Advocate Online

Some time ago, while driving, I found myself listening to a National Public Radio account of an online university in England offering degrees in seemingly every traditional academic area.

As a technology "nerd" myself, I have to admit I've used—and even pioneered—the latest technologies in teaching and research in my area of expertise, electric power systems. But the implications of what I heard that day on the radio are disturbing.

Using the latest technologies to improve the delivery of education is not new. If discovering new ideas and solving problems is the faculty's job, so too is advancing new techniques to deliver these ideas.

Certainly, thoughtfully developed distance teaching has its place: Courses should be available for those who must balance a career or family with college classes and can't always access traditional campuses. Nonetheless, for traditional undergraduate students higher education must be defined as physically attending a university or college.

Face-to-face instruction is needed not only for in-class learning, but, more importantly, for social and intellectual development. This approach to education prepares students for life-long learning and independent critical thinking, the two most important ingredients for life-long employment.

Yet, instead of using the new technologies to enhance what we know is meaningful education, too many administrators are looking to distance teaching as a source of income.

This is being done with such competitive enthusiasm that devising evaluation tools, establishing intellectual property ownership, and determining workload and compensation policies have been set aside.

Yet, preliminary studies indicate that distance teaching is not the money-making machine many administrators dreamed it would be. Rather, distance education is expensive and time consuming.

The lesson should be apparent to higher education policy makers: We should wholeheartedly support the use of new technologies to complement and enhance the generation and delivery of the knowledge.

But we must demand that the quality of education not be sacrificed in the name of affordability. We must tread cautiously and approach advances in distance learning with the same critical dispassion as we do our disciplines.

Morteza Daneshdoost is president of the Southern Illinois University-Carbondale Faculty Association and a professor of electrical engineering at the university.

I'd like to say!

When Susan Dole Writes "You don't fatten up the pig by weighing it" (March Dialogue), this resonates for me, both as a teacher and as a parent of two kids aged nine and six.

My son Matt is currently gearing up for fourth-grade MCAS tests that last for days. But I don't believe my child is being prepared for a realistic and healthy experience. I think we're putting the "cart before the horse."

What matters to me is that my kids learn to enjoy learning, grow as young people, and figure out who they are in a friendly, encouraging, and comfortable environment.

Learning and growth for our students, whether they're in elementary school or college, should be the focus, not tests and test results.
—Michael Bejtlich
Cape Cod Community College

I must register my dismay at the account of the AAUP/AFT/NEA governance seminar that appeared in the March Advocate. As to nomenclature, the AAUP is not a union. We are solely a professional organization at the national level, although, as you are aware, we provide support to those of our chapters that decide to function as faculty unions. We are quite careful in making that distinction and ask that you be mindful of it as well.
—Jane Buck
President, American Association of
University Professors