Doc,
Consider,if you will, the proposition that most of what is talked about
here is what the writers think the colleges should be doing that they are
not doing: they should be discussing not lecturing, think the writers,
they should not be grading because grading discourages collaboration,
faculty should be evaluated by the students instead of the other way
around because they are the customers: a litany of criticisms, followed by
suggestions that the writers think, or "know", would improve higher
education.
But isn't our interest not in particular changes we favor in a business or
a college, but in redesigning the "organization" of the institution so
that it becomes a "learning organization"?
That is: if the college adopted all of the suggestions made here they
might be better at their work than they are now (or not), but since we are
not proposing fundamental reorganization would they be "learning
organizations"?
What really would disappoint the critics if they thought about it is that
the colleges have the kind of decentralist organizational model that the
learning org theorists propose--and the model has resulted in conservatism
and traditionalism rather than the "transformations" the org theorists
thought would occur.
Cheers.
Steve Eskow
> I don't believe that any general response to your questions would be
> accurate Steve, so I've meandered on in a response that reflects my
> experiences and values. Universities and colleges are, in the final
> analysis, institutions of a society and culture. It is very appropriate
> that they are conservative--slow to change and quick to resist fads in
> educational styles.
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