September, 2009 // Posts published in September, 2009
Federal Universities?
The op-ed piece in last Sunday’s Washington Post, from two leaders of the University of California at Berkeley, was intriguing, for it revived some musings I’d pondered over the summer. The idea is that, given the huge and undeniable problems major state universities are facing in state-based funding, not just in the current crisis but […]
Checking up on Administrative Growth
I was involved in a teapot tempest this past week, but it was my teapot so excuse a comment. While specifics are George Mason stuff, there might be a bit of wider interest. The Challenge. A colleague and I were presenting about our budget, at a meeting called by the Faculty Senate. Not long before […]
A Great Chance to Negotiate – with whom?
It’s an interesting moment for public universities. On the one hand, budget cuts have forced some important economies. Some of them are surely undesirable, but others may prove less onerous than expected (we need a bit of time to figure out impact). Most obviously, some modest increases in average class size, sometimes abetted by the […]
More Students: we must be doing something right
This is, in the first place, a thank you note. Mason has this fall enrolled upwards of 1500 more students than we expected, and we seem to be managing the challenge fairly well. Lots of people have stepped up to help. Dean’s offices have arranged class availability and kept wait lists down. Faculty themselves have […]
Pacing Higher Education
One of the challenging aspects of this moment in higher education involves how to respond to the various criticisms of the system without, on the one hand, throwing out achievements of real value or, on the other, appearing like a self-interested reactionary. The notion of accelerating a college degree, making it three years rather than […]
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