My guess is that the 21'st century will see physical campuses migrating towards two very different poles: A. Finishing schools for up-scale adolescents. These places will market themselves on the basis of the "collegiate experience" that they offer. These will include the higher "tier" "liberal arts colleges" on the US News list. B. Science and research institutes. The doctoral research universities will evolve into these. I'm thinking of what actually happens in a classroom. We will probably see the voice/text language-based classes migrating on-line. I mean, is it really necessary to physically travel to a university to sit in a classroom for an hour while some guy stands in the front and talks? Can't the lecture and class discussions be mediated remotely? Some fields, such as philosophy, history and English probably lend themselves to remote presentation very well. But other subjects almost have to be taught in person. Chemistry. How can you study chemisty without the stinks? Microbiology. Mechanical engineering. These are fields that emphasize labs, require lots of specialized equipment, and require technique that can only be learned by supervised practice. Many of these things can be dangerous unless they are practiced properly. So I'm speculating that classroom instruction will gradually disperse off campus, and many campuses will specialize in laboratory instruction and in research. Research can have great benefits for universities in terms of grants, "think-tank" services, commercial spin-offs and stuff. To say nothing of reputation building. So university campuses will evolve to look a lot like the Scripps Research Institute: http://www.scripps.edu Currently housed in laboratory buildings with more than 1,000,000 square feet of space overlooking the Pacific Ocean in La Jolla, its staff numbers some 2,800, with 287 faculty members, nearly 800 postdoctoral fellows, 164 graduate students, and over 1,500 technical and administrative support personnel. A staff of 2,800 and 164 students. A faculty student ratio of 1.75 faculty for each student. This is the model of the 21'st century research university, I think. The distinction between research institute and university will blur as DL siphons off the classroom instruction into cyberspace.
Everything old is new again. This wouldn't bother me as most of current higher education is quite expensive vocational training packaged with what should have been learned by the end of high school. The interactivity, or "feeling" of same, seems to be crucial for widespread acceptance. Since the videotape machine became affordable, I've been waiting for instructional media to take off and it hasn't. The Teaching Company is the only company I know of to market high school and college courses on tape/cd/dvd and I don't think they're getting rich in doing so. The company I retired from had great experience in audio/video presentation and the in-house training programs they gave us were of but limited value. The art of this thing has yet to be discovered, IMO. Maybe they should give it to Hollywood to do.
Only someone who reads posts with the sole intention of finding something they can attack and denigrate would commit this kind of error. I thought you were in accounting, Dennis. If so, precision with numbers must surely be important to you. Reread Bill’s post (this time for meaning) and see if you can catch your own mistake.
Not even close. But in this case, the ~2,800 staff include more than 1,500 technical and administrative staff, 800 postdocs, 287 faculty and 164 graduate students. 287/164 = 1.75 faculty/student.
