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[转载]Science:一个系停办了 ( A department terminated )

已有 2516 次阅读 2021-1-29 15:59 |个人分类:科研笔记|系统分类:科研笔记|文章来源:转载

 一起读Science | 从美国疫情期间某大学地质系解散看高校的内卷化问题


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生态学时空                                                             

微信号Ecology_World

复旦大学生命科学学院赵斌教授的个人公众号

                                            我们的系停办了                                                                         

我上个月参加了一个视频电话会议,刚开始我不知道会发生什么。这个会议只是提前一天通知的,院长要和我们一起开会。这让我不禁想问,这难道又是一次预算削减吗?或者更糟?院长进行简短的道歉,之后就转述了一个消息:考虑到新冠疫情大流行,大学财政紧缩,不得不做出了一个艰难的决定,停办地质系。如果想保住工作,就得另找一个愿意接纳我们的院系。他的话对我打击很大。自从我获得终身教职以来的20年里,我一直认为如果我继续从事教学和研究,我会一直有这份工作。但是,这场这次疫情终于把长期存在的问题推向了顶点。

 

三年前,还是这位院长向我们求助。说他的预算出现赤字,因入学人数下降,按照新的预算制度,学校把钱从学院挪走了。虽然我们的地质系有几门大型的、受欢迎的课程,但我们的许多高级班,却都是高度专业化的,只有很少的学生。地质学专业一年不到10个学生。院长告诉我们,我们需要更大的班级规模,和更多的学生来报考这个专业才能维持。

 

我们召开教师会议,讨论如何向前发展。我们的课程几十年来没什么变化。虽然我们的学生学会了如何识别岩石和凝视显微镜,但他们并没有接触到地球科学中需要解决的紧迫性问题,如气候变化和地下水污染。我们中的一些人,包括我自己在内,是想彻底改革这个课程的。但是,也有人反对,认为这放弃对传统技能和观念的关注。

 

那么我们最后呢,只在在边边角角做了些改变。我们增加了关于气候、医学地质学和地外生命的选修课,这吸引了数百名学生,其中许多来自其他系。但我们并没有改变地质学专业的课程要求,很多教授继续以同样的方式、同样的教材授课。专业课程的数量并没有改变。

 

紧接着,新冠疫情来了。我们保持校园开放,让学生能进入学校授课,但入学人数确实持续下降。我们原以为行政人员会裁员,但我们不认为整个系都会被裁掉,尤其是我们这样的系。我们的七位教授每年总共可以申请到几十万美元的联邦研究经费,能发表了几十篇论文,但是我们这些资金并不能弥补学费的不足。我们的研究质量也不足以拯救我们。

 

与我们的院长开会后,我的脑子里乱七八糟的。我们的实验室,我们的研究生,还有那些正在如火如荼进行的项目将怎样?我在校园另一个学院有一个二级教师职位,所以我是可以在那里继续工作的,可以避免离开我生活了27年的小镇。但是我不想离开我的地质学系的同事们呀,我想要一个让我们一起工作的解决方案。

 

两天后,我与一位大学管理人员交谈,他鼓励我不要放弃,并问我:你有什么的愿景呢?”。其实我整个周末都在和同事们讨论一个计划。我们一起设想了一个全新的地球科学课程,让学生们为今天的挑战做好准备。我们会反思我们所有的课程,把重点放在学生以及他们未来的雇主关心的问题上。例如,我们不是简单地教岩石是如何破裂和风化,而是要探索这些裂缝是如何影响受污染地下水的运动。

 

所以,我们新的愿景,是展望未来,抛开过去,这是我们在面临地质系停办之前,没有压力的时候,我们根本无法采取的行动。我们还不确定学校对我们的计划会有什么反应。希望我们的努力不会太晚。我也希望他们的这种愿景,是亡羊补牢未为晚也。

 

我希望其他地方的学者能从我们的失误中吸取教训,认真审视自己的课程,确保为当代学生服务。虽然改革一个系,开发全新的课程是很困难的,但如果等到危机来临时才采取行动,那就更困难了。


Science  原文:


A department terminated

  1. Paul Bierman


Science  22 Jan 2021:

Vol. 371, Issue 6527, pp. 434
DOI: 10.1126/science.371.6527.434

  • Article

  • I logged onto a video call last month, not knowing what to expect. Faculty members in my department had just 1 day's notice of the meeting with our dean, which made me wonder, “Is it another budget cut—or worse?” After a quick apology, the dean pivoted to the news: Given the crunch on university finances amid the COVID-19 pandemic, he'd made a difficult decision to terminate the geology department. If we wanted to keep our jobs, we'd have to find another department willing to take us in. His words hit me like a ton of bricks. For 20 years—ever since I received tenure—I assumed I'd always have a job if I kept up my teaching and research. But the pandemic had brought long-standing problems to a head.


Embedded Image

ILLUSTRATION: ROBERT NEUBECKER

“The quality of our research wasn't enough to save us.”

Three years ago, the same dean had asked us for help. His budget was in the red because enrollments were falling and a new budget system had moved money out of his college. The geology department had a few large, popular courses, but many of our upper-level classes were highly specialized, attracting only a handful of students. Fewer than 10 students a year majored in geology. We needed larger class sizes and more students to enroll as majors, the dean told us.

We convened faculty meetings to discuss how to move forward. Our curriculum hadn't changed much in decades. Our students learned how to identify rocks and stare down microscopes, but they weren't much exposed to many of the more pressing problems in geosciences, such as climate change and groundwater pollution. Some of us, including me, wanted to overhaul the curriculum. But others argued against abandoning our focus on traditional skills and concepts.

We ended up making changes only around the edges. We added new elective courses on climate, medical geology, and extraterrestrial life, which attracted hundreds of students—many from other departments. But we didn't change the course requirements for geology majors, and many professors continued to teach the same material in the same way. The number of majors didn't budge.

Then came COVID-19. We stayed open and taught students on campus, but enrollments continued to fall. We expected administrators to make cuts, but we did not think entire departments would be axed—especially not ours. Our seven professors collectively bring in hundreds of thousands of federal research dollars every year and publish dozens of papers. But the overhead from our grants did not make up for the lack of tuition dollars. The quality of our research wasn't enough to save us.

After the meeting with our dean, my mind raced. What would become of our labs, our grad students, and all the projects in full swing? I had a secondary faculty appointment in a different college on campus, so I might be able to work there and avoid leaving the town where I'd lived for 27 years. But I didn't want to leave my geology colleagues. I wanted a solution that kept us together as a team.

Two days after the dean's call, I spoke with a university administrator who prodded me to not give up and asked, “What's your vision?” I spent the weekend speaking with my colleagues and brainstorming a plan. Together, we imagined a wholly new earth science curriculum, one that would prepare students for the challenges of today. We'd rethink all of our courses from scratch, focusing on problems that students—and their potential employers—care about. For instance, instead of simply teaching how rocks crack and weather away, we'd explore how those cracks affect the movement of polluted groundwater.

Our new vision looks to the future and leaves the past behind, something we could never bring ourselves to do before the prospect of termination forced us to spring into action. We're not sure how the university will react to our plan. Hopefully, our efforts aren't coming too late.

I hope academics elsewhere can learn from our mistakes and take a hard look at their own offerings to make sure they're serving the current generation of students. It's hard to overhaul a department and develop entirely new courses. But it's much harder if you wait until a crisis to act.



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