Is it too late for Devry instructors and staff to consider organizing? I probably brought this up years ago, when it may have made a bigger difference, and when more people cared about the school. Art Institutes had some union membership, in New York City and Philadelphia but they folded anyway. Maybe no union would take DeVry workers, but there are lots of unions: AAUP, AFT, NEA, SEIU, Teamsters, Steel Workers. I'll bet anyone who tried to organize DeVry in the past would have been crushed, though it is illegal to fire someone for trying to organize. But at this point, with worker organizing, how much is there to lose?
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Well said ZHJXRKv-3qql! Your point is well taken: "only students eager to learn, capable of independent study, with advanced skills and competencies can excel and thrive." The ethical dilemma for Devry - and right now for all burgeoning online programs at all schools - is how to approach the lack of accountability created by the Federal student loan programs. This lack is defined well in the book "Mission Forsaken" which, although it focuses on UoPhx, applies equally to most other online programs. As the accountability from employer-paid education was lost and people began taking out loans that they used to not only pay for classes but also to pay mortgages, feed their kids, and buy new cars, the purpose of most school's online education programs shifted from student learning to making money for the school while providing the illusions of financial security and affordability for the participants. The capitalist mentality has driven most schools to exploit the weakness of a lack of accountability for learning outcomes, which has resulted in herding vast numbers of people into these online programs regardless of their qualifications or preparedness. It really doesn't matter now that 80% or more of students drop out of most online programs as these programs are insanely profitable even with marginal completion rates. There are essentially no online schools anymore: there are only online training programs with participants who are customers, not students. Degrees are not meaningless, they have become certificates of completion for training classes. The majority of on ground colleges and universities are now viewing their online programs as major sources of revenue to pay for the countless deans, program chairs, program managers, directors, and other administrators whose salaries and benefits can no longer be covered by research grants and on ground tuition. In the future and beginning now online university/college classes will follow one of three paths: (1) degrade class quality and lower standards to pass people through, (2) uphold standards and build financial models to account for 80% or greater dropout rates, or (3) some combination of 1 and 2.
That other schools emulate this fiasco in no way excuses DeVry from culpability.
Thank you for your perspective, and I do agree with this. I wouldn't say that DeVry is blameless...my previous post only argued that it wasn't the "worst of the worst", as far as these things go. Ashford University was up to a reported 75 students per section, for instance; current reports here only indicate 60+. U. Phoenix had FIVE WEEK classes. Not sure what, if anything, can be learned in that amount of time or whether that can constitute a relevant learning experience, but I have not taught for them or seen the inside of one of their classrooms so I can't honestly say. I will say that 10-11 weeks does provide for a good learning experience, but 8 weeks is pushing it.
As you've indicated, at least there is structure to the online DVU courses, which from a certain perspective, seems like innovation, or at least market leadership. I can't speak for most of other schools, but I have seen rigorous structure in courses I've taught online for one of the big public schools who went massively online and scaled up. Quality to them meant getting your grades in each week or you would get a call from the Dean! Definitely not a case of academic freedom and innovative pedagogy--follow the shell, and comply, or else. For relatively little pay. Sections were capped at 25 and admissions were more selective. Micro-managing student learning and mistrusting instructors means that students only learn scheduled concepts piecemeal, and that ultimately, the instructor position can and will be replaced by automated software as soon as technology is ready. In a way, this is actually reflective of a quantitative and fact-driven mentality from sciences and works against creative expression, critical thought, and reflection that is supposedly part of the liberal arts mission, regardless of what the actual concepts under study were. Do this small thing, get a small reward (points). Very Pavlovian in some ways--ring the bell, salivate. Who exactly are we training again? And students still complained bitterly about not getting perfect scores. It is a kind of education, but not the same thing as what we would consider a traditional college experience.
But even in traditional classrooms (I have escaped from DVU as of several years ago and now work elsewhere). I get a sense that student interests are outside of their areas of study. We idolize a classroom full of eager learners, active discussions, engaged library research...and while it does occasionally happen, you also get rooms full of students yawning, checking their phones, complaining about how hard the test was, refusing to read the darn textbook, and turning in half-hearted (and sometimes plagiarized). Be honest, did you ever tune out in a class that you took in college? Scribble in a notebook, maybe, instead of following along? Did you ever take those "allowed" absences as a god-given right and work them for all the were worth? Write a paper at the last minute? I'm guessing that the answer is yes. I certainly did. But we value holding students captive for a few hours a week per topic because that's the best educational idea that we've been able to come up with. Traditional schools still allow us to structure assignments as we see fit (and we are biased toward what we like) and fail students as needed (mostly). We are seeing, overall, the dismal results of a combination of a "no child left behind" mentality in "lower ed" and exploitative market of mass-produced educational experiences in "higher ed". Education has become something to suffer through for many students, and the suffering continues long after the lecture is done in the form of loan repayments.
You can indeed learn online, even when the course is self-guided--if you are a motivated learner, able to read and think independently. But it's not different than when schools used to mail out VHS tapes, and students would mail in papers. We've replaced the more apt "distance learning" term with "online education". Schools now eagerly put students in "online sections" to manage their physical space and instructor workload, and pretend that the experience is exactly the same...but it isn't. It's DISTANCE LEARNING. Calling it "online education" is disingenuous at best, and we need to think of it as a cousin to the correspondence schools of old, and piles of moldy VHS. It works for some adult learners, as it always has, but we are eager to replace one problematic model (3 "hours" of lecture per week, a few major assignments) with another ("read" the book, turn in lots of small assignments)--or at least treat them as equivalent. I fear for the future of education and intellectual development, but am curious as to what it's going to look like nevertheless.
Having taught at DeVry for a number of years and online as well as on-site at at least 1 other traditional university, I can say that many of DeVry's structural policies are tighter than my other school. Other schools emulate online policies and procedures of more experienced online originators, like DeVry. But that's not a good thing!
First, neither DeVry nor any other school (that I know of) has sufficiently understood that online pedagogy cannot and should not seek to emulate on-site pedagogy. So, a post is in no way equivalent to on-site attendance, for example. Second, the admission or recruitment of students for online study should be far more selective: only students eager to learn, capable of independent study, with advanced skills and competencies can excel and thrive. Therefore, the admission of all comers, no matter how remedial, has poisoned online environments, as the advanced never get the attention they deserve to excel beyond their current abilities and knowledge, while the remedial, equally, make no gains and must resort to "lawyering up" to get by.
All policies and procedures governing online study have made it rule-bound and have starved out intellectual and academic enrichment, regardless of institution. DeVry is particularly culpable in that they KNOW their admission standards and failure to create a pedagogical environment that allows students to actually EDUCE knowledge have been traded for profit only, profit for as long as the cow gives milk.
There is a place for online education for students of all stripes. Even remedial students could use online courses, if properly designed, to make literacy and numeracy gains. But throwing all into a vat for 8 weeks; constraining learning with rules, policies, procedures, and assignments tailored for a mediocre result; denying the advanced students their opportunities to flourish in a protected understanding of time on task; denying remedial students the time they need to build skills before attempting more advanced courses; and removing the professor's authority and eliminating the professor's time and ability to give meaningful feedback has resulted in DeVry's becoming a mill--and not a very good one at that.
That other schools emulate this fiasco in no way excuses DeVry from culpability.
2tzd Overly aggressive persistence policies...that's an understatement...
And plenty of small private colleges are also standing up online course sections to connect with the market. From their perspective, they need to do this to evolve and survive. I’ve seen the online systems used by several other colleges, and the tools and processes in place at DeVry are as good as any of them, if not substantially better. As already mentioned, the challenges facing professors probably come down to “loose” admissions coupled with overly aggressive persistence policies. Good students can well handle onsite or online classes. Weak students, though, may be in over their heads, especially in a largely independent learning environment.
@ZHJXRKv-2pho, some of what you are saying about public universities going online is true.
DV is the biggest scam out there right now in the world of online classes.
Sorry to downvote you but I don’t think that this is accurate. There are plenty of other schools doing the same thing, and the state schools are moving into this space now. The only difference is selective admissions. Bad input gets you bad output. The for-profits helped turn higher ed into even more of a factory than it already was, with the help of online learning platforms. Now many traditional schools are jumping into the same line. We really need a reset button for higher ed in the US-it is broken, at least as far as the middle classes are concerned. The Ivies and other elites do not need to change or innovate to any significant degree. But as the article below (discussing exploited adjuncts) describes, ALL SCHOOLS ARE BUSINESSES and Fordism is alive and well in 21st century higher ed!
1 pyq--don't even get me started. I have friends who grabbed the brass ring, got tenure, made (literally) international reputations from kooky research. I am one of the relatively contented adjuncts--I teach for the modest boost of my retirement income. Sections are never guaranteed; yes we are paid less when there are fewer students; yes the adjuncts often teach as hard or harder (I believe often) than our tenured colleagues; and yes, we enjoy little collegiality from our tenured peers (often with lesser degrees, experience, publications). What can I say but that life is not fair, does not necessarily reward merit, and often punishes good deeds?
Well...As long as we're on the subject....
https://splinternews.com/the-revenge-of-the-poverty-stricken-college-professors-1835381061
There is no instruction going on at DV. There is only website maintenance by people labeled "instructors" who input fake scores and pass people through. DV is the biggest scam out there right now in the world of online classes.
think of DV as a Web2.0 style e-commerce website instead of a university. Do you expect buyers and sellers on such a website to be able to form a "union". That'd be laughable....
I think the original post is not applicable to the current structure. DV university is a software call-center at this point which is connected with a dated scheduling product (also software) and Canvas. Call center s---s leads on Vets and feed them into scheduling software which in turn push these vets turned students into Canvas platform. Teachers with good standing with mo--nic managers were also fed into Canvas to complete the process of turning Vet stipends, DoD money into DV money.
During my time, faculty were kept in purposeful isolation. Meetings were conducted by cheer leading (firing) squad. Although faculty developed peer friendships and commiserated behind the scenes, mistrust on a larger scale was baked in. DeVry's plantation tactics effectively created a crabs-in-the-barrel mentality, where sycophants were rewarded. Forget the Kool aid, it's vichy water all around...