[The Montana Professor 24.1, Spring 2014 <http://mtprof.msun.edu>]

Dear Editor,

When I see a new copy of the Montana Professor in my mailbox, I have mixed emotions. I expect to see a few things that remind me why I taught, and several that remind me why I quit.

The latest issue was no exception.

The articles regarding online education were a disappointment. Two (Scarlett et al. and Gonshak) set up false dichotomies in their titles. Anyone who has been involved with online education knows that there are some styles and content matter (peer instruction, fact transfer) for which it is excellent and other forms (Socratic dialogue, experiential learning) for which it is not. The key issues now are how widely to incorporate it and how to make the integration of online and traditional education as painless as possible for all concerned. Squires' summary and Young-Pelton's anecdote are at least a step in that direction. But as long as faculty trained in traditional modes are free to ignore or actively resist online education, we will continue to hemorrhage clients and their dollars to nontraditional institutions and campuses.

Regent Chair McLean upholds her role as an impediment to higher education in Montana. She is (charitably) clueless about students, faculty, and state needs.

1. Are there students who could be better served? Surely. But the biggest single student issue in my experience is lack of motivation (as much as 40% in entry-level classes). Encouraging higher attendance (in whatever mode) is likely to harm the educational experience of the rest to an even greater degree than at present. The goal of 60% of Montanans with a degree or equivalent is easy to meet–just send them out with tax refund checks! But if achieving higher education is the goal, 60% of Montanans have to want it first.
2. Her argument regarding the efficiency of the MUS is specious. Individual campuses are lean to the point of emaciation; it is the system that is bloated. That is the result of poor management by the governors, legislatures, commissioners, and regents, and Ms. McLean seems unlikely to understand it, much less change it.
3. She values faculty and staff recruitment and retention, but seems ignorant of the fact that faculty salary funding has never kept pace with the world outside Montana, and that rewards to excellent faculty can and have only come out of the pockets of good faculty. The only ways to raise all boats are to tax Montanans unconscionably or to prune the system.
4. Finally, she touts accountability. Many faculty will remember the Productivity, Quality, and Outcomes initiative of the 1990s. We spent years on that accountability program, only to find that faculty met almost every standard, goal, and guideline, and administration met…none. The next accountability initiative will likely do what the last one did, which is waste faculty time (valued at zero for accounting purposes).

I conclude, inevitably, that I am better off out of that train wreck.

Best,
Bill Locke
Emeritus, Earth Sciences
MSU-Bozeman

[The Montana Professor 24.1, Spring 2014 <http://mtprof.msun.edu>]