Online Discussion #1 on "Privatization," due January 24th

In his essay "The Price of Privatization," from The Great Mistake: How We Wrecked Public Universities and How We Can Fix Them, Christopher Newfield uses the term "privatization" to describe what is happening to American higher education due to the widespread withdrawal of state support and the turn to private sources of funding (especially tuition).  This turn to the private can be contrasted with the idea of "public good," which is the focus of "When College Was a Public Good," where Scott Carlson points out that the decline of public investment in higher education and the rise of diversity among college students are inversely correlated, perhaps because the elite feel less inclined to support programs that are not for people like themselves.

In their book Paying for the Party: How College Maintains Inequality, sociologists Elizabeth Armstrong and Laura Hamilton describe how college magnifies relatively small differences in family background and income, so that students from less affluent families find themselves at a disadvantage in making social connections, gaining membership in Greek life, affording time for academics, and successfully pursuing the most challenging professional pathways (where support from parents is practically essential). 

Choose ONE of the following questions and use ideas related to the rise of privatization (Newfiled) or the fall of public support (Carlson) to help explain a specific example from Armstrong and Hamilton's study that illustrates that idea.  Try to make an original connection between two of the readings in your comment.  Then post a comment on another student's connection.

1. Privatization and Social Engagement or Isolation.
How might privatization compound the problems faced by less affluent students in making lasting social connections at college and why does that matter? Some related questions you might consider: How does social class background impact how well students fit in socially?  How does successful social engagement translate to academic success in college and economic success after college?  What are the downsides of too much social engagement, and why do some students suffer those downsides more than others?   

2. Privatization and Social Reproduction or Mobility.
How exactly do private resources impact who will have the most academic success at college and the most long-term gains in income because of that?  Armstrong and Hamilton suggest that social and economic backgrounds seem to foretell who will or will not reproduce the social class of their parents or, even more challenging, achieve social mobility.  How exactly do private resources or a lack of public support make the difference here?

Use the comments feature below and make direct reference to the readings in your comment (which must be posted before we meet on Tuesday).  Then respond to another student's comment (you may need to come back later and the second comment is due by 24 hours after we meet as a class).  You must post and comment to receive the full two points participation credit.  Note: if you post anonymously, please sign your post with at least your first name.  

Two College Sports Documentaries

There have been a number of college sports documentaries.  Two recent ones that examine the business of college sports include:

Schooled: The Price of College Sports, inspired by an article by Taylor Branch and available on Amazon and other online sites:

The Business of Amateurs which was just released on Amazon and elsewhere.

If you are planning to write about college sports, these would be a good place to start.  I would also strongly recommend you get a copy of Indentured: The Inside Story of the Rebellion Against the NCAA by Joe Nocera and Ben Strauss.

The Hunting Ground

This film is now available on Amazon and other online sites.

If you are interested in the subject of campus rape, watching this film would be a good place to start.  I would also strongly recommend the book Missoula: Rape and the Justice System in a College Town by Jon Krakauer.

Ivory Tower

This film is now available from Amazon and other online sites.

New Tools to Simplify Library Research

When I was a college student, we used to have to look through Reader's Guides to Periodical Literature in book form and then go to the Card Catalogue(!) to find articles and books.  And we used to have to walk miles to school, in the snow, of course -- and they never gave us snow days....  Thank goodness things have changed.  Here are three new tools to make your research easier:

Flow.  Flow helps you collect, cite, manage, and organize research for college papers.  It works like an app, and once you install it you can use it whenever you need it.

Articles+.  This search page gives you some interesting functionality, especially for doing broad searches across several databases.  "Introducing Articles+, a new way to search for articles" explains how it works.

Those looking for free help in putting their citations into proper MLA format should check out "Son of Citation Machine," which is a free (ad supported) internet app that guides you through the process and generates MLA format by just having you fill in a few blanks.  It even tells you how to cite the work properly for in-text citation.  So no excuses! 

The Atlantic's "Fraternity Problem"

The Dark Power of Fraternities by Caitlin Flanagan (The Atlantic, February 19, 2014) may not be the most positive portrait of fraternities, but it offers a lot of critical insight into the history and increasing prestige and power of these venerable college institutions.  It should also be required reading for anyone who joins a fraternity or attends a fraternity party, as it reveals what the insurance industry has long known: that fraternities are often the site of accidents and injuries--and all of the very costly legal and insurance-related issues associated with them.  The historical and financial details offered by the article make it a must-read, especially for the many members of this class who belong to Greek letter organizations.

Whither (or Wither) the Humanities?

The decline of the Humanities has been widely heralded, and Tamar Lewin's "As Interest Fades in the Humanities, Colleges Worry" (New York Times, October 30, 2013) does a good job of summing up the current discussion and offering links to some of the major commentaries on this issue.  As someone who teaches a Humanities course, I can definitely speak to the value of the skills that these classes offer -- especially in critical thinking, argumentation, writing, research, public speaking, and (often) the use of communication technologies.  But I can definitely see why, with the current job market and the growth in student loans, students might not want to major in one of the traditional humanities disciplines.  However, for those who worry that our nation is losing its way and that our students are not gaining the sort of critical thinking skills that they need to face the hard choices fast coming upon us, then I point you to Ken Ilgunas's excellent speech upon his graduation from the Duke Humanities program -- much of which is excerpted in his book Walden on Wheels.  As Ilgunas points out, "One does not become free simply by staying out of debt" or, for that matter, preparing to join the corporate world in order to pay that debt back.