John Lonergan ’72 writes of higher education as many in the business world do, as just another “product” that needs to be packaged for consumption (“What’s the future for professors at Brown?” Oct. 7). But education, like health care, doesn’t always fit neatly into the capitalist equation.
That’s a good thing, because otherwise the dedicated researchers, educators and administrators whom I am privileged to call my colleagues probably wouldn’t put in the long hours and hard work that they do for yearly salaries that are often less than what a corporate executive makes in a day. It’s also fashionable to malign the “protected” faculty, but those of us in academia know tenure is seldom a ticket to a worry-free existence. Those who have endured the years-long process to achieve it still are expected to conduct research, obtain grants, publish, teach and perform service to the University. As for those of us not on the tenure track, we work to further the educational missions of our departments and the University at large, typically by gladly assuming heavy teaching and advising responsibilities while supporting our students with recommendations for graduate programs that allow them to take the next step in their careers.
I agree with Lonergan that technology has the potential to change certain models of teaching in ways both frightening and beneficial, but in his column he makes certain assertions that seem hard to support. For example, he suggests that students enrolled in an introductory-level biology course — which I happen to teach — could skip my lectures in favor of those taught online by my “competitors” at other institutions, yet still pass my tests. Leaving aside the logical question of just how many students would actually want to trade in-person learning at their own school for distance learning at another, there is the logistical issue. My peers at other schools may teach broadly similar courses, but there will always be differences in style, schedule, and emphasis on particular topics. To put it a different way, even when you’re comparing apples to apples, there are a lot of different types of apples. Lonergan also definitively writes, “Textbooks are gone. They will disappear this year or next.” Excuse me? Has he actually talked with the people who coordinate textbook ordering here at Brown? I have, and I can tell you that despite the assurances of those who proclaim the death of physical textbooks — tellingly, the loudest voices are not usually coming from those who actually use them — this impending demise has been greatly exaggerated.
Undergraduates, as well connected as they are, do not as a group prefer electronic textbooks. Online resources can be a great supplement — I use them myself — but a physical book remains a technology that’s hard to improve on. It needs no software updates or power source, never expires, can be annotated in any way desired and, most importantly, can be loaned, given or sold to someone else. E-textbooks almost never allow any sort of ownership transfer, and even students who “buy” them often get access for a fixed amount of time. This is not especially helpful if they want to use the book a year later when they’re taking the advanced course that builds on the introductory course for which they originally bought the book.
Lonergan goes on to suggest that faculty members should concentrate on “packaging” their best lectures and preserving them online, presumably for use from year to year. I’m not sure what field is amenable to such a static model of content delivery, but it certainly isn’t mine; immunology lectures not continuously updated will go stale faster than packaged dollar-store cookies. He also mentions that online platforms such as Coursera allow some faculty members to “boast” of teaching well over 100,000 students. But this figure is not necessarily worth boasting about. Of that 100,000, often less than 5 percent actually go on to complete a course. Many students do sign up for reasons other than completing an entire course. One might call it “e-vagabonding.” As wonderful as it is to be able to deliver knowledge to millions, one should not confuse volume with quality. There are times when a professor’s efforts are best spent focused, in person, on one student who needs it the most. Call me old-school — or “elitist” if your favorite political color is red — but I’ll take the satisfaction that comes when I see a challenging concept “click” for that one student over a thousand impersonal interactions in the cloud.
Richard Bungiro PhD’99 is a lecturer in the department of molecular microbiology and immunology.
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