We are gratified that Professor Macgregor has responded to our article,"Managed Education." Part of our intention with our piece was to provoke more discussion, from a variety of perspectives, on the issue of distributed learning and distance education in Montana. We are also pleased that Professor Macgregor agrees with us on several key points, and that despite his vested interest in the success of the enterprise, at least he counts himself as an "skeptical enthusiast" vis a vis the Western Governors University.
Nevertheless, we must take issue with some of Professor Macgregor's misreading of our article. Among other things, after accusing us of hyperbole, he asserts, hyperbolically and erroneously, that we equate "the supporters of distance learning with the medieval church's burning of heretics and Hitler's mass murder of dissenters." What we emphasized in our conclusion was that historically governments have tried to control and manipulate its intellectuals to toe the party line or embrace the latest ideology. We were directly responding to Governor Racicot's assertion that the liberal arts must conform to the metaphysic of the marketplace and commercial values, much of which drives the push for the WGU. We do not feel it is quite as firmly rooted in the dispassionate educational altruism as Professor Macgregor contends. As a recent MSU administrator remarked to the editorial board of The Montana Professor recently, distance education is a game "where either you eat lunch or have your lunch eaten." If it walks like a duck....
Professor Macgregor further asserts that our "article conveys a message that has become all too familiar: Something Big is Coming, and It Scares the Hell out of Us!" and he upbraids us for our "alarmist message" which "serve[s] only to divide the professoriate against itself." Yet we feel that when an impoverished state such as Montana (as Macgregor concedes we are) has decided to redirect substantial and increasingly scare public funds to the delivery of computer-based distance education after very little substantive dialogue with faculty, after very little, if any, public discussion, and with precious little input from prospective student constituencies, then, yes, for faculty whose workloads, criteria for rank and tenure, and whose very livelihoods will be fundamentally reorganized as a result of this, it is frightening as Macgregor himself admits. Maybe it is even alarming.
But given all of this, if Professor Macgregor were to choose sides--as if there are even choices in what smells already of a fait accompli--his "nod would go to the governor's impulse." A large part of our argument was and remains that there have been no clear-cut choices put before the faculty; there really has been no honest, open debate. To marshal evidence to the contrary, Professor Macgregor cites a recent "Teaching and Learning Technology Roundtable" in which "more than 200 interested faculty...and support staff" converged on Helena in order to learn about "developing distance learning curricula." Yet to be critically involved in the decision-making means more than learning about the curricula from handpicked true believers who present the ins and outs of the technology. While such meetings and workshops will be crucial as more faculty must confront their own technological shortcomings, they aren't representative of public dialogue or debate on the efficacy and wisdom of embarking on this expensive path. To date, the distance education initiatives in Montana have been primarily top-down mandates accompanied by on-going internal reallocation of resources in order to fund the technological infusion required to develop and deliver on-line courses. As all of us surely are aware by now, it will cost substantially more to implement and upgrade the distance educational technology in the long-run than the $100,000 one-time buy in to the WGU that Professor Macgregor notes.
In conclusion, we are pleased that Professor Macgregor has taken the time to respond to our ideas. By questioning our assertions, taking exception to some of our points, and providing an alternate viewpoint, he betrays a finely honed liberal arts tradition that should not and we think will not be disciplined.