After Decades of Growth, Colleges Find It’s Survival of the Fittest
The bottom tier called out in this article are failing, above all else, because they lack a sense of place and purpose and instead make decisions marked by insecurity.<p>I have a whole lot to say on this issue so I&#x27;ll try and keep it briefish...context, I&#x27;m finishing up my PhD in Engineering Education at a &#x27;top tier&#x27; university. I also have a BS and MS in an engineering discipline.<p>Several friends in my program, as well as myself, have been applying for faculty jobs this year. Two of us have experience as technical founders, as working engineers, have prior experience teaching engineering, and now have PhDs in how to teach engineering well.<p>More than one <i>teaching focused</i> university has specifically told us that our degrees in teaching engineering are DISQUALIFYING to teach engineering at their schools. They will only take PhDs in that field of engineering. Those students, because of the nature of modern research universities, are often explicitly discouraged from developing teaching expertise - it distracts from the research their advisers need accomplished to get tenure there. So you have schools that produce future faculty discouraging them from getting the preparation needed for the majority of faculty jobs, and the schools that do the majority of teaching not interested in educational expertise.<p>One department head specifically told me during a phone interview they didn&#x27;t see how a degree in how to teach engineering would be relevant to what they do. That school advertises that it&#x27;s focused entirely on undergraduate engineering education, does not have graduate students, and rewards tenure almost entirely based on teaching performance. I pointed out that I had two degree in their discipline, worked as an engineer in the field for years, had already been teaching engineering before I returned to graduate school, and went back to school specifically to learn how to teach better. Silence. The last person they hired (who has become a friend&#x2F;mentee of mine) went straight through from their BS to MS to PhD in a single engineering discipline. No teaching experience and no industry experience - but a PhD in the field.<p>The trend there doesn&#x27;t just apply to teaching, it applies to research and to broader visions of what a university can or should be.<p>Really, summarized, the issues we are seeing are issues of strategy - but that is a dirty word at universities. The schools have all, teaching as well as research focused, managed to entirely divorce Schein&#x27;s three levels of culture from each other. They have artifacts they use for promotion, tenure, and measuring the school&#x27;s activity. Many have ceased to try and argue those artifacts are linked to the values that they espouse. They simply state they are linked and then stigmatize anyone who points out otherwise.<p>At many schools, the faculty pathologically fear losing input on governance yet are unwilling to contribute to running of the university in a meaningful way. They complain about perpetually rising tenure standards, but they are the ones enforcing those standards. Trying to engage in these discussions is a dirty word because that would require them to confront things outside of their bubble. Trying to individualize isn&#x27;t within the capacity of the faculty because ongoing disciplinary ossification, narrowing, and inlooking. It also isn&#x27;t in the capacity of the outside managers they bring in to run the &#x27;business&#x27; side - because they don&#x27;t have the foggiest understanding of how education works, and get stuck on traditional metrics for business success and solutions that prevent any real change.<p>Its easy to blame sports, and they sure don&#x27;t help, but the culture of the way universities are run - lacking in any reflection, self-awareness, or broader world view. It isn&#x27;t complying with title IX, but thats a convenient scapegoat. It isn&#x27;t building nice dorms, that&#x27;s a symptom not a cause. Each school looks up the ladder of rankings and then does their damnedest to make themselves look like the school above them. In an attempt to &#x27;compete&#x27; they all actively commodify themselves.<p>As an academic I find it sad. As an engineer&#x2F;entrepreneur I find it frustrating. As a citizen I find it actively dangerous. In the broadest sense, these aren&#x27;t just problems of education, they are problems of a society that (on the whole) seeks a black and white understanding of the world and seeks an education system that reproduces what it thinks it wants, rather than what it could be or might need later.