Our comment to the end of the Department of Ed meetings on reform:

Accreditation and NACIQI

Formal education has to take responsibility for good government in the United States.

Civics and legal education are where to begin.

They are both miserable — watch the Bush/Gonzales tape on the Impeach Gonzales web site.

Watch the controlled demolition of Building 7 on 9/11 on the Truth.org web site.

Those are examples of the failure of National Advisory Committee on Institutional Quality and Integrity (”NACIQI”) to make recommendations to the Secretary that count.

All educators must become active and interested in more than “does Ward Churchill get to retain his job.”

William Sumner Scott, J.D.
Judicial Equality Foundation, Inc.
wss@jefound.org

William Sumner Scott, J.D., at 9:55 am EDT on June 4, 2007
June 4, 2007

From the Inside Higher Education website:

Lack of Consensus on Lack of Consensus

No, that’s not a typo in the headline. It’s a reflection of the Alice in Wonderland nature of Friday’s final day of work for the committee negotiating possible changes in federal rules governing accreditation.

The competition for the most surreal part of the day is stiff. A strong contender might have been the nearly two hours that the panel spent debating whether gatherings of the federal panel that advises the education secretary on accreditation should be called “meetings” or “hearings.”

But the moment that best defined the months-long negotiating process, which ended with an anticlimactic whimper Friday after the fourth and final meeting adjourned with no vote on a package of possible rules, came when the members of the panel could not agree even on their failure to reach agreement. Heads shook around the room as negotiators and baffled observers alike packed up their things and went home, leaving the Education Department to make the next move in drafting accreditation rules without being bound by anything that happened during the course of the negotiations.

To back up: The purpose of this whole process, which the Education Department contemplated last fall and formally announced in January, was for the government to convene a set of interested parties — accreditors, college officials and others — to consider possible changes in the regulations that govern accreditation, higher education’s quality assurance process.

The negotiations have been controversial throughout, with many college leaders (as well as some key members of Congress) questioning the department’s legal authority to consider some of the changes it has sought, and department officials taking turns acknowledging and denying that their primary purpose in pursuing regulatory change was to carry out some of the recommendations of the Secretary of Education’s Commission on the Future of Higher Education.

Over the months of discussion and debate during several meetings of the negotiating panel, the members reached agreement on various relatively minor issues, but remained divided about the three most significant items on the committee’s agenda: (1) ways to prod accreditors to force colleges to measure and report more quantitative data about their success in educating students; (2) a proposal to insist that accreditors ensure that the institutions they oversee do not have policies that automatically reject the academic credits of students who transfer from colleges approved by national accreditors; (3) a set of possible changes in the department’s process for granting recognition to accrediting agencies, which has come under fire as its standards for judging accreditors have appeared in recent months to shift inappropriately with the political winds.

Given the deep divisions that emerged over those issues at the negotiating panel’s third meeting in April — which ended in conflict and even a bit of intrigue — the process seemed to have ended without “consensus” on a package of proposed changes, a result that, under federal law, would have left the Education Department with the right to draft rules on any subject covered by the regulatory process. Faced with that prospect, the negotiators agreed after the end of the third meeting to make a last-ditch, “good faith” effort to resolve the remaining issues, at Friday’s fourth meeting.

In the days leading up to the meeting, rumors flew about possible outcomes. Several college lobbyists said they’d heard that the department was so desperate not to have this negotiating session end in failure as had its other two major rule making negotiations (on student loan and grant programs) this spring that department officials planned to offer significant compromises on student learning outcomes and transfer of credit. Others predicted that the department would make a few concessions and then force college and accrediting officials to vote No on the proposals, in the hope that they would make the naysayers look defensive and unwilling to change.

The composition of the audience at Friday’s meeting reflected the stakes. Sara Martinez Tucker, the under secretary of education and the department’s top higher education official, gave a pep talk as the session opened, anticipating a “tough, tough conversation at a critical point” and encouraging the panelists to do the right thing “for our children.”

Joining the usual cadre of college and accrediting lobbyists in the peanut gallery, for instance, was the Rev. Charles Currie, president of the Association of Jesuit Colleges and Universities (the group’s lobbyist said he was there to “make a statement” about the importance of the process to its member colleges, but there were jokes about him being there to administer last rites for the process, too).

And keeping a watchful eye on the proceedings was a top aide to Sen. Lamar Alexander, the Tennessee Republican and former U.S. education secretary who last week warned Secretary Margaret Spellings that the department should not overstep its bounds in proposing accrediting rules that exceed its legislative authority.

Any thought that the department had a major gambit up its sleeve seemed to abate almost immediately. Vickie L. Schray, the department’s lead negotiator, offered a strong defense of the department’s approach, complained that critics (presumably Alexander and commenters in articles in publications like this one) had mischaracterized the department’s proposals as “trying to increase our scope and authority,” and reminded everyone that it would be more than a year until any regulations that might emerge from the process take effect. “It’s going to take a couple years, folks,” before any of these proposals really have an impact, Schray said.

Then the group delved into the intricate (read: mind-numbing) details of a proposal to ensure more clarity and consistency in the procedures of the National Advisory Committee on Institutional Quality and Integrity, which advises the education secretary on accreditation issues and on granting (or withholding) federal recognition for individual accrediting agencies.

The conversation should have been an important one, given recent developments involving the advisory committee, including last week when it overrode a recommendation made by the department’s staff and, with no notice, for the first time yanked the recognition of a division of one of the six regional accrediting agencies.

That followed on its actions at its last meeting, in December, when the panel appeared to be changing its requirements for accreditors in response to prevailing pressure from the secretary’s higher education commission to insist that accreditors set minimum levels of performance for the colleges they oversee to meet for their students’ learning.

But instead of exploring philosophical or political issues about the committee’s power — “the elephant in the room,” as more than one audience member described it — the negotiating panel’s discussion focused on relative minutiae: whether calling the biennial gatherings of NACIQI “hearings” instead of “meetings” would undermine the legal rights of accreditors whose recognition is restricted, for instance, and the number of days before each NACIQI meeting (or hearing, as it were) that accreditors should get or send documents to and from the department.

While the discussion of revamping procedures for NACIQI was useful, said Judith S. Eaton, president of the Council for Higher Education Accreditation and a negotiator, “I also think we need to be going much further in considering the role and operation of the advisory committee. It’s time for a review, for a fresh look at how advisory committee members are selected, the diversity of them or lack of it, its operations and policies, going well beyond what we’re doing here.”

As the hours wore on during Friday’s discussion, it became clearer and clearer that the members of the negotiating panel were not going to reach agreement on the proposal for revamping procedures for the federal recognition process, let alone the learning outcomes and transfer of credit issues that so divided them at previous meetings.

So where did that leave them in the big picture? several panelists asked at various points during the day.

Finally, in the late afternoon, after Schray met with members of the department’s staff for a brief caucus, she said it had become clear to her that the group was not going to reach “tentative agreement” (a term of art in federal rule negotiating) on the proposal on recognition procedures. Given that failure, and the other major issues on which the negotiators remained divided, Schray said, department officials had decided to conclude the proceedings without a vote on the full package of proposals.

Instead, she said, the department vowed, “without making any promises,” to “make every effort to use your input, the language we have discussed at this table, not only on those items where we had tentative agreement, but in those we did not, in the development of proposed rules” in the weeks and months to come.

Betty Horton, a negotiator representing the Association of Specialized and Professional Accreditors, which she co-chairs, said the members of the panel had been led by the department to think that they would be voting on whether the group could reach “consensus” (another formal term in the process) on the full package of proposals. She asked that they have a chance to do that.

“Our response,” said Schray, is that “while we have worked toward consensus on the full package, it is clear we will not have consensus. Therefore, we see no reason to vote on the full package at this time.”

Horton and others pressed further, and one asked questions about the implications of the fact that the group had been unable to reach consensus on the full package of proposals.

In perhaps the final through-the-looking-glass moment of an often surreal process, Schray balked. “We are not acknowledging that there is not consensus on the full package,” she said, seeming to contradict what she had said just moments before.

With that, the proceedings came to an end, leaving many of the negotiators and most of those in the audience shaking their heads, trying to understand what had just happened and why it was important for the department not to admit that its process had fallen short of agreement on the most significant issues before it.

To Eaton, of the higher education accreditation council, one thing was clear: “There may have been a relatively soft landing, but the bottom is there was no consensus, and that rule making failed.”

What that means, going forward, is that the Education Department can issue proposed regulations that say more or less whatever its officials want — because no consensus was reached, they are not bound by the results of the rule making process, even on the issues on which the negotiators agreed.

That is just what happened last week when the department issued proposed rules out of the similarly failed rule making process on student loan issues (see related article here).

As Schray told the negotiators Friday: “You’ll have another shot at us” when the proposed rules come out. She might as well have been speaking to Lamar Alexander as to them.

— Doug Lederman

Comments

Phase Two

Although rulemaking was instituted by Congress to enable stakeholders to reach consensus on regulatory matters that impacted them, you didn’t need a crystal ball this time around. In fact, as I understand it, rulemaking generally has a pretty poor track record for keeping everyone happy.
The interests of the accrediting guilds and the federal government interlock in complicated ways, with growing pressure to reform the Secretary’s accrediting agency recognition process in the background.
But whether this amounts to the much needed reform of the self-regulated accrediting associations remains to be seen.

Phase II is the public comment portion of new rule approval process, beginning with the proposed rules appearing in the Federal Register, followed by the submission of public comments, and the Department of Education response. Those unhappy with the finalized rules can attempt to sue the Secretary in federal court, but the meetings just concluded help in meeting the legal “due process” requirements, making any challenges in open court that much more difficult. Another factor that makes successful challenges unlikely is the clear mandate of HEA Sec 496.

In order to be considered, public comments must address the narrow range of issues raised in the proposed regulations. Comments falling outside the scope of the regulations are not generally dealt with. In addition, commentators must familiarize themselves with the issues before venturing into the public spotlight, since their comments become part of the public record once they are submitted.

I find it suggestive that CHEA’s Judy Eaton is drawing attention to the make-up of NACIQI’s membership. Until recently, NACIQI’s manifest duty was to rubber-stamp the US DOE staffs’ suggestions. But now, as can be deduced, a role reversal of sorts is possible, with NACIQI driving AAEU, instead of the other way around. This abrupt shift in power may explain Eaton’s concern, since she heads the umbrella group that represents the interests of those being regulated, the accrediting guilds themselves.

However, it must be borne in mind that NACIQI operates in an advisory capacity, advising the Secretary about whether to renew recognition for Title IV purposes or not. The Secretary is free to accept or reject, or even modify that advice, which, then, may once again rely on staff input.

Glen S. McGhee, Dir., at Florida Higher Education Accountability Project, at 9:45 am EDT on June 4, 2007

Inside Higher Education posted the following article.  The resulting comment thread, which includes the comments of our Director, William Sumner Scott, follow it.

How Sectarian Is Too Sectarian?

A federal judge ruled Friday that Colorado is entitled to bar state scholarship funds from going to students at “pervasively sectarian” institutions.

The ruling rejected a suit brought by Colorado Christian University, which did not challenge a state agency’s determination of the university’s religious nature, but said that applying a test of whether an institution is “pervasively sectarian” amounts to a violation of some religious institutions’ freedom to express their faiths. But Judge Marcia S. Krieger ruled that despite a general skepticism in federal courts of late about barring religious institutions from receiving government funds, Supreme Court rulings still gave Colorado the right to limit the use of its funds as the state has done.

The ruling could be significant beyond Colorado. The university is taking the case to a federal appeals court, where any ruling will have more value as a precedent. The U.S. Justice Department is also involved in the case — and tried to use it (without success before Judge Krieger) to ease the process by which religious colleges receive government aid. The university is also receiving support from the Alliance Defense Fund, which has been quite successful in challenging limits on religious groups in higher education. In fact, the decision is notable in being a rare victory for strict separation of church and state in higher education — at a time when many courts have been adopting a more porous church-state wall in academe.

At issue are a series of student aid programs created by Colorado for state residents who attend colleges, public and private, in the state. A Colorado student at a private college in the state could gain $2,500 a year in assistance under the programs. Students are not barred from using the grants at any religious college and the funds flow to Regis University and the University of Denver, which are Roman Catholic and Methodist institutions, respectively.

The Colorado Commission on Higher Education found that Colorado Christian University — unlike Regis and Denver — fit certain characteristics of “pervasively sectarian” in that its faculty and student body must share certain religious views, participation in religious services and theological instruction is required, and so forth. The university has never shied away from its religious identity, which is clear in its Statement of Faith, which declares the Bible infallible.

The university’s challenge was based on the fact that its students have similar majors to those at other public and private colleges — business, education, humanities, sciences, etc. The argument was in essence that business students at Colorado Christian are suffering unconstitutional religious discrimination because they enroll at a Christian university instead of a secular one. The Bush administration backed that argument, accusing the state of entering “the dangerous thicket of deciding what is too religious and what is permissibly religious.”

Much of the legal discussion on the case focused on a 2004 Supreme Court ruling known as Locke v. Davey that Washington State was entitled to bar theology students from receiving state student aid. The Bush Justice Department argued that the ruling limited the ability of states to bar student aid from supporting non-theological majors at religious institutions.

Judge Krieger disagreed. She noted that the Locke decision was based on the idea that theology students were not being barred from engaging in their desired programs of study, were not being excluded from public life, and were not being forced to abandon their faith. Rather, Judge Krieger noted the language of the Supreme Court ruling that the state “has merely chosen not to fund a distinct category of instruction.” She said that finding also fit in Colorado.

On the question of students’ majors, Judge Krieger said that wasn’t relevant once an institution had been found to be “pervasively sectarian.” Colorado Christian’s “contention that the bulk of its students major in secular subjects may be nominally accurate, but ignores what it means to be found to be a ‘pervasively sectarian’ institution,” Krieger wrote. She cited a U.S. Supreme Court definition of “pervasively sectarian” as describing “an institution in which religion is so pervasive that a substantial portion of its functions are subsumed in the religious mission.” And she cited a Colorado Supreme Court definition of such a educational institution as such a place “whose educational function is not clearly separable from its religious mission.”

“CCU’s argument equating the ’secular’ education it offers and secular classes at public and generally sectarian schools such as Regis University and the University of Denver is misplaced, as the fact that those schools have not been found to be ‘pervasively sectarian’ indicates that the secular character of instruction at those schools is readily severable from any religious teaching,” Judge Krieger wrote. “Even though there are classes or programs at CCU designed to prepare students for secular jobs or careers, because CCU is a ‘pervasively sectarian’ institution, even its secular instruction is infused with religious components. Thus the unchallenged determination that CCU is ‘pervasively sectarian’ makes even its secular instruction an ‘essentially religious endeavor,’ akin to the theological instruction in Locke.“

Because the university did not challenge (in the court case) its designation as “pervasively sectarian,” the judge wrote that she did not consider whether the evaluation was fair. But in several footnotes she pointed to evidence suggesting that secular courses at the university may not be the same as those at the University of Colorado at Boulder. For example, she quoted Colorado Christian officials saying that all courses “are framed within the Christian worldview.”

The university issued a statement Friday pledging to appeal and blasting Judge Krieger’s analysis.

“The effect of the ruling is to say that Colorado students will be denied state tuition aid for college if they want to attend a religious school,” said Bill Armstrong, the university’s president. “Judge Marcia S. Krieger’s decision is a setback for the students involved and for religious liberty.”

— Scott Jaschik

Comments

Faith Defined

Faith is belief without facts.

Faith has no place in any institution of higher education.

It must be eliminated as an organized business.

Falwell passed his business on to his children.

All organized religions are frauds upon the public.

This decision is correct — it needs to be expanded.

If organized religion were regulated under the Securities Act of 1933 and Sarbanes-Oxley of 2002 and taxed as are other businesses, it would soon become extinct.

The World would be a safer.

William Sumner Scott, J.D.
wss@jefound.org
http://jefound.org

William Sumner Scott, J.D., at 10:15 am EDT on May 21, 2007
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Too Christian

So, if your college is “too Christian”, too bad? What about all those tax payers who are also “too Christian”? Seems like they should have a say in where their tax money is being spent.

Frank McCown, at 12:00 pm EDT on May 21, 2007

Immediate Press Release
Contact: Ron Rex
Vice President for University Advancement
Colorado Christian University
Phone: 720-838-4486
rrex@ccu.edu

Inside Higher Education posted the following article.  The resulting comment thread, which includes the comments of our Director, William Sumner Scott, follow it.

Georgetown Law’s New Precedent

Jenny Woodson is no stranger to controversial causes. It’s just that the first-year law student didn’t expect that, at the most stressful time of her year, she’d be at the center of a divisive case about adherence to religious principles.
Related stories

Like classmates before her at the Georgetown University Law Center, Woodson accepted an unpaid summer position with an organization that supports abortion rights — Planned Parenthood’s public policy and litigation department. When asked during her job interview if she could secure funding for the work, Woodson said she wasn’t sure. Would a Jesuit institution provide financial support for a student to work there?

Not a problem, Woodson’s interviewer told her. Georgetown had a history of funding similar summer internships. So she expected no trouble when she turned in a 50-word job description to the campus group that provides fellowships to students participating in public interest jobs.

But in late March, Woodson was told that T. Alexander Aleinikoff, dean of the Law Center, had decided that the campus group could not fund her internship. (Georgetown helped Woodson find a nonprofit organization that plans to support her work.)

“It wasn’t a change in policy,” Aleinikoff said. “As we became more involved in the funding and more aware of the project, it was clear that the university could not fund advocacy of abortion rights. There’s a very narrow exception in an area that is central to the core identity of the university.”

Equal Justice Foundation, the student-run group that provides the fellowships, receives some funding from alumni and outside sources. But a growing percentage — this year more than $100,000 — of the money comes from the Law Center, which collects and distributes all donations.

Woodson is upset with what she calls Georgetown’s inconsistencies. She said it is intellectually dishonest for the Law Center to claim its action is motivated by a desire to follow Catholic teachings.

“If Georgetown wants to be a Catholic University it has the freedom to identify as such,” she said. “If the school wants to abide by Catholic doctrine it should do so consistently and prevent all activities the Church disagrees with. This includes prosecutors’ offices that impose the death penalty, gay rights organizations, political candidates and judges that hold positions that disagree with the Catholic church, military law organizations and human rights organizations (the majority of which support reproductive rights, as well).

“When we apply to Georgetown Law, the most you hear about the Jesuit tradition is that [the school] supports students doing work in the public interest,” she added. “If I ever knew that taking part in women’s rights issues would lead to a chilling effect, I don’t know if I would have ever considered coming here.”

Days after learning of the Law Center’s decision, Woodson approached the student group Law Students for Choice, which is not officially recognized by the university. Joy Welan, the group’s president, said she agrees with Woodson that Georgetown mishandled the situation.

“We think this is a major change from what [the school] has done in the past, and it interferes with students’ career development,” Welan said. “If [Georgetown] is saying it is instituting this policy because the church demands it, then why aren’t changes happening across the board?”

“The school has tried to be too covert about its affiliation with the Catholic church,” she added. “We want [it] to come out and be honest about what [it wants] to be.”

Welan said the university still allows student groups like hers to bring to campus speakers whose positions differ from the official Jesuit policy, and that while it won’t provide funding for those speakers, the institution will set aside space, which Georgetown has already paid for.

Georgetown, she said, has taken a “piece-by-piece” dismantling approach rather than dealing with the issue of abortion rights holistically. For instance, she said before the academic year began, her group lost the right to have the “.edu” at the end of its e-mail account.

“We’re concerned that this one issue is being targeted and wondering how far this is going to expand in the future,” Welan said.

Deborah Epstein, associate dean for clinical programs and public interest, said Georgetown is trying to make its funding restrictions as narrow as possible so that students can still take part in the vast majority of public interest work.

“The law school is being quite clear — we cannot provide our own funding through EJF or other means for students to work at an organization whose primarily purpose is abortion rights advocacy,” she said. “That’s all we’re saying.”

Daniel Hughes, president of the student group Progressive Alliance for Life, said he is among the students who have confronted administrators with concerns over summer internship funding. He said he threatened to take the matter to the church officials if action wasn’t taken. Aleinikoff said Georgetown’s decision had nothing to do with external pressure.

Hughes said the university is finally taking the appropriate action by honoring church teachings.

“I don’t think Georgetown needs to enact Catholic doctrine on every issue — that wouldn’t be desirable,” he said. “But the most bedrock Catholic teaching is the protection of life. No advocacy group that works against that principle should be supported by the university.”

Hughes said he doesn’t understand the complaints. Students, he said, need to realize that there are tradeoffs to coming to a Jesuit institution, such as the fact that some alumni donate because they support certain beliefs associated with the church.

“If this is finally a sign of them owning up to their commitment to honor the church, I’ll be impressed but surprised,” he said. “This seems like a grudging, half-hearted commitment.”

Woodson, the law student, said she is also upset with the timing of Georgetown’s decision. She said by waiting until late in the application process, the law school hamstrung EJF.

“Almost every year someone has a job like this,” she said. “It should have been foreseen. If the school is going to make this decision, announce it in an open forum so students can understand what is going on and so people pledging money understand the new limitations.”

Epstein, the associate dean, said it was an evolving decision that “could have been made any year.”

Georgetown is working on a new statement to clarify that EJF cannot fund future summer jobs involving abortion advocacy groups.

“This is a practical question that we are trying to resolve with prudence,” Aleinikoff said. “Our policy is one of total free speech. We welcome a full discussion on campus, and speakers of diverse viewpoints are brought by student groups.”

— Elia Powers

Comments

The Right to Pick and Chose

At the core of the abortion belief and all other beliefs based upon interpretation of ancient writings is the teaching of Deuteronomy 13:6-9 — let one who teaches a false religion die at the hand of the truly religious. No educated person could possibly continue to refer to any written work based upon this arcane belief, yet the Torah, Bible and Koran do just that. No less than two of them are wrong.

Obviously, this problem goes deeper than how to deal with abortion at Georgetown Law. All law schools must teach sufficient sanity to overcome the lack of tolerance taught by all organized religious people if religious wars like the ones to preserve the Theocracies of Afghanistan and Iraq are to be eliminated. At present, no American law school makes the effort.

Begin with the question: Why no payment of real estate taxes by owners of religious brick and mortar? The buildings are protected by services provided by the pubic. The free tax ride is support of those religions with buildings over those that do not. Those who want to be free of religion pay for them all. Is that legally correct?

The Georgetown Law abortion issue should prompt a broad discussion of the harm organized religion does to the World.

William Sumner Scott, J.D.
Judicial Equality Foundation, Inc.
www://jefound.org
wss@jefound.org

William Sumner Scott, J.D., at 7:41 am EDT on April 6, 2007
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Who Decides Where the Line is Drawn

Woodson is upset with what she calls Georgetown’s inconsistencies. She said it is intellectually dishonest for the Law Center to claim its action is motivated by a desire to follow Catholic teachings.

Woodson said further “If Georgetown wants to be a Catholic University it has the freedom to identify as such,” she said. “If the school wants to abide by Catholic doctrine it should do so consistently and prevent all activities the Church disagrees with. This includes prosecutors’ offices that impose the death penalty, gay rights organizations, political candidates and judges that hold positions that disagree with the Catholic church, military law organizations and human rights organizations (the majority of which support reproductive rights, as well).

“When we apply to Georgetown Law, the most you hear about the Jesuit tradition is that [the school] supports students doing work in the public interest,” she added. “If I ever knew that taking part in women’s rights issues would lead to a chilling effect, I don’t know if I would have ever considered coming here.”

Why is the abortion issue more important than the support of the death penalty?

Who let organized religion into the provision of higher education, or any formal education for that matter.

Quizzical, at 8:01 am EDT on April 6, 2007
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Who let organized religion into the provision of higher education, or any formal education for that matter.

People who believe in liberty, I would say. To forbid organized religion to establish private educational institutions would be a step on the road to authoritarianism.

K.T., at 9:16 am EDT on April 6, 2007
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Response to KT

Then they must teach only what they can prove — all discussion is qualified by “there may not be a God and, certainly, the printed word must be the work of man.” If you have an opinion on abortion or any other issue, it is only your opinion or analysis of the facts, not the word of God.

Otherwise, we are led by the insane.

Quizzical, at 10:11 am EDT on April 6, 2007
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Religion and Freedom

We can only teach what we can prove? So black holes are out? Any teaching of the meaning of Moby Dick (as but one example) is dead?

But wait, this is not even that. While Quizzical (a non de plume, I am certain) is railing against what GU may or may not teach, this is not an article about instruction; this is an article about the limitations on funding for students’ summer internships.

I support GU’s position on funding, but I oppose GU’s position on abortion. My position on what has been reported here is based upon my belief in the (necessary) rights of private educational instutions.

Andrew Purvis, at 11:15 am EDT on April 6, 2007
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liberty and orthodoxy

I concur with Mr. Purvis. Requiring a private institution to teach only what Quizical finds provable is not too much different from requiring people to assent to a theological doctrine of an established church.

chris b, at 11:35 am EDT on April 6, 2007
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Fact from Fiction

Certainly, Black Holes can be taught — when presented as the unknown.

The problem with the denial of abortion promotion funding is that the decision was based upon the belief that the word of God demands no funding.

It is wrong for an institution of higher learning that attempts to mold future leaders of intellectual thought, particularly a law school, to make business judgments based upon any belief that is attributed to an unproven source, such as God.

Or a mislabeled source, such as the claim that the written word of man, such as the Bible, has devine inspiration.

AP was close to express his positions as personal to him.

But he missed the point because funding denial must be condemned as impossible to justify.

Chris, at 1:15 pm EDT on April 6, 2007
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Georgetown misled alumni donors

This article misses an important point: Georgetown’s policy change means alumni donors to EJF were misled.

While much of EJF’s funding for student summer public interest fellowships comes from Georgetown University, a large percentage of it comes from alumni donations. Alumni donated to EJF during its fund drive, expecting that reproductive rights fellowships would be funded just as they were in previous years. Georgetown waited until after the fund drive to announce that it was pulling funding from this student. Had I, and other alumni donors, known that Georgetown would discriminate in this way, we would not have contributed.

Moreover, EJF has always funded fellowships based on student votes: Students select the projects they deem most worthy of funding. If Georgetown wants to preserve a Catholic identity, it should accept students who will vote in line with what it considers Catholic doctrine. Otherwise, it should respect student and alumni choices to fund reproductive rights projects. And it certainly should not take alum’s money and then change the rules.

Emily E. Arnold-Fernandez, GULC ‘04

Emily E. Arnold-Fernandez, at 1:15 pm EDT on April 6, 2007
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As a student, has I known that EJF would not fund students who spend their summers working in non-profits that litigate reproductive health, I too would not have donated this year. While the Administration says the decision could have been made at any time, I find it curious that the decision was made after the donation process has all but concluded. This leaves the impression that they snuck the change in after the fact. In addition to being inconsistent across the board (by funding students who work in jobs that support the death penalty, etc) this new policy decision stymies student’s educational and professional development — surely an anathema to the goals of GULC. Furthermore, it will end up penalizing students who don’t have the economic capability to forgoe funding and take the summer job in spite of the University’s refusal. As a result, only students with an indepenent source of income will be able to participate in these non-profit jobs. Considering the big push to have law students go into public interest work, this is sad and ironic.

GULC 3L, at 5:10 pm EDT on April 6, 2007
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LSFC : Georgetown :: Georgetown : Military Recruitment

I know we all hated the SATs, but the title says it all. Aleinikoff’s hypocrisy is much more astonishing than the article suggests.

Georgetown receives significant government funding, but tuition and alumni donations constitutes most of Georgetown’s operating budget. Similarly, EJF receives significant funding from Georgetown, but student, alumni, and professor donations constitutes most of EJF’s budget.

When Congress threatened to pull funding from the entire university if the law school refused to allow military recruiters on campus, Aleinikoff fought the decision all the way up to the Supreme Court. Yet he feels that it’s perfectly acceptable for him to do the exact same thing to EJF — even though EJF doesn’t have the resources to contest his decision.

Moreover, EJF doesn’t directly determine which student projects get funded. Student, alumni, and professors donating anonymously rank the projects. Those rankings ultimately determine which projects get funded. It’s rather odd for a school that strongly emphasizes community to suddenly prevent the community from determining how their dollars should be spent.

Meredith E., at 5:15 pm EDT on April 6, 2007
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If Georgetown wants to hamstring the work its students do, then it should be honest and direct about it and work consistently within the Catholic tradition. Don’t fund pro choice groups, don’t fund gay rights groups and don’t fund people working in support of the death penalty. Then be prepared to take the hit academically and financially when you drop in the rankings. Picking on a single student in a underhanded and secretive way is, at best, poor management and at worst, cowardly. Either way, it surely isn’t an intellectually consistent or honorable position.

Sean S, at 8:00 pm EDT on April 6, 2007
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Sean,

I believe that perhaps you are allowing your personal views on abortion to color your comments on Georgetown’s decision.

I would be very suprised if Georgetown funds any pro-death penalty groups. Your other example, gay rights, shows a lack of knowledge about Catholic doctrine. I suggest you research what the stands are and then make your comment and the world not being “all good” or “all evil”.

Regarding ‘taking a hit’, Georgetown is a Catholic university, not a catholic university. As I understand things, being willing to ‘take a hit’ for something they believe in something they are supposed to do. Personally, I admire people and organizations that take stands on principle at a financial cost. And usually I admire them whether I believe in their cause or not. Too few universities do that.

Did you make these same type of arguments whenever Georgetown divests its investments in securities related to industries or regimes it finds morally reprehensable. Probably not, so long as you also find those firms morally reprehensable.

In any case, I don’t feel that Georgetown’s discontinuation of funding pro-abortion activities will seriously impact its standing or will cause any of its student’s to leave the school due to fear of having their marketablity diminished. In my experience most students are not that narrow in focus when looking for a school and, in any case, I suspect abortion activists don’t flock to schools which consider natural law a moral basis for decision making.

stm60, UConn, at 7:25 am EDT on April 7, 2007
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Religion and Law School

The stand on the abortion issue or any other discussion motivated by what the law is or should be is admirable.

The interjection of religious dogma detracts from the process.

Should the religious be allowed to remain in the law school business is the question prompted by this article and the comments.

The end result should be the loss of accreditation for all religious law schools – a free, peaceful, society begins with secular law schools open to all people.

William Sumner Scott, J.D.
Judicial Equality Foundation, Inc.
www://jefound.org

William Sumner Scott, J.D., at 4:05 pm EDT on April 7, 2007
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So Mr. Scott, a free, peaceful society begins with the loss of accredidation for religious law schools? What sort of concept of freedom are you operating from? Do you wish to deny private institutions the right to self-regulation (unless they agree with your tolerant views)?

Cory Madsen, at 8:35 pm EDT on April 7, 2007
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What Daniel Hughes FAILED to say was that the reason he doesn’t want Catholic doctrine applied across the board (“I don’t think Georgetown needs to enact Catholic doctrine on every issue — that wouldn’t be desirable,” he said) was because he is gay and also the head of the campus gay rights group. So he’s fine with enforcing Catholic doctrine when it comes to an issue he has ABSOLUTELY NO PERSONAL STAKE IN, but he certainly doesn’t want Catholic doctrine enforced in every respect, because then he wouldn’t be so welcome on campus anymore. He is an unbelievable hypocrite and entirely without credibility.

concernedstudent, at 6:20 pm EDT on April 9, 2007

Comment on the below article:

How is Formal Education to Be Delivered

The interest spurred by Science is truly a reflection of resistance to access to good teaching by computer and other modern methods.

The denial of admission and flunk were the historical methods of the elite to maintain their societal position. The methods described in this article are about to end the hammer lock the elites have held on formal education.

With the computer and student aids, rather than 25,000 applicants for 1,000 slots, all 25,000 can be admitted and taught. Doors will open on merit rather than name.

Michael Milken went into education because he predicts a move to efficient, modern, profitable methods. The question is who and how will they be delivered. NCAT is on the leading edge because of the grant from Pew. Grants from Carnegie, Ford and others should soon put competitors into this effort.

Let’s first improve the poorest educated yet most important and most profitable to educate among us, the lawyers.

Behave as though we want to take formal education to the final four.

William Sumner Scott, J.D.
Judicial Equality Foundation, Inc.

From the Inside Higher Education website:

Introductory Course Makeovers

Intermediate algebra at the University of Alabama used to be your basic introductory class — lecture format, little interaction.

When Joe Benson, senior associate dean in the College of Arts and Sciences, looked at the grade distribution in the Math 100 course in 1999, he was displeased. Fewer than 40 percent of the 1,500 students who enrolled during that academic year received a C- or higher, and many were unable to move onto the next course in the math sequence.

“It was a situation where students, particularly at that level, had a difficult time learning the math in that format,” Benson said. “Their engagement in the course wasn’t as high as we would have liked.”

By fall 2004, the grade distribution was markedly different. Seventy-five percent of students received either A, B or C grades in the course.

What gave?

Early in 2000, Alabama was selected to take part in a course redesign project set up through the National Center for Academic Transformation. The nonprofit organization consults with colleges across the country on how they can improve student academic performance while reducing costs. It advocates more use of technology in large-enrollment, introductory courses, and in some cases replaces lectures with lab time that allow for more individual interaction between professors and students.

With an $8.8 million grant from the Pew Charitable Trusts, the center provided grants to 30 two- and four-year institutions to take part in its program in course redesign from 1999 to 2004. NCAT reported that student learning, measured through tests before and after, improved at 25 of the institutions and remained equal at the other five. All colleges involved reported cost savings — money that goes back into a department’s general fund, according to the center.

The center is now on its third round of grants. Money is being distributed to roughly 60 institutions for course redesign projects. And several large university systems — including the Arizona Board of Regents, the State University of New York System and the University System of Maryland — have signed on to participate through at least 2009.

NCAT’s growth in visibility can be attributed to a confluence of factors. As some of the early grantees have reported results from their redesign projects, word of mouth has spread at meetings of both trustees and faculty.

At the same time, the center’s core mission of helping higher education produce more degree holders while becoming cost efficient has been affirmed by the Secretary of Education’s Commission on the Future of Higher Education. A report released by the Making Opportunity Available project last week also cited NCAT’s efforts.

A Menu of Models

NCAT has identified several redesign models, all of which adhere to the principle that students need more than just traditional lectures. One model reduces the number of in-class meetings and increases lab time. Some simply supplement lectures with out-of-class activities — CD-Rom assignments, online simulations and interactive workshops.

The models stress online assessment that provides immediate feedback to instructors. Administrators can monitor tests given to students before the course redesign and after to measure their subject knowledge.

The idea, says Carol A. Twigg, president and chief executive of NCAT, is to structure courses so that both student and instructor time is best used. Face-to-face time with students is valuable, but sometimes independent learning is more sensible, the NCAT theory goes. Twigg, a former academic administrator and vice president of Educom (the higher education technology association now know as Educause), said the models are meant to give colleges flexibility.

Alabama used NCAT’s “emporium” model, which eliminates all class meetings and replaces them with a learning resource center featuring online material and on-demand faculty assistance.

Colleges typically begin with a pilot project and then bring changes to a class over a three-year period. Alabama began its pilot program in spring of 2000, abandoning the traditional three-times-a-week blackboard instruction that accommodated sections of 35 students in favor of a new software program and one-on-one tutorial assistance. The university created a math technology learning center dedicated exclusively to students in the course.

Students work through online math problems, largely going at their own pace and seeking help from an on-site instructor whenever they come across questions. There is generally one required lab time per week.

While some students and parents were initially skeptical, Benson said test scores gradually rose. He was so pleased with the results that Alabama signed on to use NCAT to help with other math courses.

“Math courses are particularly amenable to computer-based instruction,” Benson said. “If you walk by a lab and look at the classes, at any point there are people sitting there doing math. If you walk past most college classes, they are sitting there watching an instructor doing a problem. It doesn’t translate.”

The NCAT Web site lists a number of cost-reduction strategies for colleges that are participating in a redesign: Reduce the number of sections of a course, increase the size of each section, bring in several adjuncts to teach sections of a course that were previously taught by full-time instructors.

Some who read the redesign proposals wonder about staffing implications: Would a college choose to cut faculty jobs as a result of structural changes to a course?

Twigg says none of the models call for eliminating instructor positions, and that replacing faculty with graduate instructors or part-timers is not a predominant technique.

“People naturally think, if you talk about saving money, you’re going to lose jobs,” she said. “We’re talking about changing the way in which faculty work to free them to do other things.”

But Roy Fechner, a math instructor at Alabama, said since several courses have gone to the new model, he is asked to teach fewer sections, which means less income. Other instructors have also reported a workload decrease, he said.

Fechner listed other problems with the redesigned courses. It’s more difficult to check if students are using the correct method to solve problems because process is hard to track with the software. Because instructors now see students once a week in lab instead of three times in lecture, they are asked to disseminate more information in one sitting than many students can digest, he said. And class size has doubled, from 30 to 60 in some cases, making it difficult to tell if students are prepared, Fechner added.

Colleges have reported problems while implementing the course changes. According to the NCAT Web site, in some cases early on, faculty and parents were upset that courses would require less class time and face-to-face interaction. It said students at some institutions were concerned about lack of faculty availability in learning centers. Some teaching assistants weren’t prepared to handle the online technology, and faculty members said teaching in lab setting took adjustments.

Sam Evers, an instructor at the University of Alabama who has taught in the math department for more than a decade, said the redesign has changed the way faculty there look at math courses.

“The human element isn’t gone; if anything it’s more hands-on now,” he said. “Before, if students wanted to ask me a question, they’d have to e-mail me with a question or set up a time during my office hours. Now, they may not get me specifically, but someone will be on site immediately.”

Evers said most of the concern has been from instructors, (introductory math courses aren’t taught by full-time professors) but that most now understand the change simply means a shift in routine, with more time now spent walking the floor of the lab. “You need as many or more instructors to make this work right,” he said.

And then there’s the question of cost savings. NCAT stresses that reshaped courses save institutions money by freeing up faculty time and reducing per-student costs.

Stephen C. Ehrmann, vice president of the nonprofit Teaching, Learning and Technology Group, says that while projects that the center highlights report lower operating costs, the newly designed courses tend to be more capital intensive.

Ehrmann said there is a “loose relationship” between money spent to redesign a course and the educational outcome — in other words, a costly course can be less effective than one that is less expensive to reshape. Models that emphasize materials as a substitute for what he calls “live transmission or interaction” tend to be more rigid, he said.

“It’s harder to adapt to the teaching preferences of faculty A and faculty B, or to changing current events that might affect a course,” he said.

Ehrmann said NCAT’s model also focuses too heavily on redesigning individual courses rather than a sequence or cluster.

Working with State Systems

Large state university systems, many of which are seeing rapid enrollment increases, are signing on to work with Twigg.

This spring, the State University of New York is expected to begin work with NCAT to reshape at least 10 courses systemwide.

The University of Maryland System hired Twigg as a consultant for the next three years to work with 11 colleges. The project coordinators, Donald Spicer and Nancy Shapiro, both associate vice chancellors, said the project will focus on courses that serve as transitions from high school to college work.

“Students who are struggling can get the help they need, and those ready to launch ahead aren’t held back,” Shapiro said of the new course models.

Maryland wants to accommodate more students and add sections. Spicer said some courses are growing in size without the physical space or enough instructors. Twigg is providing feedback to faculty there who are submitting proposals.

Both Shapiro and Spicer said they will measure success by cost savings, dropout rates and major declarations (how many students participating in the pilot courses end up declaring a major in the field where the project took place.)

The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill is using a grant to rethink how to structure Spanish courses. Half the sections of an introductory class are moving from four hours of classroom time per week (plus office hours) to a setup that is weighted more heavily toward independent work online and virtual office hours, during which time a faculty member will be available online.

Glynis Cowell, director of the UNC Spanish language program, said the change could help accommodate more students. The university — because of lack of physical space and budget constraints — hasn’t been able to meet its student demand in Spanish. She said students will also be able to move at their own pace.

Larry King, a UNC Spanish professor, said those who support the changes say technology provides more flexibility in instruction, gives immediate feedback and allows students to hear authentic language on demand. Critics say it’s not sensible to replace face time with an instructor and that cultural context is impossible to pick up over a video.

NCAT has also finished consulting with the Ohio Learning Network. Ohio University was one of the institutions that participated in an orientation that explained the model system. (NCAT didn’t follow the progress of a course redesign there.)

Scott Titsworth, associate director for graduate studies in the School of Communication Studies, said changes to an introductory-level communications course has greatly reduced grading time. He said for every hour of class instruction, the professor and two teaching assistants spent four hours grading reflection papers in the 400-person course.

Students now respond to homework assignments in class by answering questions using a clicker system. Titsworth says those responses help spark class discussion. Class attendance is up and there is only a need for one teaching assistant, he said.

Maryn Boess, grants program manager with the Arizona Board of Regents — which began working with Twigg in January — said she hopes to support 10 to 15 projects overall at the University of Arizona, Northern Arizona University and Arizona State University.

“Faculty may not even be aware of the level of discontent with a large lecture course,” she said. “Some are still wedded to the large lecture model and haven’t become aware of how different it can be. We’re riding the coattails of this movement.”

— Elia Powers