***** From the University Business website whose URL Doug sent us: [ABSTRACT] Kaplan Education Centers, the test-preparation company, has made a key move toward operating its own university by launching an on-line law school, Concord School of Law. The new venture is just the latest step in a quiet, decade-long program of expansion that has transformed Kaplan into a $195 million education industry powerhouse. The school uses on-line lectures conducted by big-name faculty, plus discussions and other forums run by service-oriented teaching faculty. Tuition is $4,200 a year for four years. A snag: The American Bar Association opposes distance education, so accreditation is unlikely. Kaplan, however, says it can survive with nontraditional students and wait until its methods prove themselves. *****
"Valuing teaching" & discounting research under capitalism probably means something like above. Instead of higher education, we'll have faster & lighter education for the masses, while elite schools will remain elite, with or without an increase in teaching loads for tenured profs at Berkeley.
Another suggestive article from _University Business_:
***** GAS, FOOD, LODGING...EDUCATION?
THE UNIVERSITY OF PHOENIX is just around the corner. Here's a reconnaissance report on the for-profit national franchise that's competing for your students.
It's tempting to dismiss the University of Phoenix as McEducation: a chain of quick-serve classrooms shoveling empty calories to a clientele of little interest.
So what if the for-profit juggernaut and its surrogate programs already have 98 campuses in 31 states and an enrollment of more than 55,000, making Phoenix the largest private university in the nation? So what if it has aggressively applied savvy business strategies such as convenience, customer service, mass production, and corporate partnerships on its march across the country? These tactics have no place at your institution, do they? Phoenix poses no threat to the purveyors of serious education, right?
Perhaps. Or perhaps it's time to wake up and sniff the competition. consider the following:
A majority of the nation's colleges have adult- or continuing-education programs, now a nearly $100-billion annual market that's expected to grow as the economy generates more demand for knowledge workers and adults quicken their pace of changing jobs. In 2002, 6.4 million adult students (aged 25 and up) will enroll in higher education. Schools of all kinds are becoming more and more dependent on the relatively easy income these courses generate.
Most institutions' continuing-ed programs may be used to competing with those from similar, neighboring schools. But the field will change drastically as Phoenix, with its Wall Street war chest, pursues its plan to push into every state in the union. And though Phoenix has so far stressed job training and a business orientation, there's now talk of the school expanding into adult remedial education and other courses of study.
Phoenix has won the endorsement of some serious people, not the kind who'd be interested in simple McEducation. One of the most impressive is J. Jorge Klor de Alva, a distinguished anthropologist and Guggenheim Fellow who took a leave from his endowed chair at the University of California at Berkeley to head Phoenix's academic cabinet and become a corporate officer. Klor de Alva says he believes that traditional education's mission of generating knowledge and its devotion to intellectual pursuits are still critical. But he is simply more excited by Phoenix's mission. "I have always been interested in producing effects in the empirical world, not just the world of ideas," he says. "We're erasing the moment in life when you either make it as a student or you don't," he told The New York Times. "This is a second-chance outfit geared to an expanding world economy."
Phoenix has attracted weighty corporate customers, including Kodak, IBM, and General Electric. "Our relationship has been super," says an official at AT&T, who clearly appreciates the university's business slant, including a special tuition scheme and flexible schedules for the 800 AT&T employees now taking individual courses or pursuing bachelor's degrees and M.B.A.'s at various Phoenix campuses. "Basically, we're trading 'Ivy' for practicality." Join them, beat them, learn from them? Whatever you do, it would be risky to ignore the Phoenix phenomenon. We offer the following tactical information to help formulate counterstrategies. *****
Now, check out the difference between the salary range for researchers without tenure-track jobs and that for those who handle fund-raising and public relations.
***** From the Ohio State University Personnel Postings (Application Deadline: September 17, 1999):
RESEARCH ASSOCIATE 1-B/H, FOOD SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY, #U-9724-091399; master's degree in microbiology or food science and technology or an equivalent combination of education and experience; experience with food borne pathogens and spore-forming bacteria desired; evidence of publishing in scientific journals desired; research experience desired; participates in design, execution, and control of project on spore germination and inactivation in foods; coordinates processing and analysis of data; conducts experimental research and procedures; develops new and/or revised research methodologies; conducts library research; prepares materials for reports; conducts experimental procedures and records results; instructs assistants in laboratory procedures and techniques; assists in research on decontamination of food contact surfaces by sanitizers, writing manuscripts, and conducting experimental tests and procedures in research laboratory; sets up and operates laboratory equipment; records research data. Salary range: $23,754-27,097.
POST DOCTORAL RESEARCHER, OARDC-FOOD ANIMAL HEALTH, #U-9718-091399; doctoral degree in veterinary preventive medicine; expertise in molecular virology; D.V.M. in veterinary medicine or an equivalent combination of education and experience desired; experience in handling large animals desired; plans, coordinates, and independently conducts experimental protocols to ascertain molecular basis for in vitro replication and in vivo pathogenesis of porcine enteric caliciviruses; uses these cultivable caliciviruses as a model to study and rescue genetically-related uncultivable human enteric caliciviruses; studies porcine and human enteric caliciviruses in cell culture and in porcine host; clones, sequences, and expresses genes of these viruses to characterize them and to study their genetic and antigenic relationships; prepares synthetic RNA transcripts and mutants of enteric caliciviruses to identify genetic regions responsible for cell adaptation and virulence in porcine host; analyzes data and literature; prepares manuscripts and grant applications; trains student and lab staff; position located in Wooster, Ohio. Salary range: $24,000-27,000.
DEVELOPMENT OFFICER 2, (DIRECTOR OF DEVELOPMENT), DEVELOPMENT ADMINISTRATION, U-9732-091399; bachelor's degree or an equivalent combination of education and experience; demonstrated success in direct fund-raising or an equivalent background in marketing, sales, public relations, or related field; knowledge/experience with volunteer involvement and management desired; experience with special project fund-raising and philanthropy desired; provides developmental services for Young Scholars Program; identifies, evaluates, cultivates, and solicits prospects/donors for gifts of $10,000 or more, with special emphasis on gifts of $50,000 or more; collaborates with staff to implement comprehensive fund-raising program; recruits and trains volunteers; provides stewardship for established endowments; prepares fund-raising plans; creates strategies and timetables for special project fund-raising; supervises staff; hours vary. Salary range: $40,747-69,638. *****
Yoshie