Reforming Education By “Setting Standards”: How They Are Affecting Our Schools

Abstract

profession? Derek Blackadder, th e Universities Coordi nator at t he Ca na di an Union of Pu blic Employees (CUPE) Ontario Regional Of ce, says that following the completion of his PhD he left academe because "the prospect of wandering the country, working under lousy conditions and spending all my free time trying to gure out how to fund a bit of research on the side was frankly appalling."Like Blackadder, Vicky Smallman, Professional Of cer, Organizing, of the Canadian Association of University Teachers, also left the education sector and now has "the perfect job, helping improve the wages and working conditions of part-time faculty and fig hting to protect the integrity of our hig her education system in Canada." Smallman reports that she left purely because of the economics:Finally, but most importantly, is the effect that all the factors discussed above have on students. Currently, there is a reassessment by administrations of faculty prerogatives, student needs and a reassessment of the quality of education that institutions provide. As has been noted in numerous articles, adjunct professors, with their hectic schedules, lack of of ce space and poor compensation, are sometimes unable to provide the quality of teaching that they know they are capable of providing. A strictly pro t-oriented, assembly-line approach to higher education is not what students expect. The reassessment, by administrations, may in part be market driven. Students realize when they are not receiving quality education. Andrew Brittain, recalling classes taken at the University of Maryland University College and Strayer College, comments that, "I was left with the notion that their [the university's] number one priority was to pass students along so that they could continue making money on them regardless of the quality of their [the student's] work." Students who are dissatis ed with their education will be less willing to return to an institution during their careers to ful ll their continuing educational needs, less likely to support the school nancially as alumni, and less likely to recommend the institution to others. Those schools that focus on pro t may, ironically, see that their efforts have exactly the opposite effect.In the next few years academic administrators will ma ke decisions that will set t he course of their institutions for the twent y-first cent ury. While administrators clearly need to determine what their prerogatives are, they may also nd themselves forced to accommodate, or at least pay closer attention to, those whom their decisions effect. Both potential students and faculty will vote with their feet if higher education continues to sacri ce quality of education for pro t. l