(I know it doesn’t make sense since “quarters” are not “thirds,” but whatever.)

Does this mean 2 classes per quarter, for 2 quarters?

Give the guy some credit: the Provost at Brown is firing a warning shot. (Or, maybe he’s trying to build some consensus for his initiative.) Whatever. He could have just started firing people, like the d00dz at Baylor. But they’re smarter than that at Brown.

I’d also like to emphasize Susan’s point, though, on shared governance. I agree that this is the key element here.

Thanks for bringing attention to this, Historiann.

Having now read the linked story, the most alarming thing about it to me is the imputed causal connection between the Brown move and the opinion of that black helicopter new world order agency: “The Accreditors.” Who accredits the accreditors in our little republic? Who appoints, elects, or governs them? What do they do, or in fact–where the heck ARE they, corporeally–when they’re not not-working on our campuses? Around this place “Middle States” is invoked with the mewling reverence and submissiveness that you might have applied to a parent who left your room saying “when I come back here next time, I’d better not see…” [fill in the indiscretion or shortcoming]. If the “Middle States” godhead so much as alludes to anything in its report, the assumption is that it’s a mandamus, not an idea.

These accrediting agencies are unquestionably the source, or at least the spearpoint, of the “assessment” borg that’s devouring everything in front of it in the academic world. Governance issues at the accreditor/ institution interface is a very much underaddressed issue. Where does it lie in the ancient constitution?

Brown was “hot” back then because a guy who didn’t write enough books to win tenure as president at Penn and then saved the New York Public Library from the remainder bin headed over to Providence to spread the alchemy around. I’m not sure if there was a Kennedy component or not.

But this is to quibble. For admins, it’s all about metrics, and especially all about yield. It’s like driving your u-grad apply/admit ratios down so as to look better in US News, which allows you to get another job at a Bowl Championship Series school. Someday you might even get to run the NCAA. The funny thing is, Harvard and Yale have been claiming for years that they’re trying to move away from the “hire-to-fire” model.

Up late today, so I just had to skim the thread as a whole.

Brown has — at least in history and american civ — small but very good graduate programs; it expects (and has had) top scholars; and it markets itself as taking undergraduate education seriously (which, based on the people I know there, it does). As I read the article, the changes are really an attack on shared governance — at every step moving authority to the administration from the faculty. And it strikes me as science oriented: junior scholars in the humanities and social sciences usually already have their research agenda developed, and it doesn’t take another year.