With administrators increasingly focused on cutting costs, and the faculty remaining interested in providing quality higher education, a tension, or dialectic, has been built into university relationships in the 1990s that does not augur well for higher education and the public it serves. I plan to outline a series of these strategic university plans that I feel, if continued in their present form, will greatly undermine this most pivotal of social institutions.

Higher education in the 1990s has been characterized by multiple crises, difficulties, and strategic planning schemes created by administrators often quite removed from university classrooms and sites of research. Distance learning schemes have become prototypical of other kinds of controversial, bottom-line-oriented, strategic plans. Strategic planning is a term lately used by university administrators, borrowed from business, which refers to broad-scale future plans for organizations often entailing anticipated large changes, such as the major downsizing of corporations in the 1990s. “Leadership teams” in organizations are often assigned the duties of initiating these strategic plans, usually guided by top-down assumptions involving little or no consultation with the groups most affected by these changes.

This paper will address three related questions: 1) What are the strategic plans that affect higher education in the 1990s?
2) What are the problems for higher education they are creating? and 3) Is there evidence of faculty and student awareness of these problems, and a willingness to politically organize to deal with them? Although most empirical references will be to situations in the United States and California (Wood and Valenzuela, 1996, 1997;

Finkin, 1996; Academe, 1993; ASA Footnotes, 1997), upon examination of essays in the internationally-focused book edited by Gerard J. DeGroot (1998), Student Protest: The Sixties and After, as well as the Special Issue of Sociological Perspectives (1998) on “The Academy Under Siege,” and several recent issues of The Chronicle of Higher Education’s International section, it is apparent that at least some of America’s university problems are shared by other countries such as Germany, South Korea, India, South Africa, Mexico, China, Kazakhstan, Romania, El Salvador, France, Britain and Australia; and that common solutions can be found, as discussed in Sociological Perspectives (Wood, 1998a). For those countries or universities not yet afflicted by such difficulties, it may be useful to see the warning signs elsewhere in order to more quickly respond to the problems if faced with them in the future.

Distance Learning as a Strategic Plan

Distance learning uses modern computer technology to transmit higher education from a central location to many students in front of computer or television screens at physical distances from the academic point of origin. A recent conference in Sonoma, California, keynoted by an administrator from Britain’s Open University, purported to show participants how to teach 5,000 students per class section.

To indicate the increasing use of distance learning in higher education, the following institutions have initiated distance education programs: Open University in Britain, UCLA with its THEN (The Higher Education Network) program-- recently re-named OnLineLearning.net -- CETI (the California Education Technology Initiative) of the California State University (CSU) system which recently collapsed, the California Virtual University (CVU) which includes universities and colleges throughout California -- and which also recently collapsed! -- the Western Governors University (WGU) which includes several entire university systems throughout the Western United States except California, Michael Milken’s Knowledge Universe, and probably the most well known of them all, University of Phoenix. This is only a partial list -- and does not include the American corporations initiating distance learning programs leading to degrees and certificates -- but it does reflect a new direction of higher education that requires serious evaluation (Marchese, 1998).

I first heard of distance learning as a proposed solution to presumed system-wide higher educational problems in 1990 through discussions by the California State University Chancellor’s Office about the supposed upcoming lack of Ph.D.s to properly teach students in the CSU system. Given the large numbers of Ph.D.s in the United States and in California alone, this seemed odd to me and to my colleagues, who were unaware of any such looming crisis. It seemed that other agendas were involved when the administrators argued about the need to install widespread and costly technology throughout the 20-plus campus system to teach students at a physical distance from college classrooms. In particular, it appeared that corporations selling this expensive hardware and software would be the ones to especially gain by CSU and other universities instituting distance learning on a wide scale, not the students at whom such an education was aimed.

Over the years my suspicions about distance learning have unfortunately been realized. Recently Microsoft, GTE, Fujitsu, and Hughes Electronics, along with the California State University system, were part of a multi-year, multi-million dollar scheme involving computer hardware, software, and the marketing of distance learning courses. Due to many financing problems, and potential legal monopoly problems, the California Education Technology Initiative collapsed after two years of backstage negotiations of which few faculty were even aware. While many faculty and students -- and even campus administrators -- breathed a sigh of relief when this unwieldy plan folded, they were soon to learn about an attempt to revive such a plan with most of the previous drawbacks, but without consultation of the groups most affected, namely students and faculty. This new scheme was labeled “Son of CETI,” with all the pejorative implications of that phrase, but it, too, has apparently been de-emphasized. Yet there are real differences between faculty and administration regarding these issues, with one administrator (Ingram, 1999: B-10) even referring to unjustified faculty angst, a position with which many faculty strongly disagree.

What is wrong with distance learning as a general approach to providing quality higher education? Professors and students have commented on the key differences between distance learning and in-class instruction, including an eloquent discussion by Jerry Farber (1998), who shows the many benefits of classroom interchanges and stimulation, growth in intellectual breadth and flexibility, and the advantage of personal inspiration that contact with professors can provide which are impossible to similarly obtain through computer screens. Other commentators have focused on the high dropout rate of distance learners as compared to those in classrooms, the inability of professors to really know if those taking distance education examinations are the students receiving grades and diplomas, and the tendency toward making universities merely Digital Digital Diploma Mills, David Noble’s (1998a, 1998b) colorful term for distance learning.

Distance learning as a general way to provide higher education is problematical because -- in addition to the loss of intellectual stimulation and inspiration that can come from classroom interactions -- it is part of a much larger scheme to transform and, in my view, diminish higher education. This point is essentially unknown to the American -- and international --public.

Since decisions now being quietly made will significantly affect the general public, these decisions require considerable evaluation and debate, the type of debate recently sponsored by the Faculty Coalition for Public Higher Education (FCPHE, 1999).

Related Strategic Plans

Distance learning fits into a series of strategic plans developed by university administrators who are attempting to
re-focus higher education on the following issues:

1) “learning instead of teaching,” whereby learning from a physical distance is the model-- with this view often coming from the same administrators who call for better teaching;

2) “outcomes assessment” of learning, particularly the use of standardized, multiple-choice testing procedures devised by off-campus commercial agencies quite removed from college classrooms, similar to the organizations that produce tests like the Scholastic Aptitude Test (SAT) and the Graduate Record Examination (GRE), for mass distribution to distance learning (or in-class) students -- with this often coming from the same administrators who call for better writing from students;


3) the commercialization of the university whereby businesses are to play much larger and direct roles in universities than ever before while making large profits from universities, students, professors, and even alumni (this was the aim of the California Education Technology Initiative from a business standpoint);

4) the related commodification of higher education whereby “products” (courses) are “purchased” (through distance learning) for “consumption” (obtaining a Digital Diploma Mill degree);

5) the loss of professors’ intellectual property rights over the courses they teach to maximize profits for others;

6) the increasing reliance on underpaid part-time instructors instead of full-time, tenured faculty (part-time instruction has increased to over 40% for many American universities, a great disservice to students who need fully professional and committed faculty who will be around later to write them letters of recommendation for jobs and graduate school);


7) the recent attacks on tenure which could greatly undermine the academic freedom necessary for universities to continue producing the great innovations in science, the economy, and technology itself (Finkin, 1996);

8) the increasing control over universities by administrators who favor an imperial approach to higher education that stresses the above connected tendencies;

9) the lessening control by departments when faculty hiring is based on administrative plans instead of departmental curricular needs; and

10) the gradual elimination, or at least significant weakening, of targeted departments by administrative refusal to hire tenure track faculty for any purpose.

Higher education will be continually diminished if these trends are not soon reversed. Indeed, there is a negative dynamic already under way. Bright younger scholars who had planned on having an academic career are now re-thinking this career choice. If only non-tenured, lowly paid part-time instruction, delivered by distance learning, is going to be available to those who have spent much of a decade in graduate school arduously preparing themselves to become professors, why bother? Several of my own university colleagues have indicated they no longer plan to encourage their children to become professors because of the rapidly declining state of American higher education. In his jarring poem of the 1950s, Howl, Allen Ginsberg indicated that the greatest minds of his generation were being lost to madness. The greatest minds of the current generation may not be lost to madness, but they surely will be lost to higher education if these trends are not reversed.

Ever since World War II, it is apparent that American higher education has been at the center of the U.S. attaining its powerful position in the world. This has certainly been the case in California with its many, and world-class, universities and colleges. Without the crucial university atomic research in World War II -- for example, as carried out at the University of California, Berkeley -- the Allies could have been defeated.

In 1983, the widely read report on American education, A Nation at Risk, warned that public high school education was being organized as if by a foreign enemy. In the 1990s, public higher education in America is being similarly treated, as if organized by the same foreign enemy out to destroy this essential institution which makes strong all other American institutions, from the economy to the arts and sciences to the government, and which makes economic mobility and improvement in life-styles possible for millions of Americans. The current, unrelenting attacks on American higher education -- including the imposition of distance learning schemes -- if not prevented by those in power, will significantly weaken this pivotal institution.

Recommendations and Solutions

The solution to all this? Now is the time for the public to insist on restoring higher education by reversing these negative trends of the 1990s, and returning the university to its previous position of strength and dedicated public service. The public should insist to elected officials on the passage of laws requiring a large majority of in-class instruction instead of a majority (or all) distance learning classes for college and university degrees -- this is consistent with the university accrediting agency, the Western Association of Schools and Colleges (WASC), that limits the number of distance learning courses acceptable for college degrees; laws protecting the intellectual property rights of faculty over their courses; laws requiring the hiring of substantial numbers of full-time, tenure-track faculty instead of part-time instructors; laws strengthening tenure, which is at the base of academic freedom required to produce great discoveries and innovations; laws mandating minimum levels of national and state budgets dedicated to public higher education to avoid major disruptions in economic recessions; and laws that prevent corporate takeovers and privatization of, or undue influence upon, public higher education.

These and similar laws would go a long way toward supporting higher education against the current onslaught which, if left unchecked, will damage it beyond recognition.


Evidence of Political Awareness and Response to the Problems

In the face of all the difficulties facing universities is there evidence university faculties and students have become aware of the problems and begun to politically organize? In fact, there have been conscious responses to these varied problems throughout the 1990s, registering some successes, with more responses likely as the attacks continue into the next century. Indeed, one of the most dramatic responses was a successful faculty strike of several months at York University in Canada over a proposed distance learning scheme that would have drastically worsened faculty working conditions, a strike led by David Noble of Digital Diploma Mills fame. Ultimately the faculty secured significant contractual control over the introduction of instructional technology at York University after this protracted conflict (Noble, 1998a).

Faculty members in Great Britain recently staged a nationwide strike over higher wages in late May (The Chronicle of Higher Education, June 4, 1999: A49). Though only of one day duration, the Association of University Teachers (AUT) indicated this will be simply the first of several such job actions to achieve their demands. This, indeed, may indicate heightened faculty struggle in Britain to redress the diminished position of the faculty created by the Conservative government of former Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, resulting in the negative trend described as follows by AUT Research Officer, Stephen Court (1998:772): “The dominant employment trend in UK higher education is the casualization of academic staff, which is inevitably accompanied by growing job insecurity among staff in a climate of real terms cuts in public funding.” The next century may see a reversal in fortune for British faculty if the recent strike portends of things to come.

One of the earliest responses to attacks on universities came in 1992 at San Diego State University where I had the dubious distinction of seeing the President of SDSU, Thomas Day, attempt to eliminate nine academic departments and terminate 111 tenured faculty and 35 tenure-track faculty virtually over night -- which the American Association of University Professors (AAUP) indicated was the worst such occurrence in U.S. history (Academe, 1993).

After recovering from the initial shock of this unprecedented administrative action, the faculty and students at San Diego State mounted a campaign of several months that eventually restored all departments and faculty, and eventuated in the dismissal of the President, his Vice President, and several Deans (Wood, 1998b; San Diego Union-Tribune, 1995; e-mail public announcements at SDSU, 1997). This scenario was actually preceded by a surprisingly similar set of circumstances -- and results -- at Yale University (The New York Times Magazine, 1992). Yale’s problems made Newsweek magazine, which contributed to difficulties for other universities through the negative publicity. Newsweek (1992) later did a follow-up article on San Diego State University, announcing a major faculty vote of No Confidence in the President which called for his termination that eventually occurred. A few years after this, the University of Minnesota experienced a similar attempt to significantly “restructure” it, but a strong faculty response helped restore the university (The Chronicle of Higher Education, 1997; Leik, 1998).

The actions by the faculty at San Diego State were also preceded by political actions by a committed group of San Diego State students, which became known as the Vigil. The Vigil was a group unexpectedly formed by Sociology undergraduate student, Deborah Katz, two days after the announced departmental eliminations and faculty layoffs (Wood, 1998b). At a large public rally that she helped organize, she announced that she would remain outside the President’s office for 120 days, around the clock, which was the exact period until the negative decisions were to be enforced. After learning she was serious about this plan of action against the ensuing disaster, several other students offered to watch her books while she got a sleeping bag, and then joined her sleeping in front of the President’s Office. In fact, this protest continued for six months instead of the originally planned four months, with the students remaining outside of the President’s Office and Library until Election Day, November, 1992. This was one of the few such protests in human history where the protesters literally lived outdoors at the site of protest for long periods of time, with the women at Greenham Common, England successfully protesting nuclear missiles there in the 1980s being the most obvious parallel (Cook and Kirk, 1984; Wood, 1998b). Since it quickly became clear that the San Diego State students were not going to suffer such losses to their education silently, this protest inspired many of those faculty and students who initially felt it was useless to fight back. In addition to initiating a series of non-violent,

non-institutionalized protests, the Vigil also initiated a major voter registration campaign throughout California, eventually obtaining 8,000 new registered student voters. This, in turn, inspired a student voter registration campaign two years later which signed up 4,000 new voters at San Diego State alone. Several close political races locally were likely influenced in favor of the pro-higher education candidates, as San Diego emerged with the most favorable-to-higher education state legislative delegation in California, two of whose members now head the powerful state Senate and Assembly budget committees that greatly influence higher education financial allocations -- Steve Peace and Denise Moreno Ducheny -- and the head of the state Senate Education Committee, and major supporter of higher education, Dede Alpert.

Parallel to these efforts, a national graduate student lobby was organized out of Washington, D.C. that effectively lobbies for college student issues such as scholarship, grant, and student loan funding, as well as funding for higher education generally. The graduate students have their own nationally-distributed e-mail network, which is in addition to other overlapping student interest/student politics networks, all of which utilize the new technologies to deal with the attacks against students and universities. Indeed, the attacks on students are as devastating as attacks on faculty and departments, as witnessed by former House of Representatives Speaker Newt Gingrich’s attempt to cut $11 Billion from higher education, especially from funding college students, in a proposed mid-1990s federal budget (Wood and Valenzuela, 1996, 1997).

Yet the actions of the graduate students nationally helped reverse this proposed major budget cut to higher education.
In Spring of 1999 the faculty of the California State University system, representing approximately 20,000 faculty, rejected by a vote of 57%-43% a proposed contract that would have institutionalized many of the negative issues discussed here, especially institutionalizing a centralization of administrative control over the faculty (one of the main sources of the supposedly unjustified angst noted above) (Selingo, 1999; e-mail public announcements from CFA, 1999; Evans, 1999). It was not until this centralizing tendency was mitigated, and faculty control increased, that a contract was finally approved by better than an 80%-20% vote (e-mail public announcements from CFA, 1999; Los Angeles Times, 1999). While more analysis will be forthcoming on these votes of the largest university system in America, early analyses point to the fight against administrative control, which in turn was inspired by other recent union victories among such groups as the United Parcel Service workers, which launched a very successful strike against the large-scale expansion of part-time employees at UPS, a trend similarly affecting American universities nationally, much as Court (1998) indicated for Great Britain.

Furthermore the faculty and students, with assistance of the university staff and several non-CETI corporations in California, ended the CETI arrangement noted above, which would have granted unparalleled control over university activities to outside business firms, including Bill Gates’ Microsoft. Again, the odds seemed dim for the faculty, students, and staff to take on, and emerge victorious against, such formidable opposition. But, at a major legislative hearing on January 6, 1998 in Sacramento, huge opposition was registered that became the beginning of the end for CETI. This is further evidence that faculty, students, and staff are increasingly aware of the threats to higher education and are increasingly willing to initiate political actions to combat the threats.

Conclusion

There remain battles to be fought over distance learning, especially if introduced without faculty participation and control; assessments of student learning outcomes, especially when outcomes are connected to higher education funding; copyright ownership of faculty courses, especially related to the increasing use of distance learning; the persisting issue of faculty salaries, especially in growth economies when increased money is available for public allocations, but allocations remain uncertain; and university governance, complicated by university administrators collaborating with business firms in attempts to dictate university policies. However, we have seen that the faculty is no longer complacent, and combined with students and staff, can put up organized opposition to encroachments from the administration and outside business interests to retain -- or regain --control of the modern university.




REFERENCES

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