Page 2 Why Aren't Colleges Measuring Up? By Doug Richwine According to a recent report by the Carnegie Foundation for the advancement of teaching, our nations’ under graduate colleges arc "more successful at handing out degrees than in educating students." Carnegie President Ernest L. Boyer stales that, "America's higher educational system remains the envy of the world but the undergraduate college, the very heart of higher learning, is a troubled institution." "Scrambling for students and driven by marketplace demands, many undergraduate colleges have lost their sense of mission," concluded the report titled, "College: The Under graduate Experience in America." If the conclusion of the Carnegie report is accurate, then what was the mission that was lost? More importantly, however, what was the essence of the mission the undergraduate colleges have found. Think about it. During the senior year of high school college representatives flood the local school districts in search of potential students. Students look over the colleges, college rep resentatives look over the students. Later, during the senior year of undergraduate study, representatives of corporations, govcrn-mcntal agencies and all branches of the military, flood I Al l T X l l AU I & J DI AC I lLtd Happy Holidays to the college community from the staff of the Capital Times 1X * * i £ IXii/itilS] \\%apital Times EDITOR: Jan Travers STAFF* Torn Boyle ' Julie Larson Ray Burkett Jean Mettz Mike Camilli Sharon Olmstead Thalia Cook Alan Fincus Luke Hess Denise Reinas Vicki Koon Bob TRs ADVERTISING MANAGER: CARTOONIST: Kris Hansen Joe Kupec BUSINESS MANAGER: CONTRIBUTORS- Diane Fitzgerald Doug Richwine PHOTOGRAPHERS: Kathy Rilcy-King Todd Hammaker ADVISOR: Sylvia Johnson Joanne Smith Primed al the Press mil Journal, Middletown. The Capital Times is published by the students of Penn State at Harrisburg. Concerns about content of any issue should be directed to the editor in Room 212, Olmsted Building. Any opinion expressed are those of the author and are not representative of the college administration, faculty or student body. The Capital Times does not endorse its advertisers. The Capital Times,welcomes signed letters from readers. Unsigned letters cannot be printed; however a writer’s name can be withheld upon nxiuest ■ ■ college campuses in search of potential employees. The prospective employees attired in their Sunday best, fudge a resume or two, and present themselves to the couriers of their abilities. Is there a pattern forming here? The corporations, government and the military are all bureaucratic and hierarchical organizations. These institutions require a specific type of individual to fit into the constraints of the organization. Whereas the military processes an organizational structure designed to produce this type of individual (basic training and officer candidate school), corporations and governmental agencies typically do not. It becomes the role of the undergraduate college to provide the specifically requested individual for the bureaucratic organizations. Notice the pattern. XYZ Corporation desires a specific type of employee. ABC College strives to produce the graduates correctly fitting the requirements of XYZ Corporation. If ABC College begins to produce round graduates and XYZ Corporation requests square employees, then XYZ Corporation won't recruit at ABC Colleges anymore. This situation is horrendous for ABC College because of its competition for freshman with other colleges. If high school students perceive that ABC College is producting a different graduate than desired by Capital Times XYZ Corporation, then the choice of the potential freshman will be to attend a college producing correct graduates. Since student population is of grave concern to ABC College, the resolution to this problem is simply to produce the desired graduate for all XYZ Corporation. The next problem facing ABC College is that once the correct graduate is being produced, how can potential freshman choose between colleges? Again the solution is simple. All ABC College must do is successfully impress the high school students more than other colleges. This is accom-plished differently between institutions. Generally there are several initial steps. First is to advertise the percentage of faculty having obtained the highest degree in their respective fields. Next, is to pile the accumulated published essays, critiques and research of the college faculty on top of one another and feud against the accumulated pile of publications produced by other college faculty. Third, a computation of successfully placed graduates into the bureaucratic world by the college is bantered against the obviously inferior accomplishments of other colleges. Last and probably most importantly, the sport teams, number of sex, and availability of drink-ing establishments are tossed together Five Lions Face Dragons, Bison, and Rats By Kathleen Riley-King limit. The teams tried to solve courses of other students, and to each of the four problems as fast discover what professors from What are The Lab Rats, as t * cou ' d ' com P* ete d other universities expect from their Bison Chips, Dragons, Ruccas P r ° gram was . sent . t 0 a statlon students. He wanted our team to Razors, and Huskies’ Byte? No, wher ® * ts . submission time was have the experience of competing they are not new rock groups, nor recorded; it was then tested to see a g a i nst others who will be in the are they street gangs. Instead, they lf u would run and produce field are only a few of the nineteen a^ ura . te [ esults - Poin .|f were lost During the spring teams that competed in the Ninth eidier lf the P rogram dld not 11111 or semester, Dr. Bakht plans to begin Annual Allegheny Region if it did not produce correct results, preparation for next year's Computer Programming Contest Judging took place on a FIFO competition. He intends to at Bucknell University on (first-in, first-out ) basis. Final compile a library of programs, to November 15. They represented results and penalty points were conduct practice sessions with the the University of Delaware, kept secret until the awards students, and to hold monthly Bucknell, Drexel, Rutgers, and banquet. Our team completed meetings. Bloomsburg University of three of the four programs. Juniors with any Turbo Pennsylvania, respectively. Dr. Ali Faradj-Bakht, the Pascal programming experience are At the competition, leader of the expedition, said that invited to become part of next David Nowacoski, John Stepanik, the team attended this year's year's team. Anyone (regardless of Robert Gill, Michael Maitland, competition for several reasons: major) who is interested in and Thomas Cheatle represented to meet students from other participating may contact Bakht in Penn State at Harrisburg, universities, to learn about the E 258, Olmsted Building. Business Administration program f I and two students from the Math The Fall Semester Commencement Ceremony f Science program attend the for graduate and undergraduate degree! competition. This year, all five candidates is scheduled for Id am on Saturday, | competitors were Math Science January 10, 1987, in the College’s Capital § majors. In addition to these five Union Building. The speaker will he Lt. Lions, University Park sent a i Governor elect Mark S. Singe! (D-Cambria). separate team to the competition. All graduates are to he gowned and in the The objective of the Student Center Area of, .the Capital Union competition was to. write four Building hy .9. am so, they ,can, - receive Jufbo Pascal computer programs instructions .and he .lined.. UP lof the a four : and-a-half-hour time i JUUW.MI UjjJ, into a public relations package. If ABC College presents this package successfully the choice of potential freshman should be obvious. The formula is simple enough. Even the faculty learn to play the roles assigned to them by the system. The rules for hiring, firing, promotion, and tenure are imprinted from the first day of employment. Credentials, publications, consultantships, and the correct sex, age and race become the determiniates for advancements. Students also learn how to play the game. Professors present necessary skills that will enable employment. Students regurgitate these "pearls of widom" on test day. The object of the game is to capture the prize: the degree. What does all this have to do with the undergraduate educational system in trouble? One finding within the Carnegie report showed that over 63 percent of all faculty members and nearly 40 percent of those at "research" universities indicated their ’’interests lie towards teaching as opposed to research." Yet research and publish they must; if they desire to keep their jobs. This situation is not conducive to enthusiastic teaching. With the emphasis on "producing" employable graduates, thus reducing students from individuals to mere E*ec. IQ, 1986 products, how can students be enthusiastic? Without enthusiasm, how can creativity, critical though and analysis, sponaneity and learning flourish? These attributes are not respected in the modem bureaucratic world, unless they fit the exact mold. Professors are not encouraged to produce anything but successful, employable, conformable bureaucratic functionaries. Therefore, classes become chores to both professors and students alike. Professors begin not to care about teaching, but instead focus only on the requirements for advancement Students accept the conditioning into the bureaucratic system and desire only the prize, the "rite of passage" into the modem world. It is not the fault of the professor, nor the students. It is directly the fault of the system. This system had forced amnesia into the undergraduate educational institutions of the original mission to educate its students and graduate independent, critical thinkers. If the desire is to retrieve the original mission of the higher learning institutions, then awareness of the present mission becomes the initial step towards change. Remember, Penn State University may be ABC University.
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