Page 247 - Crisis in Higher Education

218 • Crisis in Higher Education

standard deviation or perform physics experiments. With careful design,
the instructor can anticipate questions and build in answers, and students
can view it over and over to catch the nuances. Plus, they can view it in
small groups and help one another.
In healthcare and education, increasing productivity is often viewed
negatively by professionals because these “enhancements” often involved
simple-minded ideas, like cut the number of nurses in a hospital wing or
increase the number of students in a class. The pushback was that admin-
istrators do not want quality care/instruction. Plus, this “load-on-the-
work” mentality implies that nurses and faculty were slackers who should
be working harder. A better approach is the application of technology
that actually makes the work faster and easier. This approach implies an
understanding that the work is challenging and resources are needed to
make the job faster and easier. In medicine, the clearest examples are
advancements in technology that have substantially increased the pro-
ductivity of surgeons whether they are ophthalmologists or orthopedists.
In higher education, the productivity of secretaries and clerical staff has
been increased by information technology, which has virtually elimi-
nated dictation, dramatically reduced typing duties, and simplified book-
keeping entries and other routine actions. The application of technology
to teaching, which is discussed in Chapter 12, can improve productivity
and may be able to improve it dramatically. The productivity of adminis-
trators is discussed in Chapter 11.

10.3 DRIVING FORCES FOR CHANGE

Tenured faculty members and universities are key players in changing cur-
riculum and pedagogy, but they need persuasion. For public universities,
federal, state, and to a lesser extent, local governments can require changes
that reduce curriculum length as well as improve pedagogy. Governments
should be supported by students, parents, other family members, and
friends, who want a high-quality education, lower cost, better graduation
rates, completion in four years, and good job opportunities. Private uni-
versities only receive money from the federal government, so there is less
opportunity for government pressure to drive changes, but if public uni-
versities are successful at improving outcomes, many private universities
will take notice.