The role of unresponsive governance structures in the crisis at the University of Missouri

Although not the only institution struggling with racial climate on campus, the University of Missouri has become ground zero for the fight to improve the experience of marginalized and underrepresented minority students on campus. Student protests including interrupting the Homecoming parade and a hunger strike by higher education graduate student Jonathan Butler came to a climax when the Mizzou football team announced they would not play or practice until the University of Missouri System President Tim Wolfe resigned. Shortly and perhaps unsurprisingly with athletics taking the protests a more national stage, Wolfe resigned as well as Missouri-Columbia Chancellor R. Bowen Loftin. There are many different opinions on how the administrators, students, media, and faculty involved in the crisis have handled themselves. However, what seems clear to me is the role of unresponsive governance structures in the crisis at the University of Missouri.

Photo credit: Associated Press

The list of demands put forward by Concerned Student 1950 (the student protest group named after the year black students were first admitted to UM) is fundamentally a list of governance demands. The removal of President Wolfe, curricular changes to include racial awareness and inclusion, increase the percentage of black faculty and staff, a new strategic plan, and support for social justice centers on campus are all demands to change the governance and culture of campus.

The marginalization of students and faculty generally in shared governance and black students and faculty in particular only escalates problems with unresponsive governance structures.

Cities, geography, and universities: Need for research

Throughout history, the world’s great cities have been hubs of innovation and creativity. From the earliest communities through modern day, cities have been built by and for a great variety of societies. Additionally, universities prove to be inherently stable organizations even during times of economic downturn. This stability makes universities useful institutions around which to develop economic strategies; city leaders can rely on the financial steadiness of universities even during poor economic situations (Goddard et al., 2014). Future research can help the field better understand the various ways large metropolitan cities and universities interact as mitigated by history, context, and culture. This information will not only improve practice and policy, but also expand the understanding of the role of universities in supporting the social and economic development of cities.

Photo credit: Queens College

Higher education policy is inherently jurisdictional.

Cities and higher education

In today’s post, I want to share part of a paper that I am presenting today with some colleagues at the annual meeting of the Association for the Study of Higher Education.  I believe that one of the most pressing areas for future research is cities and higher education.

Using Google Scholar for finding research

One of the biggest challenges for students is how to find good scholarly research. I have spoken with several of my doctoral students about this recently. Although the availability of electronic library resources are much better than in the past, I still find using library databases cumbersome and clunky. Instead, I recommend using Google School for finding research.

I want my students using empirical research to support their arguments when writing papers. However, I don’t want them to waste a lot of time trying to find research articles and books.

The strengths and weaknesses of lecturing

The lecture is one of the oldest teaching strategies in the world, yet it remains one of the most controversial. Some faculty passionately argue for the value and effectiveness of lecturing while others suggest that the approach is one of the biggest challenges for helping college students learn. This debate has been in the forefront lately thanks to a New York Times column by Molly Worthen, “Lecture Me. Really.” Professor Worthen’s piece, while thought provoking, misses the mark in several places particularly in describing active learning as not much more than a fad. Moreover, her pieces failed to consider the growing and substantial body of empirical research on lecturing—research that shows the strengths and weaknesses of lecturing. My recent book with Claire Major and Todd Zakrajsek (Teaching for Learning: 101 Intentionally Designed Educational Activities to Put Students on the Path to Success) explores the research literature on lecturing and in today’s post I want to describe some of the key findings to provide empirical information to the lecture debate.

Photo credit: Alan Levine

The primary purpose of lecturing is to transfer content and information from an expert faculty member to novice students. Lectures take many forms from formal lectures to lecture-discussions that include student questions.

In our work, we identified the following advantages of lecturing:

  • Provides teachers with control of information and pacing of session
  • Is rewarding for the teacher to be seen as expert
  • Provides the teacher with a change to model desired level of thinking
  • Allows teacher to model enthusiasm
  • Provides all students with a common core of content
  • Provides an opportunity to enliven facts and ideas from the text
  • Provides teachers with ability to clarify issues
  • Provides an opportunity to develop ideas (that may be later used for publications)
  • Provides immediate recall of information by students

The weaknesses of lectures are:

  • May not be as effective for higher order thinking
  • May not improve student long-term retention of information
  • Presumes students are learning at the same pace
  • Does not allow for personalized instruction
  • Can create opportunities for students to be passive
  • Relies on student attention span
  • Can be a disincentive for learning (if done poorly)
  • Can lead students to believe that it is a complete learning experience
  • Can lead to boredom on the part of professors and students

As with all teaching approaches, there are advantages and disadvantages of lecturing. So what should faculty do?  In our review of the research literature, we identified five findings that can improve the effectiveness of lectures for instructors that desire to use lectures.

Additionally, much of the research that finds lectures as ineffective examined traditional, full class lectures.  Recent studies suggest that lectures can be made more active and improve student learning if instructors can follow some of our suggestions below.

1.  Use mini lectures with purposeful active learning breakouts to improve student learning.

2.  Effective and guided note-taking during lecture can improve learning.

3.  Focusing on the essentials can improve student learning, and help students figure out what is essential can improve learning

4.  Frequent quizzing and testing can improve learning

5.  Paying attention to style and pace of speech can improve learning

We go into more details on each of these in the book as well as providing specific activities to help instructors achieve these goals. Ultimately, what is most important is that faculty take the time to intentionally design their classroom activities whether lecturing or another approach.

No teaching strategy is perfect.

However, by learning from research and proactively planning, instructors can improve their teaching and student learning.