The Public Research University Is Broken

Shortly before my graduation and departure from Texas A&M, I had coffee with President R. Bowen Loftin and a few professors.  Money is, of course, tight, so he gave a run-down of the budget and the university's operations.

Day to day spending on things like professors' salaries and the electric bills comes in roughly equal measure from tuition, the endowment, and the state legislature.  Annual tuition is currently $8,419.  If every student paid full tuition, the university would spend about $25,000 per student per year on its dual mission of teaching and research.

Since, however, 71% of students receive some form of financial aid, we have to adjust that number down.  For argument's sake, let's assume that one third of students receiving aid get it from non-university sources (meaning those monies still flow into the university's coffers like regular tuition), while the other two thirds of aid recipients pay half tuition.  This would pull down the tuition revenue figure to $6,427, and thus the total figure to something in the neighborhood of $19,000 per student per year.

Let us now turn our attention to another school I once attended, the University of Dallas.  Current tuition is $29,140 for a full year.  Since UD is a private school, it does not receive money from the state legislature.  Thus, it must rely on its meager endowment and tuition.  Still, assuming 20% from the endowment and 80% from tuition, that would come to $4,905 and $19,629 (adjusted down for the 98% of students receiving aid), respectively, or $24,500 per student per year.

These numbers are extremely rough - I know I have seen better ones for both schools, but I cannot find them now - but they suggest that UD spends 25-30% more per student than does A&M.  This is notable, but not staggering, and probably within the margin of error for this very crude study.

But if the two schools appear to be in the same ballpark, let me add one more piece of information.  UD has a single primary mission: to educate students.

UD's talented faculty do, in fact, publish in a variety of fields, but no one would claim UD is a research university.  Yet A&M, spending as much money or less, professes to have both excellent teaching and world-class research.  I submit to you that this is an impossibility.

Take note, moreover, that A&M is no fly-by-night, University of Phoenix-style operation.  A&M is a well-respected flagship university of Texas, well ranked in a variety of fields and broadly representative of public research universities across the country.  All of which embrace the dual mission of research and teaching.  I submit to you that they cannot fulfill both, and that teaching as been the loser in this fight.  One need only take a glance at a lecture hall of two or three hundred undergraduates to realize that this is not education; it is mass production.

One might quibble that the figures given by President Loftin over coffee some months ago were for day to day operations, and did not include the big ticket research equipment required by the sciences, or the far-flung travels required by many of the arts, which are funded out of different pots.  Even so, consider that professors at UD teach three or four courses per semester; professors at A&M typically teach two, with course releases common for many junior faculty.  Research requires time and time is paid out of salaries.

What, then, are we to conclude?

I am a supporter of research and I have conducted several archival research trips myself.  These things should continue and our society would do well to find ways to fund them.  Moreover, I believe research can have a positive impact on one's teaching.  However, the case that good research leads to good teaching has been overstated.  Bundling teaching and research together has simply confused the question of where resources are going, a confusion which has often been to teaching's disadvantage.

If you or your children are looking at undergraduate educational institutions, be very skeptical of any school claiming the dual mission of research and teaching.  Perhaps it has a staggering endowment - a few do - and is able to accomplish that dual mission.  But don't count on it.

Admittedly, private education is out of reach for many Americans.  Let me suggest, however, that community and junior colleges often offer education which is every bit as good as the large public institutions, and at a fraction the cost.  ("But what about the opportunity to study under leading scholars in their fields?" some might ask.  "Who taught more of your research school classes," I answer, "graduate students or Nobel laureates?"  A&M has both, but the former do more of the teaching.)

Speaking the Truth About Homosexuality

This week there has been a bit of a storm in the Texas A&M History Department, one in which I find myself somewhat conflicted.

The story began when Rep. Wayne Christian introduced an amendment into the Texas legislature requiring that if universities use state money to fund "a gender and sexuality center," they must also spend an equal amount on a center promoting "family and traditional values". The amendment passed the Texas House. In an age of tight budgets, that means organizations like A&M's GLBT Resource Center would likely get the ax, rather than adding another center to the university's costs.

The A&M Student Senate then introduced and passed a resolution supporting Rep. Christian's amendment, though the Student Body President vetoed it.

On May 9th the faculty of the Department of Anthropology unanimously issued a statement:

We ask that the administration address the recent series of events surrounding the Gay-Lesbian-Bisexual-Transgender (GLBT) community on campus. We, as faculty, condemn the recent TAMU Student Senate Bill.... By suggesting that students seeking guidance from the GLBT Resource Center are not represented by the terms “family”, “tradition”, or “values”, this bill blatantly goes against Texas A&M’s commitment to a diverse, unified campus that incorporates multiple perspectives as part of Aggie tradition and values. Other recent events -- such as the secret recording and then broadcasting of GLBT meetings on YouTube -- ostracize GLBT students from the safe space that the TAMU campus should be.... We acknowledge that these current events have incited a sense of fear and mistrust among the GLBT community. We reach out with empathy to all those affected and remain committed to addressing injustice as members of the campus community and as anthropologists.... We ask that the administration provide accountability by releasing a statement expressing the University’s commitment to GLBT and other underrepresented groups.

This was followed by letters of support for the GLBT community and Resource Center from the Dean and the Vice President for Student Affairs. Prof. Killingsworth, Head of the English Department, stated that "a groundswell of support from faculty, staff and students in the Department of English" had prompted him to write as well. "Many members of the English Department have expressed a desire to sign a petition," he wrote, "but in the interest of acting quickly, I have decided not to collect those signatures at this time."

Then the History Department got in on the act, writing its own letter. The draft, currently collecting feedback and soon signatures, reads as follows:

In 1965, Texas A&M head football coach Gene Stallings claimed that adding African American football players to the team would promote disunity. The same year, the first thirteen women to enroll at A&M appeared in the yearbook with their portraits arranged in the form of a question mark, illustrating the student editors’ anxiety about the place of women in Aggieland.

We, members of the Department of History, wish to add our voices to those who have spoken out against the attacks on the GLBT Resource Center. These attacks echo the divisive sentiments voiced four decades ago, that diversity somehow threatens the unity of the Aggie community. Since then, Texas A&M has grown richer through welcoming and recognizing the diversity that is Texas and the nation.

We wish to expose the lie that a GLBT resource center somehow resides outside of the values that define the Aggie community. GLBT students have been struggling for a home on campus since 1976. The university must ensure that GLBT students are a welcome part of the Aggie community. That women and African American students are an indispensible part of Texas A&M has been answered with a resounding yes. This process of inclusion must continue. Texas A&M is not complete without its GLBT members.

The chorus of supportive emails from the faculty was thunderous. But I did not join it.

The teaching of the Catholic Church is both clear and moderate. It is not bigoted or hateful, but it is uncompromising:

Homosexuality... has taken a great variety of forms through the centuries and in different cultures. Its psychological genesis remains largely unexplained. Basing itself on Sacred Scripture, which presents homosexual acts as acts of grave depravity, tradition has always declared that "homosexual acts are intrinsically disordered." They are contrary to the natural law. They close the sexual act to the gift of life. They do not proceed from a genuine affective and sexual complementarity. Under no circumstances can they be approved.

The number of men and women who have deep-seated homosexual tendencies is not negligible. This inclination, which is objectively disordered, constitutes for most of them a trial. They must be accepted with respect, compassion, and sensitivity. Every sign of unjust discrimination in their regard should be avoided. These persons are called to fulfill God's will in their lives and, if they are Christians, to unite to the sacrifice of the Lord's Cross the difficulties they may encounter from their condition.

Homosexual persons are called to chastity. By the virtues of self-mastery that teach them inner freedom, at times by the support of disinterested friendship, by prayer and sacramental grace, they can and should gradually and resolutely approach Christian perfection.

Per this teaching, I am happy to affirm the dignity and respect due to everyone on our campus. Indeed, I am called to do so. But I cannot suggest that homosexual behavior is anything other than what it is: disordered, unnatural and immoral. If a university cannot teach the truth about the human person, what are we doing?

A colleague commented to me, "Well, we have to show that we're progressive." I was reminded of recent comments by Pope Benedict XVI. (He spoke primarily about liturgy, but his statement applies here as well): "Not infrequently tradition and progress are clumsily opposed. In reality, the two concepts are integrated." There is no need for conflict here: one may uphold the dignity of all people - including members of the A&M GLBT community - without abandoning the traditional teaching of the Catholic Church and all Christendom that homosexual acts are wrong.

Yet the History Department's draft - whether its writers intended it or not - potentially encourages that conflict by stating that "we wish to expose the lie that a GLBT resource center somehow resides outside of the values that define the Aggie community." It is only a small step to conclude that Christian faith is not an Aggie value, and may even be opposed to them.

I was also reminded of J. M. Wilson's comments on the proposed legislation. No one backing the amendment actually expects universities to set up "family and traditional values" centers. But why not? As he points out, living chastity on a college campus - where hormone-fueled singles are surrounded by attractive scantly-attired sex-seeking young people - is hardly an easy thing. But while universities offer support for all manner of sexual activity, there is precious little support for abstinence. Nor, for that matter, is there any support for those living the married life. Perhaps the argument is made that various churches support such groups off-campus, but there are also off-campus groups supporting the GLBT community. Likewise, one might ask: does having Christianity supporting you somehow make the chaste no longer members of the university community? And if they are members of the community, should they not be supported? This has been the argument in favor of the GLBT Resource Center; why can it not also be used in favor of "family and traditional values"?

With all this in mind, I was strongly inclined to reply to the faculty and graduate students of my department - in the most careful Thomas More-esque language I could muster - but I declined to do so.

When Prof. Killingsworth, Head of the English Department, wrote about a petition in support of the GLBT Resource Center, he noted that "many others do not feel that they can safely sign their names to such a petition". I fear just the opposite - that those who oppose such a petition, for whatever reason - will be labeled bigots and homophobes and shunned by their academic colleagues. The Vice President's letter quoted Ernest Boyer's definition that "a college or university, at its best, is an open, honest community, a place where freedom of expression is uncompromisingly protected and where civility is powerfully affirmed." It is a sad comment on the academy that I did not feel I could entrust my professors with honest views.



Hat tips to Earthly City, The Magdalene Sisters and the ever-vigilant Maggie Perry for the links.

Creating Colleges

At Texas A&M, the Aggie Ring is a big deal for undergraduates. On the ring there are five stars, symbolizing development of mind and body, spiritual attainment, emotional poise and integrity of character. That sounds a great deal more like formation than simple technical education. But I am afraid that well-rounded sense of formation has largely been lost at our massive technical university.

We have our share of sharp students, but one would be flabbergasted to overhear in the dining hall, "After four years of study, I'm only now beginning to really grasp the meaning of the medieval synthesis." Love of learning rarely goes that deep. In spite of all the talk about "honor, the guiding star" around here, any TA or professor can tell you that cheating is no less common here than at most state universities. And while tens of thousands of Aggies go to church each Sunday morning, as many or more stay home and nurse their hangovers. Something is lacking.

While chewing on this problem, it occurred to me that formation is very difficult in a school this big, in part because it is no longer really residential. A number of students live on campus; a good many live in officially sanctioned private off-campus dorms, while others still live in various apartments, duplexes and houses throughout the area. The result is that there is no single shared life among Aggies. So far as I can tell, there is very little guarantee that two Aggies took the same courses (much less with the same professors), lived in the same building, engaged in the same extra curricular activities or knew the same people. (This explains, by the way, much of the appeal to the Corps of Cadets. In a sea of 48,000 students, these 1,700 or so students lead a tightly disciplined life which forms a shared experience.) This is not unique to A&M; it is a fact of life at any university with this many students.

But what, I thought, if we had residential colleges? This is the arrangement found at the ancient universities, which are federations of various autonomous colleges, each having their own students and faculty members. Departments, which focus on a single field, cut across the various colleges and include people from all of them (though certain colleges are known for strengths in certain areas). Why not create a collection of colleges here?

(To avoid confusion of terms, we could simply force the "colleges" as they now exist, such as the College of Liberal Arts, to become "faculties," thus the "Faculty of Liberal Arts.")

Within the broader context of the university, its history and its rules, imagine twenty autonomous colleges, each of about 2,400 students. The Corps of Cadets could have their own Military College. But an invitation could be made for proposals for the other 19 colleges, each with a unique character and certain strengths. All would be non-profits, and each could require 2 years of physical residency, as well as whatever other requirements the particular college thought necessary. They could be funded through a mixture of university fees and particular college fees (encouraging, by the way, competition, since who wants to join the most expensive college?). I can easily imagine the Diocese of Austin sponsoring a St. Mary's College. Indeed, there are so many Catholics here perhaps SOLT or the IVE would found one too. Other religious communities would be welcome to do likewise. Philanthropic donors could as well; I see no problem with a Gates College and its neighbor, Buffett College.

Of course, at a school as tradition-conscious as Texas A&M, such a scheme would probably be eschewed as too innovative and an attack on the Aggie spirit. And then there is the practical problem of all the land swaps that would be needed, selling or renting existing dormitories (along with many of the affiliated facilities for dining and recreation) to the new colleges, constructing more buildings near campus, etc. Still, it seems to me an idea with real value. This is, after all, the basic concept behind many schools trying to create an "honors dorm," though that strikes me as a half measure. Go all the way, I say, and return some focused character to American mass education.

On the Difficulties of Building Diversity

The other day I started crafting a great post about how to make affirmative action more effective. For the record, I happen to oppose affirmative action, but diversity is one of those things that all large state universities - yes, even Texas A&M - talk about. Well, I got to work devising an amazing system which would not only account for race and gender, but also country or state of origin, political and religious views, prospective major, all kinds of things... I was going to get as close to ensuring diversity of thought and experience - and the accompanying intellectual vigor - as any government scheme could get.

But then several problems cropped up. First, most states only want diversity within narrow bounds. Arizona has very low out-of-state tuition, which has been pulling talent to the state for decades; however, this is more the exception than the rule. In Texas, there is a keen sense that Texas schools are for Texans only. This attitude, coupled with the state's clandestine affirmative action program, means that only 4% of students at Texas A&M are from outside the state.* There are days you can feel the intellectual insularity in the classroom when you are teaching undergraduates. Students would benefit greatly from having classmates from across the country - I definitely did - but that is not a viable option. Instead, those trying to promote diversity are implicitly asked, "Could you please build diversity without so many outsiders?" Talk about mixed messages.

A second practical problem is that all my brilliant factors about religion, political views and values would hinge on self-identification. The problem there is that people could game the system, marking themselves down as whatever persuasion would get them extra points on the admissions application. But this eventually leads to a bigger question: How do you get dissimilar people to associate with one another?

Typically, when prospective students are visiting a school, they are looking for a "good fit." This does not necessarily mean a place that is in intellectual lock-step with themselves, but at least somewhere where they will "feel at home". Or maybe they are looking for an institution which will teach them the skills they want to learn. Whatever the case, there is almost always an implicit search for same-ness, on some level. Why would anyone ever choose diversity? Even someone who says, "I want to go to a school which will challenge my views," is likely to have implied limits: "I want my views on politics or literature or society challenged. But not my view of existence itself." Or maybe just the opposite: "I want my views of intangible philosophic ideas to change in exciting and radical ways. But don't ask me to actually live differently." I have even known people of strong religious faith to say they want to go to a school where their faith will be challenged. But the idea behind that plan is to see their faith strengthened, not undermined.

Little wonder, then, that government schemes to improve diversity usually come up shorthanded. Even when the racial or gender composition of an institution changes, bringing about a real diversity of thought, the kind that breads an vigorous intellectual life, is not so easy. Birds of a feather will instinctively flock together.

How then, can we accomplish true diversity? In my time there, I found the University of Dallas a rather diverse place. Some people would find this surprising, since the school is overwhelmingly white, mostly Catholic, politically conservative and solidly middle class. But in spite of all of that uniformity, the intellectual discourse was fantastically exciting. We had Platonists and Aristotelians, supporters of the Achaeans and supporters of the Trojans. The Thomists would debate the Lockeans, and the Heideggerians would reject them both. Classicists rubbed elbows with biology students, and Politics majors traveled the Mediterranean with physicists. Students from Drama and English would argue about who was the true keeper of Shakespeare's legacy and charismatics would ponder Scripture in the company of Opus Dei. Never, before or since, have I seen such a consistently rich and diverse intellectual life.

How did it happen? Oddly enough, uniformity was part of the process. We all had to take the same classes in the Core Curriculum. We were not allowed to hide within our own disciplines and opportunities to opt out of particular courses were few. Not only did we become better people for having studied such a broad curriculum, but our discussions were also enriched by having such a wide range of colleagues in our classes.

Moreover, a common set of Core courses gave us a shared vocabulary of terms and examples. To some minds, this would suggest a narrowing of views, a lack of diversity. But in practice it meant just the opposite: we were having real discussions, actually engaging ideas, rather than misunderstanding one another and the texts we were reading and superficially arguing about terms.

Finally, we went after big issues. "What is justice" the Republic demanded of us in our first semester. We could have debated the justice of particular events: Wounded Knee, Dresden, Hiroshima. But the Founders of UD, in their wisdom, saw that these would only be examples of larger issues. A disagreement about Hiroshima, however fierce, might only be over the implementation of policy; conversely, agreement about the end result of Hiroshima might paper over a more fundamental disagreement about the nature of justice. By constantly asking questions about first principles, we avoided the false comfort of hasty consensus, and learned a great deal about critical thinking as well.


* This is the result of the so-called "Ten Percent Rule," which stipulates that any student in Texas who graduates in the top ten percent of his or her high school class is guaranteed admission to any state university in Texas. This was put in place when affirmative action was ended, as a means of keeping minorities (specifically blacks and Hispanics) who would not otherwise account for a significant portion of the enrollment of Texan higher education. However, the Ten Percent Rule has also meant that Texas schools have had almost all of their seats promised to in-state students, and are therefore unable to recruit meaningful numbers of out-of-state students. Admissions departments have quietly told highly-qualified out-of-state applicants that their chances of admittance, which would have been good before the Ten Percent Rule, are slim. Academic scuttlebutt has it that the university presidents hate the Ten Percent Rule, because it imposes this geographic insularity - and along with it a mental insularity - but the gurus of political correctness in Austin are unlikely to dismantle the Ten Percent Rule any time soon.

PS I was scrounging around trying to find a picture which might be relevant to this post. Brownie points - or Guild Points? - to anyone who can explain what the picture depicts and how it is relevant.

Why Invent Tradition?

Yesterday, while biking to school, I took up singing one of my favorite songs, Gaudeamus igitur, the alma mater of the University of Dallas. And that got me thinking... Texas A&M, a school known for its traditions, is not really that traditional, in the scheme of things. The Aggie War Hymn dates from the Great War. Gaudeamus dates from the 18th century, at least, possibly as far back as the 13th century.

At a place like UD, where one has the entire Western Tradition upon which to draw, things can fall into disuse and be revived again with relative ease. They are not exclusively UD's traditions, but the traditions of the West.

In contrast, everything at A&M is contrived and has been invented since the founding of the school in 1876. I suppose this is better than most schools, where traditional customs have been abandoned all together, but it seems like a lot of effort. Why not just pick up the traditions of your civilization?

Granted, UD has some non-traditional traditions too, like Groundhog and the Charity Week jail. But I think there really is a different quality, akin perhaps to Dr. Roper's observation that students at other schools throw far more serious parties than at UD, trying too hard. UD seems to play with tradition, knowing we won't break it, in a way that schools like A&M are not so comfortable doing.

Let's Be Honest: We All Have the Same Method

One of the reasons I came to Texas A&M is that when I was visiting the school one of the professors made a derisive comment about "the holy trinity of Race, Class, Gender." I took that as a very good sign. And for the most part, the faculty here are sensible. However, even at a place like A&M there is a lot of talk about hip new methodologies and "synthetic history" and vogue terms like that. So I found this passage rather refreshing:

But the essence of these [vogue] critics' procedure is the same as the most hidebound reactionary's: survey the evidence, come up with a generalization you believe to be true, support it with specific textual evidence, and locate your interpretation in the tradition of scholarship concerning the subject as document in footnotes. And do all this in language that is clear and coherent so that your idea can be communicated to your community of scholars.

(Bruce S. Thornton's "The Enemy Is Us: The 'Betrayal of the Postmodern Clerks,'" in Bonfire of the Humanities: Rescuing the Classics in an Impoverished Age, 164.)

While it's true that different scholars have different ways of going about things, the pseudo-philosophic veneer of methodological mumbo-jumbo so many historians (and, from what I can tell, other scholars) employ is just that: a veneer that distracts from the real work they are, or ought to be, doing.