Urbana-Champaign Independent Media Center: newswire/131280

Comment on this article \| View comments \| Email this Feature
News :: Education
Robert Vickrey and The Burking of Liberal Education at the University of Illinois	Current rating: 0
by Candlemass Email: notarealemail (nospam) notreal.com (unverified!)	11 Aug 2006
New "Global Campus" initiave does away with faculty input, distribution requirements While the Global Campus final report does worry that offering online education might hurt the Univeristy of Illinois "Brand", there is no consideration as to what might be lost by the abandonment of the traditional idea of liberal education. Yet if there's "there is no room for programs not based on real needs and interests" on the Global Campus, then presumably there's no need for such programs at the bricks and mortar campus, either. Under its current leadership, we must fear that U of I may face a long-term decline in the quality of those offerings which are not the most immediately profitable.
The unpleasant term “burking” comes from the name of Irish serial killer William Burke, who in 1829 came up with an effective way to obtain bodies to sell to the medical establishment. His method of smothering his vicitms left no tell-tale indications that a murder had been comitted. I came across the term while reading about the unfortunate fate of Benny Binion, the one-time owner of the Horseshoe Casino in Las Vegas who was apparently "burked" one day by his wife and her lover, who then tried to dig up the vault of cash and bullion that Benny had buried in the desert. Mr. Binion was mixed up with the wrong sort of people. I know this from reading about Jack Binion---the son of the burked Benny Binion. It's thanks to Jack Binion and his reputed mob connections that The University of Illinois's new "Global Campus" is being developed in line with the vision of UI Trustee Robert Vickrey. Prior to being appointed a UI trustee by convicted felon/ex-Governor George Ryan, Vickrey served as gambling commisioner for Illinois, until he was (according to The Chicago Tribune) forced from the job for his role in granting permission to mob assocaites from Las Vegas to run gambling operations in Chicago. In 2000 the headlines in the Chicago Tribune underwent a quick evolution from: THE STATE LET A LAS VEGAS BOSS BUY A JOLIET CASINO AFTER INVESTIGATORS SAID IT SHOULD BAR HIM. to GAMING CHIEF QUITS UNDER FIRE - RYAN IS FURIOUS OVER CASINO DEAL Ryan may have been "furious" at Vickrey for trying to give Jack Binion a slice of Illinois gambling, but he nevertheless found a cushy consolation spot for the disgraced gaming chief---on the board of trustees at the University of Illinois. What qualifications did Vickrey have for this postion? Was he an alumnus? An administrator or professor, or reseacher on education? Did Vickrey even possess a college degree? No.[1] But Vickrey was a operative in the Republican machine, with axe to grind. And he soon ended up with a job, courtsey of a Governor who was soon to be indicted. But he apparently did have some ideas as to what a university ought to be about. And now, in this recent article in the News-Gazette, Vickrey (one of two UI trustees on the development comittee) appears as the Univeristy's point man, announcing the The University of Illinois's "Global Campus" project, which proposes to create a "fourth campus" of the UI system---a virtual campus. This campus will be different from the others. It will be run "as a business" the report on the initiave stresses repeatedly. Designed with little faculty input, the Global Campus is supposed to genereate a profit. Oversight will be provided by a board of trustees consisting of the President, two UI trustees, along with "four external business and higher education experts, and one non-voting faculty member." Most tellingly, and distressingly, The Global Campus Initive Final Report emphasizes that although the Global Campus will offer BA degrees, for an online school in a competitive business environment, "there is no room for programs not based on real needs and interests." and that the course content will therefore be "market driven." A program that will grant UI degrees without those pesky "distribution requirements" associated with the old-fashioned idea of "liberal education." No need to learn about other cultures, or languages, or to acquire a passing familiarity with history or ethics. Just the profitable sort of "higher" education, Vickrey-style. What you need to land the job, without the fancy extras, that backintheday were viewed as having a broader social value. While the Global Campus final report does worry that offering online education might hurt the Univeristy of Illinois "Brand", there is no consideration as to what might be lost by the abandonment of the traditional idea of liberal education. Yet if there's "there is no room for programs not based on real needs and interests" on the Global Campus, then presumably there's no need for such programs at the bricks and mortar campus, either. Under its current leadership, we must fear that U of I may face a long-term decline in the quality of those offerings which are not the most immediately profitable. Let's hope that somebody notices the pinched nose and compressed chest in time to interrupt the burking of liberal education at the University of Illinois. [1] His profile on the UI Trustee's website is the only one that provides no indication of a completed college degree. If he has one, I can't find evidence of it.
This work is in the public domain.

Comments

Global Campus...? Take 3, or is it 4?

by just one of the borg
(No verified email address)

Current rating: 0
12 Aug 2006

And here I thought "burking" might have something to do with Burks Oakley II. Ah well.

I suppose you can call me skeptical about all of this.

This new initiative is taking place at the university level. IT at the U is broadly split into two levels - the university level and the campus level.

The university level is where AITS resides. AITS, which used to be known as AISS, is the unit that runs Banner and handles student registration and payroll. Their local offices are down on Gerty Drive, and their internet presence lives at "uillinois.edu".

The campus level, meanwhile, is where CITES resides. CITES, which was known as CCSO and before that CSO, is the unit which handles IT for UIUC specifically. CITES runs campus e-mail, networking, Illinois Compass, NetFiles, and the public computer labs. They used to run the student and staff Unix clusters. CITES is located in DCL (on Springfield Ave) and its internet presence lives at "uiuc.edu."

CITES has staff who assist professors and teaching assistants with teaching online, either using an LMS (learning management system) or with other tools, such as blogs. If you want to use AIM to help your students chat in French, CITES can show you how. These efforts, though, are adding online work to traditional classes offered at UIUC.

The Chicago and Springfield campuses have units analogous to CITES, which have collaborated with CITES on occasion. UIUC also has local IT services provided in individual departments, including Housing.

Importantly, other universities in the CIC (roughly the academic equivalent of the Big Ten, including such places as University of Michigan, University of Wisconsin, and University of Minnesota) do not have this "university vs. campus" split between their registration level IT and campus IT, which makes some operations a lot more streamlined.

UIUC (more precisely the University of Illinois generally) is known for having some stovepiping issues resulting from this division.

So, this new initiative is at the University level. It isn't the first time that online learning or a "virtual campus" has been attempted at that level, although this seems to be the largest such effort. Previous efforts include Illinois Online and the Illinois Virtual Campus.

These courses did not, as far as I know, attempt to be equivalent to a UIUC degree. They did not offer rigourous testing.

That is my first question - what will this new "Global Campus" do for evaluation? Will it use an LMS (learning management system)? If so, will it use the "Illinois Compass" (WebCT Vista) system in use at UIUC? Or perhaps the Blackboard system in use at UIC? (Interestingly, Blackboard has bought out WebCT, and now with incredible hubris has dared to not only patent the idea of online education via the web, but to sue Desire2Learn, their main remaining commercial competitor in the field - but that's another post for another time.) The current installation of Illinois Compass is not set up to run another institution, there have been rumors to that effect but more to do with Parkland. Will the Global Campus run an LMS of its own, perhaps? Where will the funding come from? Those things aren't cheap by any means - think 7 figures when all is said and done - and require quite a large staff to keep the machines running. The Illinois Compass installation at UIUC alone comprises some 21 beefy Solaris servers.

However the larger question is one of intellectual property rights. Quite bluntly, will the professors authoring the content retain full rights to it, or will it become the property of the Global Campus and its board?

This is not a small question. Countless startups have been founded on the idea of a vast commons of content, such that anyone wishing to teach online need only to search some repository for pieces of lessons and tie these together. Standards such as SCORM are supposed to make it all possible - although I wonder, given that what I've seen involves submitting grades via JavaScript, how that will migrate beyond the DoD and tests in the workplace.

Thing is, these things never really take off, and I suspect that it's for one big reason - everyone wants to consume, and no one wants to produce.

More specifically, the type of big time professors that are supposed to provide all the great content don't want to give up their intellectual property rights. I personally don't see that suddenly changing, either.

Professors putting material for their own classes online (via Illinois Compass, vanilla web, a blog, or what have you) retain ownership of the material. This is important to them.

So where will the Global Campus be getting the content? If the intent is to offer a UIUC-quality degree, I would imagine they intend for UIUC professors to do some authoring,but where is the incentive? I suppose they could make such acitivity part of the tenure review process for new people, but that won't affect existing faculty.

Or will the faculty retain their rights?

The fact that there is only one faculty member on the board, and an advisory member at that (if I'm wrong on that, someone please correct me) is just one of the factors that has me wondering.

I'm quite curious to hear any information anyone knows about this...