What is Miller's Grist?

We've got to come to grips with online education in this country. Recruiters are telling me, now, that online programs, both undergrad and graduate, are being shunned. Yet the academic-types, especially those who are concerned with enrollment growth and cost management, are telling me that online is "where it's at" -- the "next big thing" coming to a computer near you.

We'll see how 4xxx-level finance classes turn out online. I've already promised my Spring and Summer students that it will be as close to the face-to-face thing as possible. Otherwise, it's not fair to them.

Thoughts on online teaching

We've been going back and forth here about our online development. Dr. Williams is right now devp for the fall (Intermediate) and I'm going to do Banking in the Spring of '10. A recent decision of the Deans' Council requires that all online courses have online testing and no proctoring of any kind, so we're working around that stuff right now. Some of my colleagues in other areas (not finance) are struggling with that one -- they're concerned that it is impossible to maintain the same standards in online and F2F classes, and it's impossible to verify student identities. I'm not sure how we're going to fix it, but some fix has to be found.

Turns out (4/12) that there was no Deans Council decision, as that would be against state law.  The university cannot tell us that we can't proctor exams, no matter what they would have us believe.

It's an ongoing struggle to make our classes as complete as we can, and do all this other stuff too. Meanwhile, for those students who think online is going to be somehow easier than face-to-face, look out!

FMA Finance Networking Night

Financial Management Association (FMA) and Career Services held their first Finance Networking Reception in the SSCB Atrium on Thursday 4/23. There were several faculty in attendance, and 76 students participated. We had several employers on the panel, and about ten tables for leaving resumes and finding out about careers.

The employers in attendance were:

Direct Energy (Bobby Miller)*
Dynegy (Tiffany McCaa)*
Belt Harris (Mark Rubio)*
Assoc. Credit Union of Texas (Amanda Loy and April Howe)*
Lockheed Martin
First Investors*
State Farm*
JSC Federal Credit Union
INEOS
NASA Co-op and Internships in procurement

* alums



Chuck Crocker of Career Services, and Jeremy Adams, Shine Lin, Charlie Roeder & Jeff Lee of FMA worked very hard to get this organized. The idea came from Chuck, and simultaneously from Ed Waller (Finance prof and department chair for the finance folks).

Everyone is to be congratulated on such a successful turnout, and we should look forward to doing this again next year.

So what am I really talking about in the title?

Hey, Michael, don't be so opaque. OK.

It's probably not unique, but I have this idea that a great deal of academe is just a game. Professors pretend to teach, students pretend to learn, and we all take a big ride on the taxpayer. I've certainly never supported that, and I decry it in class. But I continue to see plenty of examples where higher ed just doesn't seem to care about its own importance.

When we lead students down a rosy path and then complain that they don't want to learn, we can only blame ourselves. After all, they don't see the need for hard work unless we show it to them. We must shower them with ambiguity or they become complacent.

Professors are simultaneously ranked as one of the most trusted professions and cast as one of the least useful by politicians and administrators, and treated worse and worse all the time by students. That dichotomy is troubling. But what do we expect? If we don't emphasize the difficulty inherent in being a college professor, nobody will willingly recognize what we do.

I have colleagues who burn out all the time -- no wonder. I've been there. I've changed techniques or emphasized something different, and put the burden of work on the students every time, and it comes back successful.

Grist: wheat after the junk has been removed

Also, what's put into a mill (in common usage). I want this blog to be about academia and where we're headed. The mill reference shouldn't be lost on anyone who's been around academia for a few years already.

We all have our days when we lose faith in ourselves, our bosses, our students, or our peers. It happens. Sometimes it helps to vent (sometimes that may mean "lookout Pompeii!"). So that's why this is here.