Don’t we have an obligation to report on academic outcomes?
Recently there have been several articles about colleges objecting to expectations that they report learning or academic outcomes. For example, this Inside Higher Ed article describes how Division III schools object to a proposed NCAA requirement to report graduation rates for their athletes. The schools say that this will drive costs up. But, they also fear that low graduation rates may bring some penalties, as has happened for Division I schools. This is just one more in a growing list of objections to reporting academic outcomes.
Diane Auer Jones has proposed that schools start to report a “federal regulatory compliance fee” so that students and others can see the impact of added reporting requirements. She does a nice job of explaining her proposal and the reasons such a move would be useful.
Perhaps her idea is a good one. Not only for the reasons she presents, but because it would be interesting to see how much actually is spent on required reports. A part of me wonders why it would be so difficult and costly to report graduation rates for athletes.
There just seems to be an unending chorus of voices lamenting reporting requirements. But, per the title of this post, don’t colleges and universities have some obligation to report on the most fundamental aspect of why they exist? Don’t we have an obligation to account for whether learning occurs and people finish their education?
I agree that there have been lots of added reporting requirements, and that these add costs. But the reports that I think we should object to because they are burdensome and costly are in the non-academic areas. Perhaps any federal compliance reports might separate out costs for academic reports and non-academic. Perhaps rather than railing about too many reports, we in higher education should define what it makes sense to report and what does not. Doesn’t it make sense that we should report about learning?
Too often the loudest objections are not about useless and bureaucratic reports, but rather about reporting on the very essence of our work.
What do you think? Please feel free to leave a comment.
Mike
Share This2 Responses to “Don’t we have an obligation to report on academic outcomes?”
Vaughn Parker Says:
I just believe that there is no reason why that is unacceptable to require of athletic departments. Student athletes are heavily compensated at the University level to compete in university sports. The fee for the disclosure, is more likely than not, the overhead to compile the reports. However, this is not a hard move to do. I would think add a check box for “student athlete” and “graduation status” and “year graduated” and “Sport” and that way you can pull a report to see how many athletes are graduating. The Temple News at Temple News did an article about how a lot of college athletes were pushed to take degrees in areas such as Criminal Justice, Communication, or another area because it allowed students to maintain GPA levels to stay on the teams. It makes me question if schools are straight off the bat against it…then they must be hiding something that they have known for a long time. If it does have the repercussion of changing the images of schools, then that change should be applauded because it makes universities more competitive and might just drive integrity at the academic level.
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Paul Angileri Says:
I think the crux of this is the convergence of practices in the private realm intercepting practices in the public (speaking in terms of publicly-funded higher education). Both are cultures that have behaved a particular way, and when one encroaches on the other, some sparks are liable to fly. I think that’s what’s happening (unconsciously) at a high level.
The traditional Us, and especially the big name institutions, still have the clout to fight these efforts because they can make arguments – many that you covered – about there being too great an initial negative effect. I don’t think they’re right, and one would think that in order to secure those dwindling endowments they are otherwise concerned about, that they would be open to ways of making their case succinctly to their donors and creditors.
Taking their view for a moment though, I wonder if perhaps by reporting graduation rates, a school feels that it may inadvertently be recast as a kind of college it is not. For example, The University of Illinois in Urbana has a strong reputation as a school that graduates quality engineers and other technologists. Perhaps an effect of making their graduation rates public, the perception of U of I might shift in an unexpected direction and away from the degrees that make the university’s name.
That’s a hypothetical scenario, and it could even be pretty unlikely, but I figured I would throw that out there for consideration.
May 4th, 2010 at 1:30 pm