational ends. They know students work for grades to get higher GPAs to get better

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placements after college, yet many still approach their classes as if they were filled with future graduate students. Perhaps they believe that their students could become more like them? However, if the university as an institution serves the demands of society and the labor market, would we not expect to see some indication that academia at least recognizes the disparity between its goals and those of demanders? For the number of faculty who voiced concern about the effectiveness of grades, indeed their detrimental effect on learning, its surprising theres not more discussion among faculty about restructuring evaluative methods. But as I observed, coordination among faculty was quite poor. I do acknowledge professors who try hard to engage the students in material, to connect the meaning of courses with students lives. I also recognize students who value learning over the grade. I certainly couldnt have written this thesis if I only cared about a grade. Professors would probably throw in the towel if a few students didnt come along who reminded them of their own work mentality. But imagine telling a group of college students, grades dont mean anything and 75 basically equals 95. Youd be kidding yourself to say theyd buy it; faculty realize this, too. The importance of grades is ingrained on the psyche of college students today. Many try to shed a work- for-the-grade mentality, but it still lurks.

What matters most to the best faculty are the abstract thought processes and ways of thinking that students should pick up from their classes. Certain items, nuggets of knowledge, here and there are good-to-knows in the intellectual repertoire of college grads, but the process of making such lists tends to distract faculty and students focusing

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on thinking as a goal. I asked one science professor at UT if standardized testing might be to the detriment of secondary educatio n. Oh yes, he quickly affirmed, asserting that it drove the attention of students toward memorizing bits of information for repetition. He later added that [knowing different factoids] has so little to do with wisdom. And if anything, the best university professors worry about wisdom. But wisdom isnt a class; admittedly, thought processes cant be taught without subject material. Educational psychologists agree that only through applied study can you begin to master critical thinking. Though thinking skills are a resounding goal expressed by faculty, such skills alone are not teachable. A professor of educational psychology affirmed, you cannot teach critical thinking skills separate from the discipline. Jokingly she imagined the teacher saying to the class, Were just going to practice being skeptical. Indeed, even though skeptical thought may be a goal of history or philosophy, you need to have material to intelligently talk about. If youre going to strengthen critical thinking skills, it has to be with regard to particular arguments or events. Ironically though, through fixation on the material and concrete work of classes, teachers often lose perspective of analytic thinking skills related to the discipline and obsess over the details that we already know wont last in the long run (minutia of information). In this way, the goal of many classes becomes regurgitation of information for the sake of evaluation. As is the case with many classes, the professor worries only about covering topics to the point that learning takes the backseat to memory loading. For a professor this process is somewhat tolerable, since the minutias of his discipline are part of his daily work and base of need-to-know material. But no departmental check evaluates

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teachers who might only require repetition of factoids, without evaluation of learning.

Philosopher of education Rudolph H. Weingartner asserts that [p]rogress is achieved through a cumulativeness that comes about when students are required to use the methods of solving problems in different settings and contexts, with different problems and issues, and over extended stretches of time.5 If we take this extended stretch of time to mean the whole of an academic career (and beyond), it would only make sense that the crafters of an education would spend much of their time ensuring consistency and quality in the instruction they provide. Ostensibly, faculty members would plan courses collectively. As well they would spend time devising methods of teaching and evaluation that get at the goals they mutually set for their courses in the first place. But are these goals effectively communicated, even among faculty? As part of identifying these goals, one would assume that university-wide and department-wide discussion would take place with regards to such motivations. The resounding answer is that these discussions are non-existent, or misguided at best.

To summarize, the best faculty worry that grades, incentives for work, and pressure to attend college divert goals away from learning in the first place. While these factors are beyond immediate control of departments, class coordination is not. Yet class coordination is absent at UT. Teachers need to ask if learning and intellectual growth are really the goals of higher education, since institutional design points elsewhere.

Rudolph H. Weingartner. Undergraduate Education: Goals and Means. New York: American Council on

Education/Macmillan Publishing, 1992. p. 94.

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Student Perceptions
I have a friend, has a daughter, hated school. I said, whats she gonna do when she graduates high school? She said, go to college. I said, she hates school! My friend was so offended that maybe her daughter shouldnt go to college. (--Professor of Educational Psychology)

Faculty like to think that students make a deliberate and zealous choice to attend college. For professors, every Sally and John at the University of Texas ideally would sit down and ponder their life goals. If, after deliberation, love of learning and exploration of knowledge ranked high on their list, they would come. Thats just not the way it works.

Certainly social influence drives students to college. Aside from economic necessity, students in high school face pressure from parents, counselors, and school systems which expect them to go to college. Standardized tests at the secondary level focus on collegetrack skills. Of the people who came to college, a scant few could truthfully admit they were not expected to do so after high school. Almost all college students were high schoolers with twelve years of formal education momentum behind themmomentum which rolled them into freshman year as if it were 13th grade. It seemed like the next logical step, wrote an English major, and I understand that in society today it's a must if I want to be paid well and be competitive in the job market. Another student wrote, I came to college because that's what yo u do after high school: you go to the best college you can get into, and figure out what you want to do after you get in. A freshman government major expressed similar sentiment: College seems to be the expected course after high school for pretty much everyone, and I don't think it's right for everyone. An engineering senior shared that she came [t]o get a degree so I could be able to provide Lavis 27

the kind of life I want in the future -- successful, wealthy, stable. She added, I would feel inadequate if I didn't get at least a bachelor's degree. Yet the fact that high school graduates almost mechanically move on to higher education shouldnt a priori vilify that transition; such an expectation may or may not be reasonableit would be up to the university to justify why. While the decision to come remains almost universally unquestioned, the goals posited by students when asked why did you come to college? are divergent from faculty goals. Some are rather straightforward: I came to college to get a degree in journalism. I want to get a great education of it and be able to get a great job in the future, too, responded one junior. Job motivation is universal, even among learners. One student responded that she came [t]o get an education, and to be able to support myself on my own. When the survey asked ,What did you want to get out of it? she replied, a degree and a career in physical therapy. Even students with aspirations in academics sought a degree to further their job prospects. I came to college because it is the only route I can take to do what I want as a profession, which is Government, said a freshman. In fact, no student that responded to my survey viewed college as an end in itselfall saw it as a means to something else, whether more school, work, or just moving on. Another frequently-cited goal of college students was personal growth. One student noted she came to college for the experience and opportunity to grow as a person. The junior who was so bent on studying government added, I wanted to get out of college a good education, meet new people, have fun, and grow and mature. A freshman noted she wanted to leave home and learn about new things, make new friends. The adage that most learning takes place outside of the classroom is truly embodied in

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the motivations of college students. This is not to say that all students view classes as a burden on their social lives (this isnt too far off the mark for many), but that the social component of college is extremely important. Given that other venues for social interaction exist beyond college, the university needs to identify what about college goals differentiate it from all other opportunities. For example, if students enter UTnot the Peace Corps, or a job, or an internship, or traveling, or one of many other ways of growing as a personwhat makes college per se such an important step?

Having been a student for 16 years, and having numerous colleagues with similar credentials, I can confidently say that two descriptors accurately fit most college students I know: A) College was not a go or not go decision. They just went. B) Goals of education that have to do with abstract learning and thinking development take backseat to social ones. Developing thinking skills lags way behind get ready for the real world and be exposed to different viewpoints. In casual conversation with friends who reply that theyre in college for the growth experience, I like to ask how college is different than working for four years or volunteering. In other words, there are various ways to live in a community environment and grow without being in college. If indeed the college experience boils down to personal growth and getting along, why come to a university where you have to take classes? Why did you come to college? The reason that people are coming is that they have to! The behavior of students in college, behavior that on the whole college professors work to fight against, indicates that

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abstract learning is not the key. Students wouldnt grade-grub, push for extra credit, and ask will this be on the test if it werent the case. All the rhetoric about valuing learning is wholly unsupported by the way college affects life post-college. The incentive structures involved point to the same conclusion. One English major encapsulated a prominent view among students when he said: [I]n a few classes like Math and Psychologythey told us that this isn't a class where you're expected to use anything we learn in practical life, it's just a sampling to help us figure out whether we would like to take more of that kind of class. In other classes though like Government and especially in Spanish, I'm just trying to make it through the class with a decent grade and am fully prepared to forget everything I learned once I finish with the subject. Unfortunately for both subjects I still have more levels to complete so I can't forget everything just yet. Though curriculum material occupies most of their time while in the class, its not the largest means by which most students I interviewed evaluated their performance. In other words, absorption of knowledge is only a small part of digesting a class. I asked students, How do you evaluate if a class met your expectations after the semester is over? Formally, the only records the university retains are grades and teacher evaluations. One student replied, I generally judge a class by how much I have retained from it, the skill of the instructor, and whether or not I feel it was worthwhile no matter what grade I received. Another: Sometimes I think wow, Im glad that class is over, and that Ill never use that stuff again, and sometimes I think wow, Im proud of myself for doing so well in that class, and I learned a lot. Grounds for evaluation included applicability of the material to everyday life, desire to continue study in the field, knowledge of the

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subject material, enjoyment and stimulation of lectures, grades, quality of the professor, quality of coursework, interaction with other students, advancement towards career goals, and how much fun the course was. One senior said a course was good if I remember anything afterwards and if I liked the way my prof taught the course. Frequently students also expressed concern that teachers set different goals for their lives than they did. Said one senior: I believe that my goals go beyond the goals of my instructors, since they are stuck in academia and I want to actually get out of here. I think the goals of faculty are different, but if you want a blanket statement, I think that their goal is to make sure that the comprehension of their material follows the normal curve. Others were also critical of faculty not expressing enough concern for students learning. A freshman wrote: I sometimes feel that the faculty does not place much emphasis on the educational needs of students. That said, I have had some wonderful instructors here who geniunely [sic] care about their students' education, but I am aware that they are in the minority. My goals are to learn as much as possible while putting forth my best effort, while my instructors measure success by how well I do on tests. While all arent so cynical, the sentiment isnt too far off the mark for many students I know.

As I progressed with my synthesis of views, I realized that independently of student survey results, the faculty expressed concern over the same divergent views that cropped up among undergrads. In other words, since faculty are the ones designing education, the

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mere fact that they express such concern over divergent goals and diverted motivation indicates a deep problemeven before seeking supporting evidence from students. Students simply arent making the come/dont come decision that faculty want them to, and the external pressure of going to college isnt providing the incentive structure that faculty desire. Grades arent set up to be intrinsically motivating, and the flow of students into college isnt intrinsically motivated. The learn and dump attitude of many students certainly doesnt indicate motivation for long-term learning. In situations between working for grades and working for personal satisfaction, grades hardly lose.

As a recap of the divergence of goals we infer: Stated Goals Faculty College not necessary Opportunity to enrich thinking skills End in itself Conscious decision to attend (ideal) Intrinsically motivated for learning (ideal) Students College certainly necessary Necessity to enhance job market attractiveness Means to other ends 13th grade: no conscious decision Incentives for external motivation and signaling

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Administrative View
I decided just to check the mission statement on the university webpage. And I noticedit had been up for 6 monthsthat the word excellence was spelled wrong. So I called [university president] Larry Faulkners office, and about half an hour later I got profuse thank yous! So it shows that nobody had either read it or knew how to spell excellence! (--Professor/Policy Advocate)

Mission statements serve as convenient starting blocks to inquire about institutional goals. Since my investigation took place at UT, and all of my interviewees worked here, The University of Texas mission statement looked like a good place to start searching for motivations behind college. And furthermore, if the goals of the university exist anywhere, wouldnt they be in the Mission Statement? The UT Mission Statement reads as follows:
Mission The mission of The University of Texas at Austin is to achieve excellence in the interrelated areas of undergraduate education, graduate education, research and public service. The university provides superior and comprehensive educational opportunities at the baccalaureate through doctoral and special professional educational levels. The university contributes to the advancement of society through research, creative activity, scholarly inquiry and the development of new knowledge. The university preserves and promotes the arts, benefits the states economy, serves the citizens through public programs and provides other public service. Core Purpose To transform lives for the benefit of society. Core Values Learning - A caring community, all of us students, helping one another grow. Discovery - Expanding knowledge and human understanding. Freedom - To seek the truth and express it. Leadership - The will to excel with integrity and the spirit that nothing is impossible.

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Individual Opportunity - Many options, diverse people and ideas; one university. Responsibility - To serve as a catalyst for positive change in Texas and beyond.6

Transforming lives is quite a broad goal. Suffice to say the University mission sounds idyllic, but what does the university perceive as concrete ways in which students should change in college? I differentiate between technical training and liberal arts education. Nobody wonders why people go to electrician school. Students dont get mechanic certification unless they plan on becoming mechanics. The meat and bones of the curriculum in these environments pertain directly to post-graduate life. Same goes for nursing school, pharmacy school, medical school, and so on. These schools train nurses, pharmacists, and doctors as their mission. But what about the Liberal Arts? To focus my search, I turned to the College of Liberal Arts mission statement, which begins as follows:
The mission of the College of Liberal Arts is to make a free people wise, by educating its students in the ways of freedom, and by providing a model for education at other universities. The heart of a democracy is that the people must judge. Through education in the humanities and social sciences, the College of Liberal Arts will give its students the power and confidence to judge well. 7

What does this mean? Freedom as an operational goal is almost impossible to grasp. Never among faculty and student s I surveyedindeed among anyone I queried even casuallydid anyone ever reference freedom or democracy as a goal for going to college. As for dedicated faculty, might we assume that thoughtfulness about

6 7

http://www.utexas.edu/welcome/mission.html http://www.utexas.edu/cola/mission_statement/

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motivations behind education would be a top priority? Where can we find the colleges goals in terms of teacher and student motivations, and how they should coincideor is this even a college- level concern? If you continue down the liberal arts mission statement, youll find more goals including:
fostering understanding among students, faculty, and administration providing a good foundation in the humanities and social sciences students knowing how to read critically, write cogently, and speak persuasively understanding basic methods of the sciences and conversancy with mathematics all classes placing emphasis on ethics, integrity, citizenship and awareness of global issues valuing creativity, willingness to take prudent risks, leadership, and service to community and nation

No mention is given to why students are here. Are the bullets in the mission statement how most students perceive college? Theres no mention of the social pressure of going to college, or of the necessity of college in todays world. And more important to note, theres no mention of how the university accomplishes this. The mission statement also enumerates specific skills that the college desires out of its graduates:
be able to express himself or herself clearly and correctly in writing be capable of reasoning effectively from hypotheses to conclusions and of logically analyzing the arguments of others have a critical appreciation for the social framework in which we live and the ways it has evolved through time have experience in thinking about moral and ethical problems have an understanding of some facets of science and the ways in which knowledge of the universe is gained and applied have an understanding of some aspects of mathematics and the application of

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quantitative skills to problem solving have gained familiarity with a second language have an appreciation for literature and the arts be competent in the basic use of computers

Theses are quite specific in terms of proficiencies, but the mission statement gives no mention of curriculum. The college places no specifications about what, in a tangible sense, a student should know. It doesnt say a student should be able to punctuate sentences properly, solve two equations with two unknowns, or know the history of Watergate. Of course, we really wouldnt expect the mission statement to specify such a thing; its not the purpose of a mission statement. However, if UT defines such skills as goals of undergraduate education, we expect to find faculty and departments discussing ways of promoting those ends. Basically, the university mission doesnt tell us much of anything about how a UT education should unfold before the student. Looking specifically at the Liberal Arts mission, we find appreciation of subjects and disciplines. But how this gets accomplished remains vague. Furthermore, the very accomplishment of imparting these doesnt find institutional support on a college-wide or department-wide scale. Professors get free reign over designing an education unchecked by other actors at the university. The same professor who shared the anecdote about misspelled excellence posited: Something I take seriously is the university mission. The university mission says were supposed to prepare leaders, but it seems like no ones responsible for doing that. If hes right, why dont faculty think its more of a priority? After all, we see that the whole of the burden of designing classes falls on professors. They have tremendous responsibility, but are they living up to it? How does UT measure that?

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Legislative view
A visit to the Department of Education website 8 opened a portal of myriad information about educationfinancing, testing, teaching credentials, legislation, etc. It also advertised the importance of college all over the place. I hunted around for information on motivations for collegewhy should students go? One page aimed at middle school aged students, entitled Think College Early: Why Go, had this to say:
Why should you think about education after high school? Because it can be the [picture of a key] to the kind of future you want. Education gives you choices that you might not have otherwise. More and more good jobs depend on the skills and knowledge that education after high school can provide. Staying in school and going to college will help you: be in a better position to help your family and your community; get a better job and earn more money; and get a good start in life!

Even if you're not sure what your future holds, prepare AS IF you are going to college. Anything can happen!9

As we step away from the Ivory Tower, one thing becomes patently obvious: the rhetoric and perception of why students should go to college becomes completely different. Theres no talk of learning or academic motivations or funits all about jobs and labor preparedness.

Texas State representative Geanie Morrison, chairwoman of the Texas House of Representatives Committee on Higher Education, spoke publicly at UT in February of

8 9

http://www.ed.gov http://www.ed.gov/students/prep/college/thinkcollege/early/students/edlite-why-go.html

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2004 as part of a government department speaker series. 10 During her talk, she straightforwardly declared, the mission of higher education is an educated workforce. Dwell on that. Think about everything the University and Liberal Arts mission statements mentioned about goalswould you have come up with educated workforce as an encapsulation? We already know that education feeds the workforce, but to say that entering the labor market is the mission of college doesnt address the aspects of college that change a student. Mrs. Morrison also mentioned that the legislature had a vested interest in the quality of higher education, so in the Q&A portion of her session I asked her: In what way is the education that a student receives in his or her four years in college actually connected to the greater goals of going to college? Her answer indicated that while the legislature funded and mandated the importance of education, it was wholly up to the university to determine a curriculum. Effectively, the Texas legislature preaches that a college education is necessary for entering the workforce, the workforce requires a degree for upward mobility, yet the meaning of that necessity is determined by the suppliers of education! Without further researchjust from perceptions of mission statements aloneI think we see a gaping difference between what society thinks college is about and what academia has to say. In her speech addressing a room full of undergraduates with respect to graduating on time, Representative Morrison added, We need you in the workforce! Imagine looking

10

Morrisons speech, entitled "Higher Education Policy Perspectives in Texas, was delivered Friday

February 20, 2004. The event was presented by Liberal Arts Instructional Technology Services (LAITS) and the Department of Government.

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up the mission statement of the College of Liberal Arts and finding the first line: The Mission of the College of Liberal Arts is to prepare our students to enter the workforce, since thats where theyre needed! This sentiment reflects nothing of the University or College missions.

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Conclusions
Universities study everything but themselves. (--Uri Treisman, UT professor)11

Everyone needs to go to college, yet ironically the factors demanding this necessity lie outside of the university itself. Industry, social pressure, legislators, and momentum from secondary education shuffle high school graduates into colleges each year. But aside from requiring a college diploma, society and employers have little to say about what a college education should change in a student ove r his or her four years. Its as if higher education is demanded as a package, with content determined entirely by suppliers within the university system. The government provides a labor-driven goal. Students basically dont evaluate their decision to come since they have to. The college specifies character traits and appreciation of learning as goals. The departments at best discuss only hard-core curriculum, or factoids as one professor called them. The faculty perceive love of learning as the highest motivating enterprise in collegeand the faculty also carry the responsibility of making this all come together! It seems the quality of college in the classroom is wholly a factor of the professors a student comes across. Yet theres a laissez- faire attitude at UT toward instructor accountability and cross-class coordination. Faculty view long-term progress as a goal, yet institutional support to a cohesive curriculum is nonexistent. The best faculty say that

11

Uri Treisman, Keynote Address, Conference on Active Learning, Laguardia Community College, Long

Island City, NY, April 23, 1994.

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critical thinking skills are the true nuggets of value that students reap from college, and educational psychology asserts that long-term coordinated curricula are the only way to achieve this goalyet departmentally, faculty are averse to the idea of goal-coordinating. A view of academic freedom as professor autonomy conflicts with the pedagogical goals that faculty hope to achieve. How then do we know that the goals of college educators are best met by the structure of college classes and curricula as they stand, which are still reminiscent of institut ions hundreds of years old?

Considering the vast responsibility that befalls the university, it seems appropriate to take up the educational mission with utmost scrutiny. It bears consideration: freshman arrive in college, driven in by a society that dema nds their being there, but the four-year lifechanging experience is totally left up to the university. Are the goals of students and teachers aligned? This is the universitys predicamentits been given a blank check for supplying education, but does it consider the factors that move students into college in the first place? Are the perceptions of the goals of college congruent between the suppliers and demanders of education? Weve seen that the demanders of college dont specify the content of education; they dont dictate the goals of the educational process beyond attainment of the degree and a high GPA. Demanders give carte blanche to the suppliersthe University. The University outlines vague, humanistic/democratic goals of liberal education which do not bear properties of signaling or capitalization in labor markets. Even more ironically, most of the faculty in collegeespecially the best educatorsdont believe that everyone should go to college.

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For they see the university as a place for serious intellectual engagement. They desire a conscious decision to learn. But high school seniors arrive mechanically every fall, sifted by SATs, GPAs, and entrance essays. Professors doubt whether these tests and requirements themselves capture the essence of why students should come to college. But since the duty of educational design falls upon the shoulders of the university, we might expect to find institutional support of goals for higher education within college. In other words, pressure makes college education a necessity, while at the same time giving colleges a blank check as to how to fulfill the education parthow, then, is the University of Texas handling that task? The picture that emerges is one of each professor creating his/her own class as he/she sees fit, with little to no regard for coincidence of material or goals with other classes. This may result in good classes from good faculty, but the university has no apparent system for ensuring this. Some faculty dont see a need for coincident goals. A number of teachers, outside my formal interview set, expressed this sentiment in conversation. Academic freedom may be important, but educational psychology says coincident goals are necessary for longterm learning. If we dont have coincident goals, there can be no accountabilitysince whos responsible for what? Everythings relative. Goals of college between the demand and supply side of education are not coincident, starting with the most basic questions of why college is necessary. We must ask then, Why is college necessary, if both sides differ in their views? Furthermore, with divergent goals within the university, even among faculty who dont coordinate goals, how can any system of accountability be implemented? Is the University itself working to

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define and refine the operational meaning of college education?

Returning to where we beganwith economic views of collegewe note the theory of colleges signaling power. Its true that signaling is a crucial function of college degrees. However, the model of education-as-signal does not speak to what that education does. In other words, the employer views education as a binary variableeither diploma or no diplomawhich then affects job prospects. Assumedly the university puts the student to work in one way or another, but a model of education as a signal doesnt require pondering Hobbes or understand ing the concept of a limit. Since the responsibility of designing college education falls on the shoulders of faculty, the suppliers should ask, What about that college education aligns with the aim of entering the workplace? Or should they state, Something about demanders goals doesnt mesh with ours, and then act in some reconciliatory manner?

So are college degrees commensurable in significance beyond the signal itself? Maybe the only thing we get out of college is signaling, and then there should be no further accountability because everybody knows you dont learn anything that serves you later. Professional schools train for capitalization of knowledge itself; what does a nonprofessional college degree impart? If you want a job, why not get job training? If you want to be a doctor, you go to med school, etc. But as far as liberal education goes, at least at UT, my research indicates non-uniformity in what college doesnot in what students take away (which in any system will be non- uniform), but in what the system aims to deliver.

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Some academics seriously question whether higher education might face a crisis, for discrepancy over goals is not merely a point of irony. It determines the meaning of the four-year experience, the graduates perceptions of knowledge, and the value of degrees. Even more importantly, it affects the social structure of the country. If society views the experience as a necessary credential but the university doesnt approach the situation as such, we must consider what the whole exercise means. If we cant parallel the perceptions of suppliers and demanders, then what does the adage you need a college degree mean for society? Furthermore, the fact that so many students and teachers already feel that the university system is rife with problems of divergent goals should tell us something. For this reason, I subtitled this paper An Elephant in Higher Eds Living Room. Observers of higher education should consider the hypothesis that college is a high-priced signal. College is already an expensive barrier to entry into the labor market; might it be artificial in the sense of not relating to anything beyond the degree itself? This has strong implications for social mobility, if essentially one must pay a lot to get paid more. Would a present system of college-as-signal not call for greater analysis of the social purpose of college degrees? And for students and teachers especially, wouldnt the universitys seeming lack of accountability require immediate attention? To vindicate the university and many faculty, I note that lots of professors and administrators express deep concern with improving the quality of a UT education. But good professors here are there arent good enough for a successful education institution. The university must show dedication to addressing curriculum and goals across all

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classes, especially with respect to curriculum expected outcomes! Philosopher of education Weingartner writes, Because the setting for undergraduate education is a multi-purpose institution composed of a heterogeneous collectivity of people, Adam Smiths invisible hand cannot be relied upon to create optimal conditions for the education of undergraduates. The need for a corporate assumption of responsibility [is stressed] particularly with respect to curricular matters.12 For an undergraduate to take a few classes from good professors creates of picture of an education left to chance more than uniformity and quality. If youre a professor and you worry enough about higher education to have read this far, its safe to say youre in the group of those concerned about this problem. Even if Im preaching to the choirif youre one of those professors or students who questions if your goals for education align with those of the university and the stateyou should still want to answer the following types of questions: Should teachers be more responsible for crafting classes that relate to students? What support for accountability can we expect to find at the department and college-wide level? And perhaps most interestingly and importantly: Can we have an effective university system when perceptions of expectations are different amongst students, faculty, and outsiders?

12

Rudolph H. Weingartner, Undergraduate Education: Goals and Means (New York: American Council on

Education/Macmillan Publishing, 1992), 140.

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Appendix
Faculty Interview Questions
This is the list of questions with which I prepared my teacher interviews. They are not exhaustive of the questions I asked of professors, nor are they inclusive or many topics that came up. They simply represent my thoughts and ideas going into the project: Background How long have you taught at this university or any other? What initially motivated you to enter the profession? Where did you attend college? Graduate school?

Personal feedback Do you have much say in selecting the courses you teach? When you entered academia, did you expect to do more research or teaching?

Departments How do you determine what classes a student should take when they come to college? (This refers to the 4-year class plan) How involved are you, as a faculty member, in designing the outline for a students 4-year curriculum? Is there agreement between members of your department regarding what should be taught in each of the departments courses? Is there coordinatio n among department members and the chair regarding what a student should retain coming out of a course?

In the classroom Do you notice differences between students who take your class as a requirement versus those who signed up on their own volition? Are you even aware of which students are in which category? Would your teaching style change, given that you knew a student didnt select your course voluntarily? Should a teacher assume that given time, his/her students will be able to grasp the material? Or conversely, should you assume the student wont understand? Or do you make such an assumption at all? Can you evaluate a students progress without direct one-on-one contact? Of all the material presented in your courses, what should the student retain after its over? Do you consider this as planning the course? How much time do you spend thinking about your teaching methods (not the curricula of the classes)? Do other faculty members evaluate or observe the way you teach? How much do Lavis 46

their teaching methods affect you? Educational theory What do you think it means to have learned something? How does your definition of learning change the way you teach? Can you tell the difference between students who understand (or have learned) what youre teaching, and those who simply learn how to regurgitate information without comprehension? How much of what a student learns should be real life applicable? Do you think that some students dont stand a chance at understanding your material? In other words, are there some who are helpless?

Accountability Do students ever directly report to you regarding your teaching effectiveness? How much first- hand personal response do you receive? Have you ever been told outright that you sucked as a teacher? That you were awesome? Does the department ever approach you about your good (or bad) work? Have you ever taught a class in a manner that you thought was second-rate? Were the students aware? How seriously do you take your end-of-semester teacher evaluations? Have you ever had courses or specific classes where you experienced a kind of teaching epiphany? Have there ever been any particular students who substantially changed the way you teach? Is a students failure to appreciate a subject his or her own fault?

Students What does it mean for a student to be prepared for college? What does it mean to be prepared for after college? What should change in those four years? How does pressure from parents affect a students decision to come to college? Should all high school students be encouraged to come to college?

Criticisms Many students see class as an impediment to their livesuninteresting or not stimulating. Why do you think this is? Why not move from high school into vocational school, like many other countries? Why teach students a subject that they will never use again?

Advanced questions for educational theorists/specialists Are there methods for evaluating retention beyond the course? Do you think institutionalized standardized testing, from TAKS to SAT, ACT, and CLEP, has shifted students motivation for learning? Lavis 47

As a student, I have observed what I personally call the will this be on the test? phenomenon, which is when students selectively learn only what they will be expected to recite. Is there much educational research into the way that testing affects learning? You could argue that standardized tests keep both students and teachers in line the students must know certain basic skills and the teachers are held responsible for teaching those skills. How valid is this claim? What about the flipsidethat testing makes students good at taking tests, but not necessarily good at math, or history, or sociology, or whatever?

Student Surveys
The following was sent out via email to a GOV 310 class of approximately 450 students: My name is Salvo Lavis, and Im a Plan II/Economics senior. I asked Dr. Prindle to survey his class for my senior thesis, which deals with the motivations of students and teachers in college. Dr. Prindle is not a sponsor of my research; he will ne ver know if or how you responded, so this has nothing to do with your performance in class. Please send your responses to salvo@mail.utexas.edu. Give special thought to your personal motivations and goals with regard to each issue. Respond to a degree youre comfortable with. Your year at UT (freshman, 5th year senior, etc.)?: Expected date of graduation?: 1. Why did you come to college? What did you want to get out of it? 2. To this point, how has your education at UT has fulfilled those expectations? 3. In what way has self-reflection about your own education changed over your time here? 4. How do your college goals compare with those of your instructors? What do you think faculty set as their goals for instructing? 5. How has your education been structured so that the classes fit within the greater goals of your academic career? This structuring refers to actions both on your part and on behalf of the university. 6. How do you evaluate if a class met your expectations after the semester is over? If you have any questions, contact Salvo at salvo@mail.utexas.edu. Quotes from your responses may be cited for research, but no personal information about yourself or your identity will be known to anyone but me.

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Readings
Owen, John D. Why Our Kids Dont Study: An Economists Perspective. Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1995. Weingartner, Rudolph H. Undergraduate Education: Goals and Means. New York: Macmillan Publishing Company, 1992. Astin, Alexander W. Assessment for Excellence: The Philosophy and Practice of Assessment and Evaluation in Higher Education. New York: Macmillan Publishing Company, 1991. Gross, Edward and Paul Grambsch. University Goals and Academic Power. Washington, D.C.: American Council on Education, 1968.

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Salvo Lavis was born in Houston, Texas on December 2, 1981. He attended St. Johns School in Houston before coming to major in Plan II at the University of Texas at Austin. He enjoyed economics and picked up a major in that discipline along the way. Salvo graduates from UT in May 2004. Over the course of 4 years in college, Salvo began to question exactly what was going on at the university, and what the point of the whole exercise was. While at UT, he took classes in a wide variety of disciplines, studied abroad in Madrid for a semester, and coanchored KVRX News on UT student radio. The summer before senior year, Salvo interned for Marketplace, public radios news show about the business world. While Salvos interests include math, economics, science, and education, he still finds the most wonderful things in life arent definable as majors. Salvo enjoys cooking, writing, standup comedy, film, philosophy, the outdoors, and spending time with friends and family. Salvos post-college plans are still in the air as of this printing. Email him at salvo@salvolavis.com if youd like to find out where the story goes from here.