Wednesday, May 31, 2017
Beyond the Margins: Meeting the Needs of Underserved Students
The 21st century college student population is the most diverse in our nation’s history, characterized by the intersection of race, gender, sexual orientation, religion, family composition, age, and economic status among others. The benefits of heterogeneous environments are many. Research shows that diversity can increase self-awareness, promote creative thinking, enhance social and cognitive development, and prepare students to navigate a diverse workforce.
As a pluralistic society, we are right to be inclusive of populations historically omitted from dominant discourse and media on diversity and equity. This blog series on underserved student populations brings together ACE staff and guest authors—administrators, scholars, practitioners and analysts—to look at deep-rooted issues that perpetuate division and inequity.
Dealing with Hunger on College Campuses
Wick Sloane writes that more data is needed on the issue of campus hunger before a comprehensive solution can be advanced—and on that score, an upcoming study from Government Accountability Office is a welcome development.
LGBTQ Students on Campus: Issues and Opportunities for Higher Education Leaders
Aligning policy, practice, programming and pedagogy to support LGBTQ students remains a challenge and an opportunity for higher education leaders, according to Michigan State University’s Kristen Renn.
CPRS Staff Join Panels on Data and Analytics at AIR Annual Conference
The Association for Institutional Research’s (AIR) Annual Forum kicked off this week in Washington, DC. The annual conference is the world’s largest gathering of higher education professionals who work in institutional research (IR), effectiveness, assessment and related fields.
Jonathan Gagliardi, associate director of the Center for Policy Research and Strategy (CPRS) at ACE, will speak on three panels at the conference. The first is an impact session on the analytics revolution and its implications on IR, focusing on the evolution of IR to improve student outcomes and performance. The second focuses on methodological questions that arise around the calculation of post-collegiate earnings using unemployment insurance data.
For the third panel, Jonathan Turk, senior policy research analyst with CPRS, will join Gagliardi to discuss the diffusion of IR, and the challenges and opportunities that will arise as this function spreads across higher education.
For more information about the conference, please visit the AIR Forum website.
Dealing With Hunger on College Campuses
By Wick Sloane.
This post is the second in a new series, Beyond the Margins: Meeting the Needs of Underserved Students.
The federal government, with the Government Accountability Office (GAO), has joined professors, administrators and policymakers alarmed at reports that the high costs of college tuition, textbooks, housing, transportation and much more are sending to class thousands, perhaps millions, of students who have not had anything to eat that day.
On March 20 of this year, a letter from the GAO arrived at the office of U.S. Senator Elizabeth Warren (D-MA):
“Thank you for your letter, jointly signed by a number of your colleagues, requesting that the Government Accountability Office review the extent of food insecurity among students at U.S. colleges and universities . . . GAO accepts your request as work within the scope of its authority.”
For simmering issues without sufficient data, I have learned over the past 24 months, Congress may ask the GAO for a non-partisan, baseline study of the situation.
This is not a story of ravenous, growing adolescents and fixes of ramen noodles until the next electronic funds transfer from home. And to be certain sure, this is not famine. But when government and policy leaders are concerned that the completion rate for low-income students is often less than 50 percent, the GAO study is welcome recognition that factors outside of college classrooms can determine whether a student completes a postsecondary degree or certificate.
Every morning, Monday through Friday, at Bunker Hill Community College in Boston where I have worked for 10 years, the NGO Food Link delivers at my doors three, four, six cases of leftover bread from Panera and often salads and sandwiches from Whole Foods and Trader Joe’s. On a creaky, rattling cart, we roll this food down the hallways, past classrooms, up the elevator and into Single Stop, the local chapter of a national organization that helps students at 18 community colleges connect with food stamps and other social services right on campus.
Every day, the students know to come to Single Stop. No matter how many cases Food Link delivers, the food is gone by the end of the day. The students can also sign up for the monthly food pantry. On the third Wednesday of every month—the third because monthly food stamps barely last three weeks—the Greater Boston Food Bank delivers 5,000 pounds of groceries and produce, all gone in an orderly hour.
Bunker Hill Community College Food Pantry
For many years, disbelief has been a major obstacle to addressing campus hunger and its bloodless synonym “food insecurity.” The first I wrote of this was in 2012 in an Inside Higher Ed piece titled “So My Students Can Eat.” That led to two public radio interviews, both of which began with the hosts admitting that they did not believe me that this could be true. I kept writing, and others did, too. Disbelief still makes sense to me. I cannot believe that cases of food arrive outside my door every morning at a college in Boston, Massachusetts.
In trying to understand the disbelief, I often hear two rationales. First, that college students could be this hungry is a shock. We think of student loans and the cost of textbooks and high tuition as obstacles. But hunger? Second, the idea of hunger in colleges in the United States in the 21st century for millions of students is scary, overwhelming. I agree. I am scared often that I will never find a solution for more than a few students.
All involved, including me, agree that still we do not have sufficient data for understanding and more than policy pilot tests. See for yourself what is known:
- Forty percent of students at the City University of New York reported having been hungry in the past 12 months. This 2010-11 study, the first I know of, was the proverbial tree falling in the woods without anyone hearing. CUNY, however, responded with force.
- Fifty percent of students surveyed in recent studies by the Wisconsin Hope Lab and Feeding America struggle with having enough food. In the most recent HOPE Lab study released earlier this year, which surveyed 33,000 students at 70 colleges, 13 percent of the students were also homeless.
- The University of California (UC), led by its president Janet Napolitano, surveyed its 150,000 undergraduates, and found that in 2012 and 2014 26 percent were skipping meals to save money. UC now has a campus-wide task force on student hunger and homelessness.
Most unsettling, students in these studies so far cluster in the group that is the greatest national policy concern for higher education: low-income, first-generation students, most of whom are in community college. These are many of the same students whose high schools failed to prepare them with the basic skills needed to enter college taking college-level courses. According to the October 2016 report, The Challenge of Food Insecurity for College Students by the National Student Campaign Against Hunger and Homelessness, 56 percent of first generation students, again in the bloodless term, “experience food insecurity.” Leading the numbers are students of color.
The challenges to higher education are substantial, and even to experts are almost overwhelming. Finding appropriate teaching methods for such students, who may work 20 hours a week and have families and commutes, is vexing enough. Community colleges can be gateways for immigrants and refugees who are learning the ways of a new country, including English, and trying to earn education for an entry-level job. So far, society and too often higher education have been happy to leave the social and public health issues to community colleges where public funding per student can be less than that for elementary school.
What, Then, Can be Done?
All I know is that everyone involved needs to keep collecting data. Sara Goldrick-Rab of the HOPE Lab who led a 10-campus and now a 70-campus hunger study, is offering her questionnaire free to any campus to assess hunger and homelessness on their campus. This information would allow campuses to react quickly to their particular needs.
While a comprehensive, widespread solution has not yet been realized, remedies are emerging. Along with Single Stop, membership in the College and University Food Bank Alliance (CUFBA) has more than doubled since 2015 to almost 500 campuses. The first opened in 1993 at Michigan State not to provide all the food a student needs but to cut their grocery bills in half. One of the newest to join is Klemi’s Kitchen at Georgia Tech, which “operates under the idea that no student at Georgia Tech should go hungry… our volunteers prepare individual meals from campus dining halls. We rescue food that would otherwise go to waste and use it to support students at Georgia Tech.”
Food pantries continue to grow, though no single source has emerged for stocking the pantries. Although Single Stop enables students to obtain food stamps, food stamps—known as SNAP, the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance program—do not work for cafeteria purchases on campus. Swipe Out Hunger and Share Meals invite students with food cards to donate extra swipes that translate into food and meals for hungry students. Mealbux at Oregon State lets eligible students receive several meals a week at any campus food outlet. At Humboldt State University (CA), students run OhSNAP, a food pantry, a weekly free farmers market, and provide access to food stamps.
The number of other emergency assistance programs on campuses continues to grow as well. The idea is that often smaller issues—a lost bus pass or a late utility bill—can cause a student to drop out of school. Cal State Long Beach provides emergency services from food to housing. For food for eligible students, the university puts money on the student’s meal card to prevent hungry students from feeling singled out.
Another strategy is to expand knowledge of hunger issues and to share what campuses have learned. Bunker Hill Community College convened representatives from 24 of the 25 state public colleges and universities May 5 at Voices of Hunger to develop data and policies to end student hunger, nationally and in Massachusetts.
The hunger issue spotlights again that federal financial aid alone is not enough for low-income and many first-generation students to do their best in school or, too often, even to stay in school. The Century Foundation is at work on a task force to estimate the full cost of attendance for these students. The state of Tennessee is experimenting with an 80 percent bonus for colleges who graduate low-income students.
With a proposed federal budget adding up to $45 billion on defense spending at the expense of all social services, where will money for student hunger and homelessness come from?
We have to keep looking.
Tuesday, May 30, 2017
Incentives for academics can have unintended, negative consequences
Rent seeking is a term coined in economics to describe the process by which private entities seek to use the state’s power to obtain or protect excessive economic surplus.
A classic example of this behaviour is when a monopolist bribes politicians or officials to protect or maintain the monopoly power that allows the company in question to charge excess prices and earn excess profits.
But the idea of rent seeking can be applied more broadly. Economist Robert Tollison described the analysis of rent seeking as “the study of how people compete for artificially contrived transfers”. In a recent paper, I argue that Tollison’s description provides a useful framework in which to understand the dynamics of modern academia.
Governments and universities are effectively encouraging academics to behave like rent seekers. This has negative effects for the integrity of academics and academic institutions. It’s also bad news for society at large. My paper focuses on South Africa and on how financial incentives, institutional rankings and the valorisation of grant funding encourage rent seeking behaviour among academics.
Such practices originated in developed nations. But it may be particularly harmful for developing countries to adopt these mechanisms.
The push to publish
In South Africa, as in some other countries, academics and their institutions receive incentives for publishing in certain journals. In some cases this includes receiving a proportion of the government incentive in cash.
These journals are accredited by the country’s department of higher education and training, supplementing various international journal indices with other (mostly local) journals. The government incentive translates into approximately R120,000 ($9,000) per “unit”. A peer-reviewed, accredited journal article or book chapter by one author equals a unit; this is then divided by the number of authors.
The intention behind paying universities and academics for books, chapters or articles in accredited journals is good. It’s designed to encourage South African academics to produce more peer-reviewed research. The hope is that this will improve the extent and quality of the country’s academic research.
But it’s not obvious that financial incentives are the best way to pursue such objectives. More problematically, there are reasons to believe that an approach based on explicit incentives could lead – and has led – to very different outcomes.
A number of academics have pointed out that such a system creates incentives to publish in accredited journals with the lowest quality requirements. In economics, for example, getting even an excellent paper into a top international journal can take between two and five years, whereas getting a weak paper into a local journal can take a mere six months.
In some cases it indirectly encourages fraud in the form of plagiarism. Unethical arrangements can also develop between institutions, or individuals, and publishers.
The global ranking of universities is another phenomenon that’s driving rent seeking behaviour.
The obvious problem with rankings is that at best they only reflect relative rather than absolute quality. A university could improve a great deal on various dimensions, but still fall in the rankings. It’s a zero-sum game. This is compounded by the fact that the various metrics on which rankings are based don’t necessarily represent what’s socially important: the quality of teaching, locally relevant research or developing high calibre academics for the future.
So the pursuit of rankings may mean pursuing things that are not beneficial to the university or society at large. It may also lead to universities expending resources “rigging” these metrics, rather than directing the resources at their key work.
Great harm
These kinds of dynamics are likely to cause even more harm in developing country higher education systems than the developed country systems in which they originated. The broad literature on rent seeking suggests – such as with the “resource curse” – that the prevalence and harms of such behaviour are worse where institutions are weak. In academia this means not just accountability structures, but especially the quality of existing academics and academic institutions.
Academics who are not equipped to produce and publish work that makes a substantive contribution – intellectual or other – are pushed to publish anyway. Institutions that are poorly resourced are judged by their rankings. These individuals and institutions are likely to follow the paths of least resistance in pursuit of short-term funding and status.
All of this distorts the behaviour of academics already within the system. It can also affect who decides to enter and remain in academia. Good academics can be driven out and rent seekers can rapidly ascend the hierarchy.
There have been some attempts in South Africa to respond to the perverse outcomes of these incentives. For example, the new Research Outputs Policy published by the Department of Higher Education & Training in 2015 pleads that
Institutions and academics must remember the importance of research integrity when submitting their claims.
But appeals to academic integrity don’t make a lot of sense when the entire system is built on the assumption that individuals have sufficiently little commitment to the academic project that financial incentives are needed to get them to do quality research.
Accountability mechanisms in academia are important given the public funding and social role of universities. However the use of incentives, rankings and similar mechanisms may well be causing more harm than good. In developing countries it may also compromise the longer-term process of building credible, high quality academic institutions.
Rapid, dramatic changes to the existing system may be ill-advised. But more needs to be done to develop mechanisms based on intrinsic motivations of committed, quality academics. And it’s important to limit the harms currently being caused by rent seeking.
Monday, May 29, 2017
Confused about changes to school funding? Here’s what you need to know
The Coalition government announced their new school funding proposal with a flourish, and a Gonski.
David Gonski was the architect of the 2011 needs-based funding model that the Labor party hobbled, and which the Liberal party then sent right down the gurgler.
So, for many in the education sector, Gonski’s reappearance was both surprising and comforting. Did this mean we were back to a funding model that was apolitical, sector blind and all about a distribution of money based on need?
Well, there is good news and bad news, and then some more bad news.
More money
The good news
It is substantially more money than what the Coalition government currently has allocated for education – 75% more by the Prime Minister’s own reckoning, from A$17.5 billion this year to $30.6 billion by 2027.
The bad news
It’s less money than what some states and systems were promised under the deals done with the Labor government – about $22 billion less. They say they need that promised money to deliver on education programs they have already put in place, and which they argue are already making a real difference to students.
Fairer and sector blind
The good news
This funding deal returns to the original Gonski principle of one funding formula for everyone. Each student will attract the same base amount – called the Schooling Resource Standard – of $9,271 per primary school student and $12,193 per high school student.
This is in contrast to the multiple deals done with systems and states back in 2013 as the Labor government tried to get a Gonski take-up around the nation. They gave out lots of money, and promised that everyone would be a winner. This deal-making did not solve the problem of funding inequity between the schooling sectors. Poor schools got more money, but so did rich schools.
The bad news
The federal government inexplicably remains the benevolent benefactor of the private sector. It will fund 80% of the Schooling Resource Standard for private schools students, and only 20% for government school students. It will rely on the goodwill of the states to fund the remaining amounts. So it is only the private schools that are getting an iron-clad guarantee for most of their funding into the future.
Not fair and certainly not sector blind.
Needs-based
The good news
The government claims their new funding proposal returns us to the absolute crux of the original Gonski review – it will be truly needs-based.
This means there will be extra loadings for students who need more support to achieve. There will be loadings for low socio-economic status, Indigenous students, students with a disability, students with limited English language proficiency, school size, and regional or remote locations.
The bad news – and this is really bad news
The government has no proposal for the allocation of those loadings. They don’t even know how many students are eligible for those loadings.
As a consequence they have no idea how much money it will cost to fund them. This is why the pundits keep saying “more analysis is needed” before anyone knows how much their school is really going to get, or lose.
Who will be eligible for the disability loadings?
Each state and sector defines disability differently. The government says it will come up with a national definition. But it does not have one yet.
Who will be eligible for the English language loadings?
How “limited” does your English language need to be? How would this be measured? Nobody knows, including the government.
And there is nothing in the budget papers or the Education Acts to indicate that the money will actually be delivered to the students who attract the loadings.
Recent history suggests the money won’t necessarily go to them. States, instead, could just spend the money on the general business of running an education system.
The original Gonski report said that it was imperative an independent body, a National Schools Resourcing Body, be set up to answer these questions, and to monitor how those loadings are distributed.
However there is no indication that body will ever be instituted, and without it this funding proposal cannot claim to be needs-based and it will not successfully address educational disadvantage.
Very bad news indeed.
A new review – Gonski 2.0
The good news
David Gonski will now conduct a new review – the Gonski 2.0 review.
This new review is to decide what good teaching and learning looks like. That’s a little odd as the government already has a body that does that – the Australian Institute of Teaching and School Leadership.
But fingers crossed he’ll be able to sneak that National Schools Resourcing body back into his recommendations.
The bad news
The expert panel has only until December to come up with an answer that will inevitably start with “It depends…”
They haven’t even decided on the terms of reference yet.
A suggestion for the panel
If I could give one suggestion to Gonski’s review panel as they tackle this complicated question, it would be this: ask teachers what is needed to close that achievement gap.
Ken Boston, a member of the Gonski review panel, observed,
We concluded that the issue in low-performing schools is not the quality of teachers in these schools but the magnitude of the task they are facing. These teachers work in the emergency wards of Australian education, yet they lack the battery of specialist support typical of an emergency ward in a hospital.
The fact that we never ask teachers at the coal face for their expert input on what works, and what doesn’t, is perhaps the strangest twist of all in this good news, bad news story.
Sunday, May 28, 2017
Friday, May 26, 2017
ACE at 100: Lifting Nontraditional Learners to Postsecondary Success
By Jon Riskind
As ACE prepares to celebrate its centennial in 2018, this is the first in an occasional series of posts that will look at how ACE initiatives have left an impression on the higher education landscape and impacted peoples’ lives. Pictured above: 2014 Student of the Year Jeffrey Gearhart with ACE President Molly Corbett Broad.
Tara Turley, a single mother and electrician who used her skills to assist her flood-ravaged West Virginia community, is getting a bachelor’s of multidisciplinary studies degree at West Virginia University Online.
Mario Sankis, a former Marine, retired police officer and cancer survivor, finished his first year as a law student at Northern Illinois University in May after graduating from Eastern Illinois University in 2016.
Jeffery “L.J.” Gearhart II earned an associate’s degree from Ivy Tech Community College and now is human resources manager at a 123,000-square-foot, 340-employee Kroger grocery store in Columbus, IN.
What do the three have in common?
All are past ACE Student of the Year Award recipients who used the Council’s credit recommendations to help advance their educations. And each is an example of the important role that credit for prior learning plays in helping millions of nontraditional learners gain postsecondary degrees and credentials needed to compete in today’s global economy.
The Student of the Year Award, formerly the Adult Learner of the Year Award, is presented annually by ACE to an individual who has benefited academically or professionally from the use of ACE credit recommendations for workforce or military training. Recipients must demonstrate outstanding achievements in their community or workplace while successfully balancing demands such as family, career and education.
As ACE President Molly Corbett Broad has noted, helping more Americans gain access to and graduate from college is embedded in the Council’s DNA. It is has been a large part of ACE’s mission ever since ACE was formed nearly 100 years ago, in 1918, to help soldiers returning from World War I to a tough economy gain a college degree. And it continues to play a central role today, as ACE prepares to celebrate its centennial.
Mario Sankis
In 1942, ACE was called upon to create an alternative high school credential, and in response developed the GED® test to raise education attainment opportunities for soldiers who would return from World War II after dropping out of high school to join the military. Then in 1945, ACE began evaluating military training and experiences to determine their eligibility for college credit recommendations. In 1974, ACE’s credit recommendation programs were extended to the workplace and major departments of government with the establishment of ACE CREDIT®.
ACE’s College and University Partnerships works to advance greater awareness, acceptance and application of credit for prior learning as a key element for increasing postsecondary participation and completion, in part through the Council’s College and University Network of institutions that consider ACE credit recommendations. Another ACE initiative, the Alternative Credit Project, encourages greater acceptance of students’ alternative credit to create a more flexible pathway towards postsecondary education attainment.
The strategy behind ACE’s work in these areas is straightforward: Helping adult learners gain college credit for prior learning experiences is vital to easing the path toward a postsecondary degree or credential. It is a mission that only stands to grow in importance as ACE embarks on its second century.
In its 2017 A Stronger Nation report, Lumina Foundation reported that fewer than half of Americans—45.8 percent—ages 25-64 have completed a credential beyond high school. That’s up nationally by 7.9 percentage points since 2008, but millions of Americans still lack the type of education and skills needed for most 21st century jobs.
As the College Board found in its Education Pays 2016 study, individuals with higher levels of education earn more, pay more taxes and are more likely than others to be employed.
The bottom-line impact of not having a postsecondary degree or credential?
A report released last year by Georgetown University’s Center on Education and the Workforce found that out of the 11.6 million jobs created in the post-recession economy, 11.5 million went to workers with at least some college education and of those, 8.4 million went to workers with a bachelor’s degree or higher. The study found that employment of workers with a high school diploma or less only grew by 80,000 jobs in the recovery from the Great Recession of 2008-09.
Turley, Sankis and Gearhart exemplify what happens when nontraditional learners receive the boost they need to achieve postsecondary education success.
Turley, ACE’s 2016 Student of the Year, lost her corporate management job five years ago as a result of company downsizing and joined the Charleston (WV) Electrical Apprenticeship Program. A high school graduate, she used ACE credit recommendations to gain college credit for many of her apprenticeship courses. Combined with credits from college courses taken in previous years, this helped Turley to obtain a Board of Governors Associate in Applied Science degree in 2016 from BridgeValley Community and Technical College (WV), where she also attended classes.
Tara Turley, right, receives the 2016 Student of the Year Award from ACE Board Chair Judy C. Miner, chancellor of Foothill-De Anza Community College District (CA).
Now, she’s looking forward to broadening her horizons further as she earns a bachelor’s from West Virginia University Online. As part of her multidisciplinary studies program, she will choose three minors. Turley has settled on business administration and human services as two of her main areas of study, and is deciding between history and political science as the third.
“I’m still exploring,” she said in early May. “I feel like this degree will make me more well-rounded and more valuable in the future, no matter what I do. I feel better now than I did, obviously, six years ago. I feel better even than last year. I am achieving a lot—I am moving forward.”
After finishing his first year of law school, Sankis, ACE’s 2015 Student of the Year, traveled to France May 22 for six weeks to study French civil code and European Union law at the University of Bordeaux through Northern Illinois’ travel abroad program. Sankis, whose ambition is ultimately to become a judge, is excited that the summer program includes a meeting with several French Supreme Court justices.
He says that without ACE credit recommendations earned as a result of his military training and experiences, it would have taken him considerably longer to earn his bachelor’s degree at Eastern Illinois.
“Credit for prior learning really takes your experiences into account, it makes a huge difference,” Sankis said. “It put me on the right path, and that’s why I am at where I am now.”
Gearhart, ACE’s 2014 Student of the Year, returned from the award ceremony at ACE’s 2015 Annual Meeting in Washington, DC, to find that Ivy Tech—where credit recommendations helped him earn as associate of applied science in business administration degree and a human resources management certificate—asked him to serve as commencement speaker at his own graduation.
Later that year, he took a new job as an assistant store manager with Kroger, which was expanding rapidly in his hometown. Now, Gearhart is human resources manager at a store that has doubled in size since he came on board.
Without his associate’s degree and the boost he got from credit for prior learning, “I don’t think I could be in the position that I am in now,” Gearhart said. “That mixture between professional experience and academic credentials was able to give me that cutting-edge opportunity.”
Thursday, May 25, 2017
Why is Australian 15-year-olds’ financial literacy declining?
Around a fifth of 15-year-olds in Australia do not have basic financial literacy, according to a new OECD Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) financial literacy assessment results report.
Financial literacy is defined by the OECD as:
Knowledge and understanding of financial concepts, and the skills, motivation and confidence to apply such knowledge and understanding in order to make effective decisions across a range of financial contexts, to improve the financial wellbeing of individuals and society, and to enable participation in economic life.
This topic has an elevated status in the Australian curriculum, particularly within maths and humanities.
However, the report showed that young people are doing worse in this area now than previously. In particular, students struggled to read payslips and detect financial scams.
Low socioeconomic background, attending a rural and remote school, and Indigeneity influenced students’ financial literacy performance. Interestingly, girls outperformed boys.
So why the gaps and why is performance declining?
Conventional approaches are driven by the finance industry
OECD Guidelines on Financial Education in Schools argue that the younger generation face increasingly complex financial problems. This is why there is a need to teach students skills and knowledge related to finance from a young age, to help them engage in society in later life.
The most important financial decisions people face involve choices – about work, study, transport, housing, insurances and investments. These choices are influenced by complex and changing economic and financial realities. This means there is a need to focus on basic skills and capabilities that will equip students to be critically informed in managing their money.
Since the 2007 global financial crisis, the Australian government has invested more than A$10 million in the Helping our Children Understand Finance policy and other related initiatives.
This work is led by the Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC). Key to ASIC’s work in this area has been creating the MoneySmart brand.
The MoneySmart website is marketed as a “one stop shop” for all things money-related and includes resources for schools and teachers.
The Commonwealth Bank’s Start Smart program takes a similar approach, with guest workshops facilitated by bank employees. The Commonwealth Bank has a long history of recruiting customers at a young age through its school banking program.
This approach to financial literacy education, which provides “one size fits all” lessons, has been critiqued as missing the mark. Sure, some topics are generic, but local real world problems can vary significantly.
For example, a teacher recently explained to me that some of his secondary students were trading bitcoin. Meanwhile, teacher colleagues in rural communities were concerned about their students’ family farms and financial futures. These stories show that teachers are tuned in to their students’ financial literacy learning needs and interests.
A recent evaluation exploring the potential of MoneySmart in low socioeconomic schools recommended that teaching resources should be reviewed. The report highlighted the value of working with teachers to develop real world mathematics lessons that fit local needs and interests, while exploring ways teaching practice might be enhanced.
With declining financial literacy results, it’s time to question whether conventional approaches are working.
New initiatives that do more to involve teachers in thinking about and planning for student financial literacy learning may have a greater impact.
Students want lessons they can relate to
Around 79% of Australian students have a bank account. What students then need to know about are the types of financial products and services available, and the risks and rewards they might bring.
My research has shown that even primary school students value real world financial literacy learning experiences where they deem the tasks to be useful to their lives beyond school.
Such lessons involve practical tasks like applying literacy and numeracy to making sense of information that is presented in different formats.
Depending on the school, lessons that involve making decisions about takeaway menus, public transport pricing and mobile phone plans can be explored in Years 5 and 6, when students are beginning to think about using these services themselves.
In secondary school, teaching and learning should continue to be dynamic and timely. For example, students need to learn to keep track of their money electronically, pose questions and think critically when interacting with banks, and protect their personal information from scams.
Schools and teachers need support
Behavioural economics research shows that financial behaviour may depend as much on intrinsic values and attitudes learned at home as the knowledge and skills acquired at school.
This explains why the real impact of high school financial education on financial decision-making beyond school is difficult to measure.
There is little Australian educational research exploring how teachers make sense of this subject area – and how they approach it.
Australia is a diverse society in which socioeconomic marginalisation and low educational achievement tend to go hand in hand. This means that “one size fits all” approaches don’t always fit local circumstances.
My work with teachers has revealed that feeling financially literate and being able sensitively to teach financial problem-solving and decision-making to students are two different things.
For example, in a project involving more than 30 primary school teachers, the majority agreed that they were financially literate. But only about half indicated being confident about teaching financial literacy.
Teachers want access to quality professional learning to help them navigate the Australian curriculum and develop their teaching. Teacher associations do a great job at supporting teachers in this work.
Wednesday, May 24, 2017
From Goucher College President José Bowen: Using Feedback From Students to Improve Your Teaching
Originally posted on the Association of College and University Educator’s Q Blog.
José Bowen, president of Goucher College (MD), says encouraging his college instructors to take risks is crucial to promote a culture of teaching on campus.
“The first time you try a group activity, students are going to hate it and you’re probably not very good at it yet anyway,” Dr. Bowen tells ACUE in this month’s Expert Series. “So how do we create systems where we encourage people to make mistakes, allow them to fail, learn, and try again?”
Dr. Bowen also explains how instructors can use student feedback to improve their teaching, a topic he discusses in depth as a subject matter expert for ACUE’s Course in Effective Teaching Practices.
How have you personally seen the impact of effective teaching on students?
JB: Years after I had left Georgetown, a student once wrote to me and said that he was now doing a jazz radio show. It had been a dozen years and it was a big class, so I didn’t remember this student much from class. But for me, it was a reminder that the first thing that matters to students is your engagement, your love of your subject.
In the ACUE module on Using Student Achievement and Feedback to Improve Your Teaching, you describe the importance of transparency. Why is that important?
JB: When it comes to student evaluations, it’s never easy to read criticism—and students are going to be critical. I tell faculty to remember the source. It’s generally not personal, although it feels that way.
But if something resonates, and you’re going to try something new in response, then give students credit. If you give students credit, you’re giving them agency. You’re saying, “I read what you wrote; it matters to me.” This is important. Students want to know that their feedback matters in the same way that you want to know that your feedback matters. When students have taken the time to give us feedback, at least acknowledge it in some way, even if you can’t address all of it at once. Students are going to be more receptive to what you’re trying if you credit students with being the source of the change.
Then you can check in a week later. Did it help? Did it make a difference? It’s a way to give students agency and show that you care—and we know from the research that students want you to care about their learning.
How have you made effective teaching part of your student success plans at Goucher?
JB: At Goucher, we’ve created a new center for the advancement of teaching. There is a mechanism for supporting faculty, there are experts, and there are opportunities to learn.
But you also have to encourage faculty to take risks. When you try a new way to engage with students in the classroom, you’re probably not going to succeed the first time. The first time you try a group activity, students are going to hate it and you’re probably not very good at it yet anyway. So how do we create systems where we encourage people to make mistakes, allow them to fail, learn, and try again? To me the most important aspect is allowing for failure, predicting failure, and making that part of the process.
What’s something that you recently learned about teaching and learning that excited you?
JB: I’m very excited by the research about students’ willingness to get help to do better. Now, it shouldn’t be a surprise to hear that students will have a harder time if they’re not willing to get help. But last year the National Survey of Student Engagement found that one in five first-year students had difficulty in getting help. It’s not that they were physically unable to get help. It’s mostly that they don’t understand the system. They feel nervous or there’s a stigma attached to getting help. Maybe the office hours didn’t correspond to their work schedule. So the idea that the students who aren’t getting help are at a serious disadvantage, I think, is a pretty powerful one that should immediately change how we try to help first- and second-year students.
Dr. Bowen is featured in ACUE’s Course in Effective Teaching Practices for modules on Engaging Underprepared Students; Embracing Diversity in Your Classroom; and Using Student Achievement and Feedback to Improve Your Teaching. His latest book, Teaching Naked Techniques: A Practical Guide to Designing Better Classes, is written with C. Edward Watson and serves as a comprehensive guide of proven quick ideas for improving learning.
ACUE partners with colleges and universities at all levels of the institution to support student success strategies through an innovative Course in Effective Teaching Practices. ACE is collaborating with ACUE in a joint venture as part of its nearly century-old mission to prepare campus leaders, support the work of colleges and universities and assist institutions in strengthening student learning, persistence and completion.
Why resilience matters for schools trying to thrive in tough situations
Many schools in Southern Africa are functioning in tough situations. Poverty, a lack of resources and poor or non-existent basic services all combine to make a less than ideal environment for education. But a number of schools in Namibia, Swaziland, Lesotho and South Africa display incredible resilience – a concept steeped in indigenous knowledge systems.
The Conversation Africa’s education editor Natasha Joseph asked Professor Liesel Ebersöhn to explain the role of resilience in education.
What is “resilience”, in an educational setting?
Resilience in schools involves a process where teachers, principals, families, students and district officials know and use strategies that help teachers to teach and students to learn.
Resilience becomes relevant in education as soon as there is a shock to the education system that requires intervention. After that shock, resilience can ensure better than projected outcomes for students and teachers.
In a postcolonial, transforming society – like highly unequal South Africa – such “shocks” or challenges are chronic. They don’t let up. They are also cumulative, coming from a variety of fronts.
In South Africa these barriers include a limited number of trained teachers; an unreliable supply of teaching materials; and multilingualism – either teachers and pupils don’t share home languages, or they do but converse only in English for the purpose of teaching and learning.
School systems, in conjunction with health and welfare systems, may not be responsive enough to identify pupils who are vulnerable because of health or socio-economic needs. Even if they can, the services available might be really limited. A lack of physical infrastructure like buildings, electricity, water and sanitation in schools limits opportunities for teachers to teach, and for students to learn and develop.
Schools that have supportive strategies in place can offer buffers. They can promote positive outcomes – for pupils and teachers.
Can you tell us about a school in southern Africa whose resilience is allowing it to flourish? How does that resilience manifest itself?
I’ve conducted research in rural Swaziland and Lesotho, urban Namibia and four of South Africa’s nine provinces around school-community resilience.
At many of the schools I visited that are functioning in challenging contexts, teachers draw on their cultural heritage – their indigenous knowledge systems – to provide care and support. This promotes resilience.
Teachers in these schools don’t go into “fight or flight” mode in response to the sorts of shocks I’ve described. They flock together. They tap into each other’s relationships to access and use available resources. For instance, I met a primary school teacher in an Eastern Cape informal settlement who asked a relative to connect her to a friend working as a nurse at the neighbourhood clinic. Now when the teacher sees that a child is sick she doesn’t feel helpless or frustrated: she calls the nurse directly and refers that child and family for health care.
In cases where teachers suspect a family may require financial support they can refer them to their “insider” link; someone who can help with identifying and completing the necessary forms. It can be hard for families with high rates of illiteracy to access the help they need, so these connections are vital.
So the flocking starts with an identified problem. Then teachers think about which resources they need to address this need, and who could connect them with a person who’s a custodian of this resource or service. In this way a network is created. Its purpose is to pragmatically access resources.
What they’re doing fits into a theory in indigenous knowledge systems that’s called Relationship Resourced Resilience. This explains how individuals connect in times of hardship to share limited resources. They do so by providing social support to one another with positive outcomes for the collective, not only the individual.
This resilience response is robust. It continues to be used in urban and rural settings, by elders and young people, as well as men and women.
What is it that these schools are doing differently?
Schools that are able to show resilience are those that tap into age-old practices. These have stood the test of time and the absence of formal, policy-level structures to provide social support.
This social support is relational, collective and pragmatic. Teachers use existing relationships to tap into resources. For example, they might use reciprocal donations. These are in the form of skills in exchange for money, or for goods like food, or shared savings in societies to provide funds for school uniforms, or festivities, or transport. The cultural use of relationships is aimed at collective buffering against shocks and ultimately collective well-being.
Are there obvious and visible differences in these schools’ results?
The positive outcomes that have been measured relate to resilient school communities’ subjective health and well-being documented over a ten-year time frame with teachers and students in primary and secondary schools, and in urban and rural schools.
At these schools, teachers continue to show up, teach and support each and their students. Parents and caregivers bring their children to schools that follow this resilience formula: research shows that such schools have higher enrolment numbers, which means they get more government funding for teacher posts and so enjoy lower student-teacher ratios.
Parents, caregivers and school-community volunteers offer their services to such schools. They assist with cultivating gardens to supplement the school nutrition programme. They follow up on students who don’t attend school and encourage them to return, and participate in after-school programmes that provide well-being and development opportunities for young people to engage in arts, culture, sports, and homework.
Neighbourhood businesses link with such schools to provide computers for teacher professional development and student training. They provide funds for counselling centres, books for libraries and jungle gyms for crucial development through play.
What lessons can be taken from your research?
Social support is an indigenous knowledge system in southern Africa. It has been used over time to combat challenges and compensate for the absence of equal services. It has also been used to access available opportunities, and connect people to adaptive pathways. It is a strategy that promotes positive outcomes for many even amid ongoing scarcity. It has been refined and has proven to be robust as a response to shocks. Social support is used organically in some schools – even in the absence of formal intervention.
In other schools that are struggling to adapt to ever-present hardships, systematic interventions grafted onto existing indigenous knowledge about social support could promote resilience.
Tuesday, May 23, 2017
The Potential of Degree Reclamation
Title: The Potential of Degree Reclamation
Author: Katherine Wheatle, Jason Taylor, Debra Bragg & Julie Ajinkya
Source: Institute for Higher Education Policy
In 2015, more than 35 million Americans aged 25 and older had completed some college but had not completed a degree. A recent report by the Institute for Higher Education Policy (IHEP) examines how two degree-reclamation initiatives, Project Win-Win and Credit When It’s Due, can be scaled up to the national level.
Degree reclamation includes a combination of evidence-based and equity-focused strategies that help institutions reengage the “some college, no degree” population in completing any remaining credits for an associate’s degree. The authors also propose policy and practice recommendations at the institutional, state and federal levels.
To read the full publication, please see IHEP’s website.
Monday, May 22, 2017
A New Accountability for Broadening Participation in STEM
By Ira Harkavy, Louis Martin-Vega & Daryl Chubin
The composition of the science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) workforce is about more than the individuals involved in science and engineering—it also is about the quality of science and engineering itself, and how that quality impacts the economy and the national interest. As National Science Foundation (NSF) Director France Córdova observed in 2016, “The U.S. science and engineering workforce can thrive if women, blacks, Hispanics, and people with disabilities are represented in percentages comparable to their representation in the U.S. population. According to the National Center for Science and Engineering Statistics, we have a long way to go to reach that goal. We can achieve national STEM diversity and its benefits to our nation if we commit to national STEM inclusion.”
Developing an appropriate accountability system for broadening participation is crucial to achieving a STEM workforce that reflects the diversity of the American population. Colleges and universities, on the front line of STEM research and education, must lead the way, while NSF can function as the lead catalyst among federal agencies for incentivizing principal investigators (PI) and higher education institutions to move with urgency toward achieving this goal.
A new report, “Better STEM Outcomes: Developing an Accountability System for Broadening Participation,” summarizes proceedings from a two-day workshop held in October 2016 that involved 50 educators, administrators and evaluators from across the U.S. science and engineering community. The goal of the workshop was to create a framework for developing and implementing an accountability system for expanding STEM participation. An NSF grant to the University of Pennsylvania supported the workshop and report.
“Better STEM Outcomes” discusses the guiding principles and characteristics of such a system, detailing the roles different sectors play in developing and maintaining it. The report concludes with action steps that organizations, individually and in collaboration, could take to implement an accountability system that would help to realize the ambitious, bold initiative to broaden participation outlined by the NSF’s Committee on Equal Opportunities in Science and Engineering (CEOSE) in its 2011-12 and 2013-14 biennial reports to Congress.
Participants at the October workshop agreed unanimously that the current approach to broadening STEM participation must be reconfigured to recruit and nurture talent along many pathways, beginning in pre-K and continuing into early careers. They also agreed that a valid and constructive accountability system must be created with the explicit understanding that the pursuit of science and engineering occurs in, and is affected by, various institutional settings. Importantly, workshop participants emphasized that if an accountability system is to change institutional, disciplinary and professional culture for the better, it must be embedded, embraced (not imposed) and practiced willingly.
Workshop participants identified the most important aspects of an accountability system as a set of clear goals, assumptions, definitions, metrics and a strategy for change. An overriding sense was that the ultimate goal is to “democratize STEM” such that barriers to full participation by all groups are greatly reduced, resulting in meaningful and wide participation. Barriers to full participation cited at the workshop included: persistent inequality across a variety of dimensions, false expectations around who can “do” science, lack of mentors and support networks, high teaching loads for STEM faculty, widespread lack of awareness of STEM programs, and bias—explicit and implicit.
Principles of a sound accountability system for broadening participation emerged from workshop presentations and discussions. They included the following:
- The system should take account of local conditions, context and history. All institutions should not be held to the same standards. Rather, the accountability framework should take into account “multicultural validity”—social or cultural factors that may influence a particular assessment or measure.
- Successful efforts should have a research foundation and an emphasis on accountability from the beginning.
- A successful evaluation system will involve periodic feedback that can be used to modify practice.
- Learning from and through the implementation of programs is crucial to evaluation as well as to the evolution and replication of successful approaches.
- Connecting organizations within and across sectors can heighten the impact of accountability systems.
For accountability systems to take shape and thrive, stakeholders must become stewards of such a system for broadening participation. These stewards can be found in all sectors and types of organizations, namely, institutions of higher education, the federal government, corporations and small businesses, and nonprofit organizations. Each has a specific role, but the key is working in concert.
Importantly, higher education institutions have a strategic part to play, as leaders in their communities and the sites where broadening participation occurs. They also function as models of inclusion for other stakeholders, notably K-12 schools and employers of new graduates. Colleges and universities are the bridge between STEM education and the workforce. They command talent—from U.S. citizens, the foreign-born (on temporary visas), and immigrants; and they are counted on to add value to the students they train, certify and shape to advance the pillars of the United States’ national and global interests: innovation, economy, and equality.
Given their many roles, public and private colleges and universities that receive federal funding should lead the way in implementing and documenting an accountability system, and in the process, developing a science of accountability. As an explicit guide, workshop participants formulated ten action steps that organizations – particularly institutions of higher education – could adapt in instituting a new accountability system that strengthens the STEM disciplines and the nation’s workforce.
The workshop also targeted several suggestions specifically to NSF, the agency seen as the primary catalyst for developing an accountability system:
Members of the October 2016 workshop looked to universities united with sponsors, notably NSF and other federal agencies, to galvanize their myriad partners and function as the principal change agents for broadening participation in STEM. These partnerships would begin to fulfill the workshop’s call to democratize science and engineering. Workshop participants emphasized the need to continue the conversation and to engage all stakeholders in developing and implementing an accountability system that serves all.
Labor Market Returns for Graduates of Hispanic-Serving Institutions
Title: Labor Market Returns for Graduates of Hispanic-Serving Institutions
Author: Toby J. Park, Stella M. Flores & Christopher J. Ryan Jr.
Source: Florida State University News
This journal article highlights how earnings of graduates of Hispanic-Serving Institutions (HSIs) compare to those from non-HSIs.
The authors examined data for three cohorts who graduated from public high schools in 1997, 2000, and 2002; enrolled in a public four-year university in Texas the fall after graduating from high school; completed a college degree within six years at their starting institution; and earned at least $100 in all four quarters in the calendar year cycle 10 years after graduating from high school. They found that after accounting for institutional resources and selectivity, students graduating from HSIs have comparable earnings to those who graduated from non-HSIs.
To read the article, please visit Florida State University News’ website.
The success of post-conflict peace studies rests with teaching teachers
In recent years, it has become common practice within post-conflict countries to introduce peace education or human rights courses into the school curricula.
After the 2007 violent elections in Kenya, for instance, a peace education course was introduced into the secondary school curriculum. This course aimed to mitigate ethnic tensions and increase inter-group tolerance among pupils.
Likewise, one year after the post-electoral crisis of 2010-2011, Côte d’Ivoire introduced a course titled ‘Citizenship and Human Rights Education’ into its school curricula. Similarly, in the Democratic Republic of Congo, the Civics and Moral course was revised in 2007 to include the topics of human rights and a culture of peace.
Peace education, or human rights courses, usually target pupils in primary and secondary education. They aim to teach pupils “peace” by familiarising them with multiple perspectives and by improving their inter-group attitudes. However, the success of these courses ultimately depends on how teachers implement them.
Unfortunately teachers in post-conflict situations may carry deep psychological scars and prejudices. Unless they are given the necessary support to deal with these issues they are unlikely to be effective in implementing a peace education course.
Lack of teacher training
It’s a sobering observation that in most post-conflict countries little to no teacher training is provided for teachers involved in the implementation of new peace education curricula. Besides a lack of planning and funding, a crucial factor that explains the lack of teacher training programmes is directly related to the implicit assumption that teachers are essentially agents of peace or neutral implementers of the curriculum.
Yet, most teachers live through violent conflicts like the rest of society. Teachers may therefore bear deep psychological scars and can have very biased or distorted views of their country’s history and causes of the conflict. Some of them may even have actively instigated inter-group divisions and violence.
Survey research, conducted as part of an ongoing research project at the University of Leuven’s Centre for Research on Peace and Development, confirms that teachers aren’t tabulae rasae – that they do have preconceived notions.
A survey conducted among 984 secondary school teachers in Abidjan, Côte d’Ivoire, was a good example of this. It showed that five years after the post-electoral crisis – which resulted in widespread violence between supporters of the current Ivorian President Alassane Ouattara and those of the former President Laurent Gbagbo – teachers remained sharply divided along ethno-religious lines. They differed strongly about the causes and the main culprits of the crisis.
Contentious history
Most post-conflict societies do not address their country’s violent past in the official curriculum. They fear it may incite renewed tensions and conflict because of disagreements over how and what kind of history should be taught. If the history of conflict is taught from multiple perspectives, however, it may improve inter-group understanding and empathy among future generations, and possibly prevent conflict recurrence.
Our research shows just how sensitive it is to develop and introduce new teaching materials on peace education and conflict histories. For example, while a majority of teachers in Côte d’Ivoire agreed that the history of the Ivorian conflict should be taught, most of them were reluctant to discuss their country’s violent past in the classroom. This was out of fear that it may open old wounds or create tensions in and outside the classroom.
Teachers have a lot of freedom to choose the parts of the curriculum they teach and how. For example, one Ivorian teacher we interviewed, took it on him to discuss the book Why I became a rebel from the former rebel leader and current President of the National Assembly, Guillaume Soro. The book is not part of the official curriculum. While in principle it is good to learn why Soro took up arms against the government, in the absence of any alternative perspectives it teaches pupils a one-sided account of history.
Teaching peace after conflict
Teachers are more likely to use this freedom when they hold strong views that collide with the official curriculum. This points to two fundamental aspects of teaching peace after conflict.
First, teachers need to be willing to implement the peace education curriculum. If they aren’t supportive of a course they may put it aside or choose to focus on parts that are most in line with their views.
Second, teachers should be encouraged to reflect on and challenge their own views of their country’s violent history. This includes their perceptions of opposing groups and former enemies.
By getting to know the views and history of previously opposing groups, teachers may acquire a better understanding of their own viewpoints and develop greater empathy. This becomes all the more important since the official curriculum should provide pupils with multiple perspectives on their country’s violent past.
It follows that teachers have to be taught “peace” themselves prior to teaching peace to their pupils. The peace education curriculum is more likely to contribute to building durable peace and establish a more tolerant society if there is an effort to discard the assumption that teachers are assumed to be agents of peace, and there’s a conscious effort to train them to play this role.
Sunday, May 21, 2017
Gay university students feel invisible. It’s time to shine a light on their issues
The Eastern Cape is South Africa’s most conservative province when it comes to attitudes about homosexuality. Even in spaces that might be considered more liberal – like university campuses – gender non-conforming students and those who belong to sexual minorities face open discrimination.
This is happening even though discrimination based on sexual orientation is outlawed by South African’s post-apartheid Constitution.
Research into sexual orientation and gender identity at South Africa’s university is becoming more common. It aims to advance scientific evidence and generate knowledge that can help universities protect sexual minorities. Too often, sexual minorities are “invisible”. Students are forced to remain in the closet for fear of stigmatisation.
In other cases students with a same-sex sexual orientation are subjected to corrective therapy, instead of affirmation. Lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and intersex (LGBTI) student societies struggle to receive recognition or even to be registered by student representative councils.
A new study conducted at one Eastern Cape university offers some ideas about how to make sexual minorities more visible and encourage learning about sexuality and gender. This will involve tackling deeply-held religious and cultural convictions.
What we found
Dr Abaver and his colleagues are involved in ongoing research about sexual orientation at the Walter Sisulu University in the Eastern Cape. It’s a sprawling public university with more than 24 000 students and about 2500 staff. They live and work across four campuses, with 13 satellite sites.
One of these studies was a cross-sectional survey. It involved 126 participants aged between 18 and 40. They were located on two of the university’s campuses: Mthatha and Potsdam.
The study’s aim was to explore knowledge and perceptions towards LGBTI students. It asked questions about sexual orientation and gender identity. Sexual orientation refers to preference for a romantic or sexual partner. Gender identity, meanwhile, refers to the private or public performance of gender.
Data were collected with a questionnaire administered among students and staff. The findings reflected overwhelmingly negative attitudes.
About 3.2% of the research subjects identified as homosexual, lesbian or bisexual. Respondents were not asked whether they were open about their sexuality.
More than half of the respondents (60.3%) knew a gender non-conforming person whose presentation in terms of their dress code didn’t match cisgender expectations. Cisgender refers to a person whose gender identity matches the biological sex description assigned at birth – for instance, a person who was born a male and lives as a man. Just more than 35% of the respondents knew of students or staff who occasionally or regularly had sexual relationships with people of same sex.
And the vast majority of respondents – 74.6% – said they believed sexual intercourse with people of the same sex was abnormal and unnatural. Religion often drove this belief. Many did not question their churches’ stance on homosexuality. They viewed heterosexuality as the only “right” way of living.
There was a glimmer of hope on this front: 25.3% of respondents reported that their religion encouraged them to accept people of any sexual orientation. This is a sign that there are – albeit small – shifts in the religious sector in terms of doctrines around sexual minorities.
Cultural attitudes
Culture was another reason people gave for decrying homosexuality. In this study, 70% of participants said their culture did not accept same-sex relationships. This presents culture as lived outside of people’s lives and as something that one can join and or opt out of. But this is not true. There are LGBTI people in every culture, in all societies, and they are embraced to various degrees.
Cultural explanations of sexual orientation and gender identity are not uncommon, as research conducted by Professor Nduna, also in the Eastern Cape though not at a university, has shown.
But if culture is a concept that describes a way of life, then people who identify with a particular culture should take responsibility and publicly contest “their culture” when it misrepresents reality. That’s the premise and stance of the Destabilising Heteronormativity project. It advocates for LGBTI people’s rights, particularly in higher education institutions. It involves heterosexual people in the fight against discrimination of sexual minorities.
Another arm of the project challenges religion and scriptures through the work of the House of Rainbow and the International Network of Religious Leaders Living with or personally affected by HIV and AIDS.
There are several other ways to tackle heterosexism and discrimination against LGTBI people. Heterosexism refers to prejudice against sexual minorities by heterosexuals.
Towards change
Student organisations can play an important role here. Walter Sisulu University’s LGBTI community is doing good work to mobilise against various forms of prejudice, stigma and heterosexism.
Xolisani Mpama, a peer educator and field worker in the Destabilise Heteronormativity project at Walter Sisulu University has also moved to deal with the “invisibility” of LGBTI students and staff. He’s set up a support group on the university’s Ibika campus.
Changes to the formal university curriculum could make a real difference, too. About 58.7% of the respondents said talks in classes would be valuable and 55.6% believed that community programmes would help to raise awareness about sexual orientation and gender identity. This would help to address the knowledge gap in the university community about same sex relationships.
Sadly the university curriculum, both within and outside of the classroom, is still largely founded on the remnants of draconian colonial and apartheid laws. So it’s very heterosexist and cisgender in its orientation. The binaries of male and female and men and women are evident across courses and disciplines. Course content assumes heteronormativity.
It’s important to remember, while students and others call for curriculum transformation more broadly, that enlightened knowledge about sexual orientation, gender identity and heterosexism should be prioritised.
Friday, May 19, 2017
Thursday, May 18, 2017
On Being Provincial and Global: International Education at American Comprehensive Regional Universities
By Brian N. Stiegler
In May 2016, during the Democratic presidential primary contest in California, Hillary Clinton expressed concern about the number of international students in public comprehensive universities in the state. “We have got to get back to using public colleges and university for what they were intended,” Clinton said. “If it is in California, for the children in California. If it is in New York, for the children in New York.”
Clinton’s comments emerged from a larger narrative about affordability and access in public higher education. They likely did not reflect any doubts she had about the importance of international student mobility and global exchange, themes Clinton has championed for many years.
Still, her comments underscore a narrative that many international education leaders in public comprehensive universities struggle daily to combat. Public comprehensive regional universities, the narrative goes, were created to serve their geographic region of their state and should focus on that mission. If there are any resources left over, they can be used for internationalization. Often, there is little left over. Internationalization is left to the flagship research-intensive state universities, which have a clear global mission in their research, and private colleges and universities, which have global agendas embedded in missions determined by their boards of directors, religious affiliations, institutional histories and traditions.
The obvious question is, how is the American public comprehensive university supposed to serve our province and not become provincial?
It would be difficult to find a president or provost at a public comprehensive regional university who did not speak the right words about the importance of international education. But when it comes to tough decisions about designating funds, physical space, staffing or intellectual energy at institutions in which resources are always scarce, international education often comes in somewhere near the back of the pack of priorities.
At Salisbury University, a mid-sized public comprehensive regional university located in rural coastal Maryland and constituent member of the University System of Maryland, we are struggling to overcome this narrative. The past decade has been a transformational time for our institution. We have tripled the number of international students on campus, quadrupled the number of study abroad students, have been designated to sponsor the J-1 visa and started a global scholar mobility program that has brought dozens of visiting faculty, artists and intellectuals from around the world. We have added instruction in four lesser-taught foreign languages on campus (Japanese, Chinese, Korean and Arabic) and created five interdisciplinary regional studies minors. In short, in the past decade we have become a global institution.
Yet still we struggle with this narrative. We have joined the ACE Internationalization Laboratory to try to address this creative challenge of how we define ourselves. We did not seek ACE’s help to learn how to “do” comprehensive internationalization. We are already doing it beautifully. We need ACE’s help to teach us to talk about ourselves in terms of the world, not just our provincial back yard. How can we begin to talk about ourselves as one of the largest and most important global organizations in our region of our state? How can we talk to ourselves, to our students, to our alumni and to our legislators about our role as a university firmly rooted in our local community but with a global reach? If we did begin to talk about ourselves that way, how would it change our campus community, our teaching and learning, our priorities, our budget?
The case of the opening for educational exchange with Cuba is a fascinating test case of the narrative.
Salisbury University is one of many American universities pursuing opportunities for new partnerships with universities in Cuba in the wake of former President Barack Obama’s restoration of diplomatic relations with the island nation in July 2015 and subsequent visit in February 2016. After making two small but strategic visits from university leaders to Cuba during the last year, we have successfully executed a memorandum of understanding with a new university partner in Cuba—the University of Matanzas.
Like Salisbury University, our new Cuban university partner is outside the major metropolis. We both struggle for resources; we both care deeply for the development of our local region; we both educate many local teachers, small business owners, artists, environmental and social activists and public servants; we both truly teach the people. As our universities begin to collaborate, we will continue to pursue our good work in our provincial regions. Through our new partnership, we will be mindful of one another, we will support one another, and we will build bridges between our non-elite, often-overlooked, provincial, university learning communities.
Might this kind of partnership between public regional universities be the key to affecting a public discourse that is more open to the perspective of the global Other? Might our national leaders find it harder to depict the foreign Other as the enemy if the good people of their non-cosmopolitan provinces study with each other, visit each other, and learn from one another? Salisbury University is trying. In addition to Cuba, we are trying in the interior provinces of China; we are trying in the coastal provinces of Colombia; we are trying in the often-forgotten Myanmar. We are trying: province to province, people to people, outside global metropolises.
Europe and the United States are living through a moment in which large parts of the population feel sincere and deep anxiety about their place in the world. Immigration has frightened millions. Many are afraid that their language, religion and culture are under siege from global forces. Millions have lost the confidence that the global economy holds any place for them.
In this time of sincerely felt anxiety about the world, public regional higher education must be more global, not less. More than 60 percent of all Americans in higher education attend public comprehensive universities. If we want to teach more future leaders, members of the workforce, and citizens to engage constructively with the world, they must learn at public regional universities that define themselves by their global engagement.
With the help of the ACE International Laboratory, Salisbury University is striving to define itself as a global organization with reach from coastal Maryland to the world. We urge our fellow public comprehensive regional sister universities to take up the task as well. Our shared provincial world depends on our success.
Academics can’t change the world when they’re distrusted and discredited
There have been persistent calls for academics and scientists to venture forth from academia’s ivory towers to engage with a wider audience on the critical issues facing society. It’s a reasonable argument. Academics stepping out of their traditional roles to disseminate scientific knowledge can offer great value to public policy debates.
By occupying public forums and social media platforms as public intellectuals and thought leaders, academics can contribute significantly to making the world a better place.
But not all academics want to be public intellectuals and those who do, don’t always have the necessary skills. That can be dealt with through training, encouragement or incentives. But the real challenge for academics in the public sphere is that we’re living in a post-truth world. This describes a world where objective facts – scientific evidence – doesn’t influence public opinion. Instead, appeals to emotion and personal beliefs set the agenda.
Populist movements are on the rise. Their supporters distrust the establishment, elites, authority and official sources – including highly qualified academics. The post-truth world is a post-expert world.
If, as research suggests, people trust their Twitter and Facebook friends more than institutions such as the mainstream media, then experts may have no option but to immerse themselves in popular culture. They will have to engage on social media platforms, building new alliances and finding ways to build trust.
Post-truth politics
Post-truth politics and the mistrust of experts are not new. Some post-colonial African leaders have been described as post-truth strategists, “manipulating the truth, distorting facts and fashioning alternative realities to cover-up their failures, to enrich themselves and stay in power”.
And politicians the world over have always been adept at manipulating popular opinion and discrediting scientific evidence that contradicts their ideological agendas or thwarts their political aspirations.
During his time in office former South African president Thabo Mbeki’s administration snubbed scientific evidence about the treatment of HIV/Aids. This had devastating consequences.
The country’s current president, Jacob Zuma, has also dabbled in post-truth. Zuma has referred to urban black intellectuals as “clever blacks” on many occasions. When questioned in 2014 about corruption and the use of state expenditure for his private residence he said that only “very clever and bright people” were concerned with the issue.
He has effectively driven a schism between rural black voters, where most of his support base lies, and the so–called “clever” urban black elite, many of whom are now calling for his resignation.
So how can academics adapt to a world in which populism trumps truth, perhaps more than ever before?
Social media drives post-truth
Some have argued that experts need to be schooled in the art of persuasive rhetoric. This will allow them to counteract junk science and anti-intellectualism. But there’s really no amount of training in persuasive communication that can prepare academics and scientists for engaging with dissenters on sites like Facebook or Twitter.
And it’s very evident that the internet, especially social media, is the main driver of the post–truth era.
There’s an overwhelming amount of contradictory information on the internet. Many people find it easier to retreat into their social media echo chambers that bolster their pre-existing beliefs and value systems than to engage with new ideas.
Professor Mary Beard, the Cambridge University classicist, is a case in point. She took part in a BBC1 panel programme in 2013 and cited a report that claimed immigration had brought some benefits to the UK. Her statements, based on evidence-based research, unleashed a torrent of sexual taunts and horrific verbal abuse. This illustrates how evidence can clash with individuals’ beliefs and create a severe “backfire effect” that is further amplified in the post-truth digital space.
Dr Stella Nyanzi in Uganda illustrates the severe backlash that academics face when they take on powerful forces. Nyanzi has run afoul of Uganda’s President and First Lady with a series of radical and explicit posts on Facebook. These led to her arrest on charges of cyber harassment under Uganda’s Computer Misuse Act 2011. After four weeks in prison she was finally released on bail. Amnesty International has called for all charges against her to be dropped.
The internet is a democratic space in that it can be accessed by almost anyone. The problem is that for every qualified academic and expert you find online, sharing information based on peer-reviewed, highly scrutinised research, there’s a snake oil salesman, pseudo-scientist, hate-mongerer and conspiracist who wants to spread false, misleading, anti-science information to the masses. And, as Nyanzi’s case illustrates, powerful politicians might prefer those who don’t bring evidence to the table.
How, then, do academics and scientists fight distrust and denigration whilst bringing cutting edge, evidence based research to public policy debates?
Adapt or die?
Rapid advancements in digital technology and communications dictate that the “genie is out of the bottle”. So withdrawing when your research and evidence is attacked online may not really be an option. Just like Nyanzi, Beard chose to escalate her intellectual interaction on Twitter – as many academics are doing. She pushed back at her detractors and has been described as a “troll slayer”.
It’s evident that even academics who’ve been wary of public engagement may not have the luxury of remaining invisible any more. They will have to rethink their traditional roles, functions and develop new ways of being. This may come more naturally as younger researchers – millennials – move into the academy. This generation tends to be more at ease with the cut and thrust of social media than the current crop of “baby boomers”.
There are however, clearly complex challenges – and even dangers – for the academic as a public intellectual in the post-truth information age.
Wednesday, May 17, 2017
Programs that prepare students for university study may no longer be free
For the first time, students may have to pay up to A$3271 for “enabling” courses, designed to prepare students for university study.
The change was announced as part of the government’s recent higher education reform package.
Until now, university enabling programs have been subsided by the government – and are therefore free for students. The new plan to shift the cost onto students will likely deter some students and affect who is able to access higher education.
What do enabling programs do?
Not everyone is in a position to start an undergraduate degree directly. Some people need more academic preparation or confidence, including those who may have been out of the education system for several years. Many of these people currently enrol in “enabling” courses.
These preparatory courses typically run for six to 12 months and focus on developing the discipline, knowledge and academic skills required for higher level learning.
The courses are run by universities and give students a sense of campus life and expectations before they commit to a full undergraduate degree with tuition fees.
Enabling courses are a low-cost government investment of $30 million per year, offering people from low socioeconomic and other disadvantaged backgrounds a viable opportunity to qualify and prepare for university.
Courses are not specifically targeted at equity groups, but around 50% of students enrolled in enabling courses are from equity groups, including Indigenous students.
A recent review of enabling programs shows that students from low SES backgrounds have more than twice the rate of representation in enabling courses than they do at undergraduate level.
As the national review reports,
enabling programs transition more equity-group students than the associate degree, advanced diploma, diploma and OUA pathways combined.
Students who transition via an enabling program are,
more likely to be studying full-time in their subsequent undergraduate degree, compared to those transitioning via a VET program (85.4% compared to 76.3%).
Once they are at university, students from low SES backgrounds can receive further support through a different government financial initiative – the Higher Education Participation and Partnerships Program (HEPPP). This is welcome and signals a government commitment to equity. However, more is needed to support access and academic preparation.
How will funding arrangements change?
Since 2004, some preparatory enabling programs have been supported through a combination of Commonwealth funded places and a small additional loading.
The arrangement means that students do not pay fees (or incur debt) as long as no other fees are charged by universities themselves. But the proposed changes to enabling funding would change all that.
Under the new proposals, students will pay fees and funding will be insecure, with universities having to bid for their places every three years.
Universities may also need to compete for funding against private providers, some of whom offer similar courses.
Many private providers have no previous experience in teaching students who have faced prior educational challenges. And unlike universities, they have no specific equity mission or community obligations.
Why will students now have to pay?
Because enabling programs are free, they attract different student cohorts from diplomas and other (fee paying) sub-degree programs.
Indigenous, mature age, low SES, and students from refugee backgrounds are more likely to enrol in an enabling program than any other sub-degree program .
Apart from improving university access for thousands of under-represented students, enabling programs also deliver effective outcomes.
Research shows that enabling students who transition to undergraduate degrees outperform other equity group students in those degrees, despite a higher average level of disadvantage.
So why cut an inexpensive program that opens doors for under-represented students and effectively prepares them for university success?
Two reasons are provided. The first reason for abolishing fee-free enabling places is to improve completion rates.
The budget package reports that fee-free Commonwealth funded university programs have completion rates of 52%, while fee-paying university programs, which do not draw on this Commonwealth funding (programs can only charge fees or claim the funding), have completion rates of 61%.
However, this gap is largely because fee-paying programs are typically much smaller and less flexible and accessible. The government data cited does not compare like with like.
The second reason provided for removing fee-free programs is to ensure a better return to students and taxpayers. Again, this is a questionable claim.
The proposed cuts will mean that many students from disadvantaged and low-SES backgrounds, who are often unsure of whether university study is for them, will likely not enrol in an enabling program.
Fees are often prohibitive for people who have the potential to succeed in higher education, but who suffer social and economic disadvantage. While the budget proposes a broader expansion of sub-degree places, diversity and full community engagement will suffer if fee-free places are abolished.
Equity, quality and performance-based funding
The government is also proposing performance-based funding measures that may penalise institutions with relatively low retention and completion rates.
That move is understandable but considered problematic and could threaten student equity if not managed carefully.
Performance-based funding is partly designed to deter universities from enrolling students at risk of non-completion.
However, fee-free enabling programs already provide an excellent way to mitigate this risk, by enabling access and improving the preparation of students. These benefits are delivered relatively cheaply under the current enabling loading allocations to universities.
To support equity, quality and long-term budget repair, fee-free enabling places could be expanded rather than abolished.