Whitman College and the Decline of Economic Diversity. Some interesting data showing the impact of Whitman’s shift from need-blind admissions to need-sensitive. It appears my years at Whitman, 2006 through 2010, came right at the tail end of their well-funded aid programs. I know without the tens of thousands of dollars Whitman granted me there’s no way I feasibly could have attended.
Tag: Whitman College
Confessions of an Ivy League Frat Boy: Inside Dartmouth’s Hazing Abuses. Particularly this quote:
The college has also charged 27 other members of SAE, stemming from events in the 2011 pledge term. While the other students all categorically deny doing anything illegal, the information that Lohse provided to Dartmouth officials may directly implicate him in hazing. As a result, Lohse – the only student to come forward voluntarily – may be the only student who is ultimately punished.
Also, see “Allegations of hazing leveled against TKE initiation practices” and Daniel’s post. I have an idea for an enterprising reporter: take a deep look at fraternity abuse reports like this and answer:
- What percentage are followed up on by news organizations, particularly college newspapers, after the initial report?
- What percentage result in concrete action undertaken by college administrations?
- In how many cases is the student who reported the offense the one who takes the brunt of post-publication attacks?
- How frequently are reports the second, third, etc. time allegations have been made against a specific fraternity?
There are more questions that would be interesting but the above would be a start.
WordPress leads pack of Pacemaker finalists picked. 53% of the finalists for this year’s online Pacemaker awards are running WordPress. That’s pretty cool. The numbers are even higher for smaller schools with less than 10,000 student enrollments. It’s great to see my alma mater in the list of finalists, too.
The frivolous college
Whitman College, my alma mater, sent these out to all graduates the other week. It’s a mini, laminated diploma “to put in your wallet or a very small frame.” This seems about the worst possible way to spend funds.
When tuition is increasing along with cutbacks in staff why in the world is money being spent on frivolous things like this?
If I choose to go to a small private college with tuition over $40,000 it’s for the small class sizes, relationships with professors, and opportunities to get involved in a variety of things. 1 It’s not for a laminated mini diploma one year after graduation.
Instead of wasting money on creating, laminating, cutting, and mailing hundreds of these to graduates around the world Whitman could have covered the cost of books for a student who otherwise would have to borrow for them.
Notes:
- Which Whitman does provide and I am thankful for and benefited from. ↩
Thoughts on TKE initiation at Whitman. Go read that. Then read this. Much respect to Daniel for publishing that and for being interviewed by the Pio.
Calling for innovation at Whitman College
Looking back over four years at Whitman, I am disappointed and frustrated with a system that could be doing so much. I think that there is a severe lack of encouragement and valuation of open knowledge systems at Whitman. While disappointing for my four years here, there is quite a bit that future students can do to force the institution to recognize the value of these learning systems.
These open systems can take many forms but essentially boil down to one key aspect: the ease with which others can view and contribute to the information being produced on campus. The tools should be public-facing, open to public contributions and use standards-based, open source software.
There are some cases of real innovation at Whitman, but, unfortunately, they are few and far between. They are the exceptions that prove the rule of confined learning. There must be a conscious shift toward a more open and collaborative educational environment. Even though this did not happen during my four years on campus I think that there is a tremendous amount of potential for Whitman to change, and to change rapidly, in the coming years.
First, if it wants to maintain its status as an elite liberal arts college that encourages students to address problems in new and critical methods, Whitman must do far more to encourage participation in open systems of knowledge.
Mark Pesce writes that, “The educational field does not recognize the boundaries of the classroom, the institution, or even the nation.” Education in general may not recognize these boundaries, but Whitman solidifies them. Classes here have driven home the idea that the legitimate participants in a discussion are those within the classroom.
In order to effectively address societal issues Whitman must produce knowledge that is open and public. It must create an environment within which students conceptualize knowledge as something that is a public good. It must seek to create databases of knowledge that are available to all online in a searchable, standards-based format.
Finally, it must work to actively create knowledge that is not just the privileged possession of its student body. If everything is kept within a tiny campus of 1,400 students Whitman will not be able to enact the type meaningful change it champions.
Don’t read this as a typical “break out of the Whitman bubble” argument. What I think Whitman can do goes far deeper than that. Whitman has the ability to re-conceptualize how information and knowledge are produced on a college campus.
The tools exist that would allow students to start creating knowledge that will be accessible to them, to their classmates and to the broader public for the coming decades. What is left is for departments on campus to recognize the validity of open learning and incorporate it into their curriculum. By calling for an end to assignments that never leave the walls of Whitman and organizing together outside of class to take part in public-facing discussions about their education, students can spur this change.
If we cordon off the knowledge produced in undergraduate education to a series of inaccessible PDFs and archaic printed copies we lose everything we’ve learned in the four years here. Put knowledge online, make it public, make it accessible. Make assignments carry weight and authority for the years after school.
Whitman needs to reframe knowledge as a collective endeavor instead of an individual possession. If others can see what has come before them then they can truly start working on the problems of tomorrow.
Whitman is a great institution and, because of its size and student body, could be doing really innovative things with its academic programs. Instead, Whitman classes recycle the same types of learning and assessments. This no longer works and, more importantly, is not what Whitties need if we are to go on to positions of leadership in our world. We need a Whitman College that embraces knowledge systems open to all and information that remains accessible beyond the confines and comfort zones of classrooms.
Defining Tools for a New Learning Space
The abstract of a paper published by a professor of Foreign Language and Literature at Whitman College:
This paper uses specific issues surrounding course blogging to provide a series of reflections regarding the articulation between pedagogy and technology in creating a next generation learning space and discourse community. It investigates the underlying structure and necessary constituent elements of a successful blog assignment and examines the notion of natural and unnatural virtual environments and the roles of the reader and the writer-reader. It suggests that blog assignments may not succeed equally well in all subject areas and gives a number of possible reasons. Furthermore, it posits a more nuanced criterion for the definition of goals and the evaluation of the success of a blog assignment as a learning community beyond the presence or absence of comments.
I can’t help but be cynical when someone writes a paper like this that is distributed online and yet shows utter incomprehension of the online medium. Perhaps it was the journal’s editor that is to blame, but here’s my list of gripes:
- electronic sources that are cited and linked to within the bibliography but not within the actual text
- utterly dense language that makes it nearly inaccessible to a significant number of students that may be interested is reading about using online tools in the classroom
- repeated use of the term “web 2.0”
Ultimately in order to create a “next generation learning space and discourse community” we’re going to need to open up that community to those of all apsects of life, including people for whom this text is just plain unreadable.
Building off of a coral reef – a Whitman blog network
In the most recent episode of Dave Winer and Jay Rosen’s tremendous podcast titled “Rebooting the News” Dave mentions the metaphor of treating journalism like a coral reef. Basically the gist of the metaphor, as I understand it, is this: if you can put in the initial work to start covering many different aspects of a community then pretty soon that community will become involved in building and giving life to that local news site.
Daniel Bachhuber posted his thoughts on this a couple nights ago and expanded upon the concept in terms of data and information. This all got me thinking about how this concept could be applied to a small college paper like the Whitman Pioneer. As part of my work this summer on redesigning The Pioneer’s site I’m working to create a foundation from which the paper can build features in the coming years. Part of this involves creating a framework that can integrate and inspire community engagement. What better method of doing this than creating a “coral reef.”
Here’s what I’m thinking: Right now we have a few various blogs that are written by staff writers. Most of them are not updated all that frequently and those that we have essentially serve as beat blogs and expand the coverage of events and topics that The Pioneer already covers. What we don’t have that I think could prove to be incredibly interesting and engaging is a network of blogs written by other members of the Whitman community.
I know there’s other students, professors, etc. that have blogs but I have no idea what the urls are; consequently I have no easy way to find out what they’re writing about. What I’m envisioning is creating a Pioneer blog network where we do two main things:
- Aggregate the content from personal blogs – This could be anything from someone’s Tumblr to a WordPress or Blogger site. They would just go about posting content in the normal way and we would aggregate it on our site and provide links and some information so that The Pioneer’s readers would be able to get a better sense of what “regular” Whitman students are thinking.
- Provide a framework for additional blogs – Not all students are tech-savvy enough to have their own personal domain, or motivated enough to start their own blog on WordPress.com or Blogger. What I would propose here is that The Pioneer provides a blog for any student interested. These could be hosted on our domain and run custom installs of WordPress. I would put together a collection of themes (both self-designed and from the WordPress community) and they would be able to install any of those (or anything else they find) and all the plugins the want. Their blog could then be hosted at a sub-domain of The Pioneer’s site (something like http://blogs.whitmanpioneer.com/joeblogger).
What I see this as accomplishing is twofold.
For one, students (both prospective and enrolled) would have a place to turn to find the recent views of their classmates. We currently feature columns from students studying abroad but there are far more that keep blogs during their time in various countries. How cool would it be to have a place that aggregates all of this information about the Whitman experience?
Second, I see this as providing a forum through which both parents and the community in general can become more involved in the views expressed and discussed. There’s always a lot of talk about how Whitman students go to school in a bubble and I think this could help to combat that perception. It would provide a well-trafficked site through which they could express their opinions on issues spanning sports, politics, community service, crime, etc. It would also give a direct line for community members to interact with students. They would have a place to turn to find what Whitman students are saying and consequently would be able to easily add comments and their own perspectives.
Anyway, those are just my quick and very much rough draft thoughts on the matter. I’m sure the idea will grow the more I think about it in the coming days. I’ll also be working on posting a wireframe for the page in the coming weeks and we’ll see how feasible that is. What I’m wondering is what you think: Sound like a good idea? Think it’s awful and a waste of time? Do you know of any schools or news organizations that are attempting something similar?