Transcripts For CSPAN2 Cathy Davidson The New Education 20171015

And welcome, and bill kelly, andrew w mellon, director of the research library. And its my pleasure to you to the library. We are fortunate indeed to have professor Kathy Davidson with us this evening. He is the author of a critically important, the new education, how to revolution as the university to prepare students for a world in flux. Kathys distinguished professor at the Graduate Center of the City University of new york, director of cunys initiatives program. Prior to joining the faculty she had held a chair professorship and was Vice President for Interdisciplinary Studies at duke university. She is the author or editor of more than20 books , cofounder and director of the worlds first academic social network, she serves on the board of the mozilla corporation. Developer as you probably know of the fox web browser and underwriter of the Global Community open source developers, she was appointed by president obama to the National Council on the humanities and was the 2016 recipient of the ernest moyer award for significant contribution to Higher Education. All of that you probably know and in any case you can read it in your program should you wish to refresh your memory. Whats more important to understand about kathys work is its range. Its measure, its consequence. It blows the word transformative, a qualifier that has been debased of meeting by frequent misuse. I have force worn its deployment except when i am speaking to my grandson robust that turned into trucks for dinosaurs. Or when im refusing to take in to a michael bay movie, its as close to religion as i get, no michael bay movies. I know this by underscoring the intensity of my admiration kathys work when i described its transformative, here i use that term in its literal sense. Writing the change is the way we think, see and believe , work that alters our perception of its subject and a lasting and fundamental fashion. It is i would contend an era of rich tradition of american pragmatism, a cast of mind whose roots extend to edwards and emerson, do we and james and winds its circuitous way through stevenson and the party but these thinkers have in common is a distrust ofsettled belief, truth or that is what happens to an idea , dialectic is the driver of successful process. Certainly a new education, kennedys book falls into that rubric. Is a book that historic sizes the current state of american Higher Education. The current landscape of emerging points of innovation and imagines a richer future grounded not. Life and death of an american fact very tied this to the tragedy of the comments, with the future of stinky midnight you see it and they are very different ways, change the way we think about how we live, work and learn in a digital age. In short, Cathy Davidson was an indispensable mind, a scholar that demanded our attention an entire gratitude and the privilege and joy to be in conversation this evening about the new education. She and i will converse for 40 minutes, 45 minutes or so depending how selfish i feel and then open the floor to questions. At the conclusion of the program, kathy will be signing books inside the room. I recommend it to you with great enthusiasm. Let me move over to sit next to kathy. [applause] and i didnt fall. Good evening. Thank you so much for being with us. Im so embarrassed. Its very hard to hear that about oneself, but not someone you admire so much. Thank you. Let me begin with where you begin in this wonderful book by aligning college with all great class from gilgamesh forward. We have a long runway to the forward. You make that on the basis involved in obstacle to overcome here the dragon you registered its first going to college and graduates leaving the College Environment and advisors to enter the world workforce. Are these new dragons that the students encounter or are they the same dragon that you and i and our friends in the world experienced or some of them anyway . I think its a little of both. Some are growing up in those are big enough dragon going from being dependent on your family and being a child, a minor, to feeling like you could support yourself and be a productive responsible citizen of the world. Thats a challenge for all of us. I dont know about all of you here, but its not a formidable challenge. For young people today the challenge is even more formidable than for most of us when we went to school. In several ways. One, our schools have become machines and standardized testing, which we know prepares you for nothing except for doing well on standardized tests. I think the stress we put kids under at a very early age we have to tell them they have to be preparing for the very best schools or their life is over if they dont get into the top schools and theyre not going to be prepared for the world. An evergrowing part of the University Budget they use on health care and medical care for young people who are anxious and worried ensure that they are going to be failures in the world at the same time, clearly weve been terrible things. Complaining about the tuition. Youre having to pay for your child now. Especially in Public Education, we in a different generation had gifts given to us as part of the public good of the society that our children dont have. They are graduating with tuition debt now. If youre going to college and graduating with tuition debt come you have to be worried. You have to make different choices about what you study in how you study. If you feel like you are graduating debtfree. Theres a lot of different burdens we put on tape today in the dragons are quite formidable kids have been given a raw deal and i think we have to change that. Let me use your own language to amplify what you just said. Ua pundits are just plain wrong about this millennial generation. Google hasnt made them. Their iphone still make them lonely. College hasnt made them to a more passive. They want to learn enough about the world to lead it. They want to do a better job addressing the major problems of their elders have done. You say how can they accomplish their goals . How can we train them to succeed in the world so fast that no one can predict what will happen next. In some ways is that not the heart of this book, trying to imagine an education that does better by students and just prepare them to do with the dragons you just described. Totally. Some of the solutions proposed, we must perform education. They are not commonsensical. Anyone who thinks about them know they are wrong. One of our great journalists saying that massive online open education where you take videos of famous professors that will end world poverty. Vicious crazy. Who believes the technology really can solve all the problems of the world. Im a Technology Person with the misunderstanding of learning and knowledge. Her thinking we have to get rid of throws an education, only focus on skills and make sure every child is interested in stem and goes into a stem career. Some young kid is great. Science, in technology, engineering and math is great. For others that the nightmare. It isnt a problem if the solution. What an impoverished way to think of something that has nothing to do with humanity and what matters. Its insulting to science to think you would strip away from education as many states are trying to deal, all the social, political, cultural aspects that allow science to be adopted arising no climate deniers are denied. Let me take a step back before we talk about the kinds of solutions and weapons to deal with dragons. One of the things that appeals to me most about this book and i alluded to it is the capacity to recognize education as culture, not nature. It is somehow timeless, connected to the greeks, chris of academe, what have you. What you argue with the modern Research University world in which those of us in education live or have lived is a relatively new organization that arises in the United States, berlin, humboldt were generally but arises in the u. S. In 1860. When you put a date to that in which things change coming open up the possibility of imagining a different type of Higher Education. Could you tell us a bat or recap a little bit of which you argue in the book about the history of the american Higher Education, the elements we take for granted about it that are really innovations that came to us in the late 19th century, early 20th century. Higher education hasnt changed since the academy and therefore cant change. What i love about looking in detail, in the archives to find out that the very young president of harvard who went on to rule over harvard for 40 years. Pretty powerful. What is so great as to see how much hes looking about the things with a long laundry list of things that didnt exist in that it exists. Between 1865 in 1825. Everything from graduate school, professional school, elect is, school choice, paying salaries for faculty. Before that you were thought to have a trust fund. So you are wealthy enough you really didnt need your salary. Admissions exams. There is a long, long list of things, none of which have to be defined today because they are the strong infrastructure of our university. Most important, his friends also with the accreditation of breaking system by which all universities today are still range. Its basically harvard is so even though the United States famously does not have a National System of education, everything from Community Colleges and major public universities, Regional Research perceived liberal arts colleges, the ranking system still put an infrastructure in place and every colleges ranked according to god. That makes no sense. Each university, each college has a different student and a different obligation to the student. They are competing essentially with the shadow of what a great university, harvard but i believe it would be the 18th largest nation in the world. I mean, how can a tiny Little College or Community College or Public University and why should it . So many different kinds of ways of being a student. Part of those dragons now as they are being told that only if they go to harvard or m. I. T. Standard. So many ways to succeed in the world. Thats terrible to make them one size fits all. If in fact being on top of the table or via cnet sound place in the u. S. , so distort the way in which colleges operate that its impossible to think about ways of Education Center outside. Take a back alley elliott for a moment. You picked the title of your book from a really influential article in the atlantic in 1869 called the new education. That gave us a kind of double figure in this hook as i read. One hand hes the author of the system that you find destructive for student faculty for the life of the mind in the United States. On the other, strong admiration for his ability to change in a germanic way. Why did you choose to name the book after this 1869 essay by Charles Eliot while watching the atlantic. Well, on which they had that title in mind when i wrote the book. The book has probably 20 different titles. That one struck me because i do believe we needed new education for the world were living in now. What eliot did that i admire very much, College Professor at harvard come a theoretical chemist. He did not want to be that. He wanted to be the first big mobile financial crisis. Eliot thought he would have to go into business and grandfather died and he got a little bit of stress on and he was able to go study the european system. Many people, not just eliot, but many people are to blame for American Education. They said america led the world in the information faster than anyone could handle. The americans were naive. Americans have become technocrats. They have become giddy with their own power but an educational system trains to be administered. Now the european education is changed, back to the United States and really tried to figure out what would work in america at the time. Now come i dont exactly love the people the worst models that they were the most important theorists at the time. So when standardized testing, deviation from the standard initiation with the husband. He also believe and poor people should be sterilized. The new education position of teddy roosevelt. In many of the founders. So much moving forward that the spirit of meritocracy. More deeply rooted in racism and class assumptions in his entitled to run the country. When he takes the presidency at harvard 35 years old, great surprise he had written on American Education speaks well for the part of the corporation to take this chance. The natural address and you write about it features about now but to teach, but hal. Same question. Thats one of my admirations bid that still the question. I think its not only still valid is probably more valid now because many of them message for experimental and they have become frozen. But also the difficult seminar method where we know who speaks in the seminar room and replicates very much the various kinds of higher arche and so many better progressives both believed in a more progressive, val hooks and others in one of the things i advocate is a method of learning for every student is a researcher in every student is pushed to be curious and to follow their ideas and to think about how knowledge comes together in complex ways rather than in a professionalized ways that we are perfect in 1890 because they were professions in the same way. Elliotts model and education in the late 19 in training students not to be classicists are preparing them to take position in management. They talk about education and training students for jobs in a technological world then training them in a world that is primarily agricultural. What is different about what the new Education Needs to do for students now than what education needed to do in eliots day. Charles eliot is basically creating the infrastructure with a new professional managerial class. The professions. Almost all of those have been disrupted in pretty graphic ways in the last 20 years by technology so that professions that people were sure could never be automated or now been turned upside down. And education that simply prepares you for a career in professionalized as you for a career might get you helpless and obsolete years from now. I think about Something Like taxi drivers. Five years ago, nobody would have thought a taxi driver and now you can go in any taxi in new york with somebody talking about what uber has done, how the whole different arrangement of not just technology, but a rearrangement of human labor has changed. Another one is service workers. You go to cvs and you dont need nearly the personnel you had you for because the checkout is automated. There are many occupations which are not only automated, but other occupations which can be automated which are terribly, terribly underresourced. They dont make as much money in one reason they are women and women by and large statistically go in the feminist profession because they are terribly important in terribly underpaid. Teaching, social work, health care, librarianship. They are horribly underresourced professions. You need a College Degree for those professions. Thats a social problem. We have a society that also need not only to learn how to think, but think really critically about what the value to society if they are entering. I want the students to be activists. A more practical question if we assume and for most people i would agree with what you just said that a first draft is just that. It depends on which kind of survey you read. Anywhere from seven to 11 jobs. How do we train people for the future when we dont know what the future looks like if we dont know what the student is going to do. A lot of what your argument addresses is preparing students to succeed in the work place. By no means are you talking about giving them job specific skills. You talk a little bit about how you think we should be preparing students for this world of constant change and convoluted to the. One thing that does a poor job is giving students the tool not just for imitating, but for really understanding the process by which you become an expert yourself. That is not just learning, but figuring out how you solve problems in any situation any event to have a kind of pedagogical term of education and metacognition. Howd you know not just content, but why something in the way of responding in any situation whether its technology for a taxi driver. What kinds of things allow you to think about okay, i learned how to get here. Youre no longer exists. My ability to learn and use that live to something else. Some people talk about the lifelong funds earn income in two because its constantly taking a look at ones own habit and assumptions and think about what has to change to move forward here thats not easy. Unfortunately the education with ways of thinking that makes it even harder. What in the real world gives you five choices in you, but with the best possible answer of five choices. No one lives their life that way appeared none of the above. Yes, most of us live in a world of none of the above. My goodness, what do i do now. We taught a class together. We certainly can. When will hired me at the Graduate Center and is in his research your neck that i know youre writing a book, but how would you like to teach the craziest class anyway deborah todd. She wasnt kidding. The former president of the Graduate Center. Such a hero was willing to do this. But we are going to say hi, Cathy Davidson. Ive just moved here from another university in a new here and im bill kelly and the president emeritus university. Well be back in 45 minutes. Thats exactly what you said. Here within that class we came back 45 minutes later. What happens now . We go away. But we have done is we put postit notes at the schedule. No one should have to schedule in the five. I think that process of learning are the anyone who had known one another for not seeing the future, everything from Computer Scientist to speech and ideology and seminal justice. What they figured out was how to Work Together as a group from and divide into teams of four and come up with important topics in. And what we did his undergraduate student. Teaching your undergraduate campuses. They came up with experiments and learning within our graduate class every week and that week they tried to weather was an undergraduate class for ideology class and got back from the undergraduates about what the messages were. We invented tools with a 365 students in 14 campuses that ill talk to each other about what was working and not working was an incredible experience. I dont think you forget that. I dont think you forget that in a situation where you have to pretty darn powerful people in the room, they gave up their power and gave it to you and let you create a class and you created probably one of the best classes ive are. But let me doublesided kit. Everything she said entirely so is a lifechanging experience. In a time in which expertise is being challenged on every front, everything from Climate Change to fake news to the media and so forth, how do you at one point you talk about faculty of learning from students in embracing what you call being a public amateur, are you at all concerned that the surrender that the power of the podium are the kind of level of expertise that is implicit in the pedagogy of just described leads to a kind of relative miss in bed disavowed expertise that simply says they certainly didnt happen in the class you are describing. One argument that gets made about student centered learning is that it turns experts into amateur experts into amateurs and amateurs then become a positive value. A moment in which that is a fairly fraught position. Determined to get it right, then in a normal situation where you have the answers. We also know a lot about the content and how poor we are at retaining content. Im not going to say the name of the university, of the prep school, but one of the five wealthiest and most prestigious prep schools in the country, three years ago did a kind of a horrible thing to its students. In september 1 year they gave every student at their school exactly the final exam that those students had taken in may. So if you took a geology exam in may, you yourself, not spread out, you individually took the exact same test you took in may, you took in december. Again one of the top five schools and country. Anyone would say this. The average grade on the final exams in may, a, d depending on how, 90 , 92 b . The average grade in september, can you guess . Low f. Low f. Not even borderline. The school was freaked out. Actually if im at that school i would say the biggest lesson your students learned is when you have a challenge, when they have a challenge, they are a students. Thats a life lesson. That is student centered learning. It turns on this memorizing to sanctify the challenge what, one of the things i need to do to be able to make that challenge. Going back all the way to do we, eight to 10 and all these, replicated over and over again. We remember from the class. The person who has the test versus one who didnt, eight to 10 better. All kinds of factors in that but we tend as learners to take what we want to know, build on that and become more and more expert not everything we learned by that some strand or thread through our learning. What student centered learning does is take that thread to make it into some nodded, heavy, strong rope thats going be something that you can climb up on asthma metaphors going nowhere. You climb on rest of your life. How that works, im a little too and too large to think about. Maybe we should take, go back, describe what student centered learning is here its the fulcrum of this argument of this book. Im not sure that it would not benefit us to unpack the term. What you mean when you talk about student centered learning . Student centered learning, the opposite student centered learning might be the credentialed Center Learning or professor centered learning. By that i mean the object of the class of eggs vital exam leads to a degree. That is traditional credentialed Center Learning. The big point of student centered learning is you are preparing students not for the final exam but how they take all that they learn and have it at their disposal for after the final exam, whether its in their everyday life, whether its in the life beyond but you are thinking as the focal point is what can this learning do for the student. This also mean selectivity can be the top 4 if you go to stanford or harvard. They can also be asked my friend, the president of laguardia Community College says, i very much harder job in stanford or harvard. I have to select the top 100 . Her job is to take any student from where the are and to constantly say have gotten everybody . Have gotten the homeless person . Have gotten the person just out of prison . Have gotten the person with 16 the drop that a school and now has three kids and their three and coming back to school for the first time . How do i take them wherever they are, so thats the student centered. Not have preconceived idea but take them wherever they are and take them to level where they can be a productive member of society. Community college, one of big he was in this book. Every University End of the professor can learn from Community Colleges. Going back to elliott, a professor at a Research University, never been anything about learning, right . Their job was to learn their specialization and the students job was to emulate them. I never had a class and pedagogy. I never the research and i would say probably theres only a handful of us who really, really studied the science of learning. Even though what we do in our lives is teach. Community college, you are teaching the top 100 , you have to know whats an effective teaching method. Not want to teach but how. And what we know is, we know this an everyday lives. Grades are not how you learn. If you have a twoyearold, you dont say two steps today, b . What a way to kill motivation to what a way to kill learning. If you just said for drivers exam, if youre learning tennis or yoga. You are learning by constant formative feedback in what youre doing. Not an end of grade tests, you score, youre either a shame a proud that you got an a and then its over. Come back in september. Where we now know on this very fancy school that year a fairly again but you never know that. The whole point of student centered learning is your constantly tested. People i say you are against testing. No. Im after, i really want test. I want challenges. So for example, a mathematician who teaches at Arizona State is the director of a program in arts, engineering and new media. He takes his first year students every year and gives them a really tough problem to solve. One year it was what will life be like in phoenix when theres no more water . Think about that. Thats a question of ecology, hydraulic science, of class and race, of culture, right . Of how we live pickets everything. His students Work Together to come up with paradigms for how to solve really complex problems, but also problems that are about their life. Because if youre living in phoenix right now you are probably think about what life is like when theres no water because youre to that. You are really close to that. The example that you just offered leads me to ask a different kind of question. One of the terrific things about this book is rather than offering pronouncements and platitudes and bromide about how to change education is that it offers examples. I mean, to paraphrase george bush, a thousand points of light. Its various teachers, schools, exercises, and it runs the entire gamut from Community Colleges to elite institutions and everything in between. Each chapter offers us some of these examples. You have just given us one class you just talked about. My question is scalability thats get asked. A lot of examples you provide are from Interdisciplinary Studies, programs that dont generally hire their own faculty, that exists in some marginalized way at universities. Colleges like old in college that you talked about, program at a state that takes place, class takes place in a Senior Citizens home. Once youre thinking about how these extraordinary examples of student centered learning and far better outcomes, how to set become scalable at a time which american Higher Education, particularly in the public sector, more than 83 of the students who go to college, attend college at public universities, and they are all under massive stress and financed more than half the teachers are teaching at these colleges and universities are parttime instructors, adjunct. This is a crisis that is the root about and discussed by everybody for the last 30 years. How do you move from these particular examples in this landscape of austerity to scale these particular examples up . How does that work, in your view . First of all i took pains to make sure my examples were not just from the Mit Media Lab and the school at stanford. So many examples are from universities that are incredibly stress universities. Some big picture, we have to start reinvesting in highridge occasion. Thats just appalling. A group in california called californias promise that says if every middleclass person in california paid 39 more a year in taxes, and that money was dedicated to the university of california system, how state, the Community College system, the whole system, we could be returning to 1980 levels of support which made it almost free tuition. Not adjunct faculty all over the place. So its a small individual investment for a massive social good. Thats one thing. Number two, there are really simple, this is like what of a few talks, situations ive ever been in in the last year were happen than what is called think share. An experiment i do with index cards and your audience, i i th a pedagogy in the class. I did this once with 6000 International Baccalaureate teachers in the philadelphia 76ers auditorium just to show how he very simple exercise that allows the person to have a voice in a room and let the conversation with another person already changes so that youre not just hearing but you are processing that hearing. One of my friends you something he calls an exit ticket and a net do this as well. He teaches at mcgill university, lectures to 600 people. Instead of of taking role, or ever giving pop quizzes, at the end of every class he has students, times and 90 seconds, write out an index card and sign their name, what was the one thing we talked about in this class lecture, its a lecture class, that will keep you up at night . If nothing is whats the question i should have asked that wouldve kept you up on the same topic. Students write again. He and his assistance can take a role. Its a pop quiz but it also tells students you are not just a body industry. You are a human in the film who happens to be a student. You have input. Then what he does is he puts out the 600 cards and figures out what his lecture has to be the next time, and refers to what students contributed. Thats a very low way of saying to students, change with the paradigm is. We could have done that but holiday probably couldve done that easily here today. I often want people terrapin talk about, three things you are going to do, if its an educational setting, three things to do to change your classroom in the next six months. I have people write the email addresses down and promise they will email other to make sure they have done that. Those are simple really, really simple things and they seem kind of trivial but weve got the research. They changed the way people, students represent them in classroom. They changes speaks in the classroom. They change who feels is entito speak in a classroom. People of color, immigrant students, students whose english is not good, students with cognitive disabilities. Shy people, right . Its, these are methods called inventory methods that says every person in this room deserves to be there. 100 of you, the top the top 100 of you deserve to be here and you all are going to get an education because you all contribute to each others education. Thats another one of the things thats a life lesson and i believe contributes to an idea of citizenship in the world. Not im getting mine because youre not getting doors, but a sense of how we can contribute together. Let me follow on that. Im getting mine, youre getting us kind of neoliberal position. The first part of what you said had to do with underfunding of education, particularly on the public side, increasing level of debt among students, bifurcation, economic inequality. All of the things we think about all the time. If, in fact, the goal is not simply to change individual teaching techniques and to provide that level of respect, but the reason to think about the ways in which we returned to thinking of education as a public good rather than a private investment. You talk about the landgrant act. You talked about the g. I. Bill, ways in times of which this country imagined education as an investment in its future. Not just investment in individual students, but in the larger civic good of the United States. We lost our way with that. People sometimes, 1980s is a rubric in which that happen. Education becomes a matter of private investment. You are going to benefit with higher salary so you should be paying tuition. This is not the obligation. Its consistent with an aging population, consistent with a change in priorities that have to do with security, healthcare, and the systematic defunding of Public Education, public goods. We know this but whats the line of argument that we make . Again to quote jim karen michigan for a long time as this famous thing where he says, michigan was a state university, then it became a statesupported university, then it became a state assisted university, then it became a state located university. [laughing] then it became a state molested university. [laughing] and that art is absolutely. Jim always got a laugh out of that but it made a compelling point. Part of what this book does is it a manifesto for change and the change ranges from everything about changing teaching technique in classrooms to the ways in which, or universities denies themselves. Part of the manifesto is a strategy of how we make that case . How does that cry did sound in a way that is more effective than has been heretofore . Im going to do a backwards, one reason i always do students and activists pedagogy in my classes is i feel like people need a win, people feel so beaten down a special in education. Students and faculty feel so beaten down by the system that you need something that makes you feel powerful again. And so these methods are also about learning how to have a voice in your society. On an individual level this is about, this is oldfashioned Community Organizing method of how you can stand up and when you seemingly have no power whatsoever how you can learn to have an individual and the collective force it to make a difference. We are seeing this interestingly in america all over, fighting for healthcare and other things what people are saying wow, the assistance may be networking for me right now so how can i work with other people to have a voice in a system that seems determined to erase and eradicate my voice on every level . Thats one thing. I think were all starting to see we pretty will need to be reinvesting in education again. I dont go in our without hearing from a student, a faculty member, a parent, a College Professor, had a very professional organization this is how do we part of this . I think we all feel like we have to do something different. This is not working. We cant be impoverishing our future, not just our students future. These and people are going to be taking care of all of us as were aging as well. Weve got some big, big World Problems to solve. More and more people are feeling were at a Tipping Point and are finding ways of making change happen. Its hard to be an optimist sometimes, but weve been in a 40 year real downward trend. University of colorado is 3 , 3 of its financing from the state of colorado. Just ridiculous. Thats not Public Education anymore. We all deserve better than that. California famously has almost flipped its prison system and the amount of money is put into its present system with its educational system if thats the three strikes rule, a horrible racist penal system. We can change those things. Is it easy . No. Its a easy to change of those things. Do we have the will to change those things . Its too not just empower student but also the faculty to think that we can change him, and administered. One of the great gift of this book is that it is hardhitting about the challenges we confront, but relentlessly optimistic. Thats a personality cheered me up. Its terrible but ive got about 30 more questions but im going to save them for lunch. Then we have questions of the artist . I will say the book in with ten ways of any student of the busiest universe in the country can still find a way to have a great education and ten ways professors can change the classrooms tomorrow. I do think, i actually do think feeding some sense of power in the world helps you get a better sense of power in the world. One of the things of autocratic regimes is to make you feel powerless. We all deserve moments of being able to feel more powerful in a world where the temperatures of the ocean are rising and hurricanes are destroying all nations and democracies being hacked all over the place. I think we all deserve to feel powerful, and then its incumbent upon us to use that power. Precisely. Can we start with this question. So you were at duke and now you are at new york and it seems like Different Institution so want to ask you what do you think duke can learn from cuny and what can cuny learn from duke . Great question. The end of the book does that. It really talks about the things that my students tell me, why their students at duke or at stephanie who is right here as one of the people i featured in the book, the way to Laguardia Committee college, then baroque college, now teaching and as a mentor, has a job back at low gordy committee college and is a huge hero in the book. Congratulations. [applause] stephanie made a video of her classmates saying why you go to college, and the reasons, no basis i go to college to make more money. They say to lead a better life, to contribute, to make my family proud, to make my country proud, to make contribution to society, to lead a better life, a better and fuller life. When asked students at duke why do you go to college, i get the same kind of answers. Its not for everybody but from a surprising amount. I think theres something about, thats what begins with the idea of college being a passive. The something of making the commitment at any age, right . This is not for your residential colleges. Im talking about returning students who were in their 40s. Heres the thing about college that stem from anything else in education. Its voluntary. No one says you have to go to college. No one says you have to stay in college. College is voluntary. That you are voluntarily giving your time, your money and your attention to something that is hard. Thats true whether youre a a student at duke or a student at Laguardia Committee college. Youre making a voluntary effort to improve yourself and improve everyone around you. To me structurally thats already something we have to build on, because there are not that many think that allies that we do voluntarily. Sometimes we can be pretty boring pretty awful or pretty painful or pretty frustrating. I talk to people have taken algebra that literally 1 talk to a taken algebra 13 times because, and ive written a column about algebra shouldnt be required. I looked algebra. It happens to be my thing but i think its become, its a gatekeeper, not a gateway onto our a education with this person had taken algebra 13 times and was able to get out of Community College and go to a fouryear college. They are now a full professional. Theyve had a full professional life but how can you not be inspired by somebody is willing to over and over and over and over again put themselves through the frustration of doing something that they dont think they can do . Basically, thats what colleges. Bob. Thank you. I loved your book. Thank you, bob. My aspiration for you. I i spent a career trying to encourage trying initiatives that you described, but there are two points that i would like you to elaborate and im sorry. Thank you. Even if the states and the federal government provided more money, all the other things happened that brought us back to some golden age, there are two ingredients that need to change, and i would like your comment on our system of governance of colleges and universities, and how that system influences the environment that allows faculty to be tutors instead of professors, and the reward system that is greatly encouraged by faculty that, in fact, limits the possibilities of the initiative that you described. Good questions. Very good question from someone who has a major book coming out on this exact issue, so i appreciate that question very much, bob. So the reward system was also part of the elliott agenda which is a reward system in Higher Education thats based on peerreviewed publication. I have nothing against peerreviewed publication but, in fact, we know faculty member sensations of the time on preparation for teaching. Although it counts, their atrovent honor tenure case where summary says they are a terrible teacher but will give them a tenure anyway. Its assumed and its almost like mystical, how you become a teacher. We dont train people to be good teachers and we dont really, give violation system for good teachers a Student Evaluations which we nor terribly faulty and really prejudice against people of color and against women teachers. A new study came out that showed doubleblind study of students rank the syllabi in the textbooks of the professors, exact same syllabi and textbook one with a woman sent on the topic and one with a mans name of the top. The male textbook was a bright textbook under such an organized syllabus. The limits was what a stupid textbook i know about it organized. Thing different, they do in similar studies with socalled, not my word but africanamerican sounding name versus whites and me. Same, same thing. Really prejudice. We write everything i can go to restaurants with a reading a review. We have very poor systems now for evaluation in Higher Education, whether its grades for students or evaluate rewards for faculty. I hate, typically we say publication, teaching and service. Service is the worst word in the world. Why dont we called it leadership or why dont we call it institutional change . I once got in lots of trouble with an audience and ill say it again and get in trouble again what i said i think tenure is a great thing because freedom of speech is being tested at every university and country. Thats a other event. I think tenure is important for the issue of freedom of speech, but i think we need to use it or lose it. If you are lucky enough to be one of the people in the world who cant be fired unless you do something egregious, each of your obligation to do one thing a year that would have gotten you fired in another job. [laughing] it should be your obligation to do something, you can say i have tenure. Im going to do something bold, responsible and bolster not a bad thing but something responsible and bold. Im going to use this gift ive been given. Faculty governance is a similar thing. We have insane committees within committees within committees that almost make you feel like change is impossible. So i think i been doing is talking to many, many universities, i can do all of these were everybodys going to read this book as as a jumpingf place and then faculty, administrators ensued will get together and working groups. I said i would skype and help them do this, change one thing. I think if you can change one thing and you know that you can work a need input from all of people, maybe alumni in some situations, it allows you to have a foothold to then make a bigger changes. Thats basically what elliott is doing. Hes change one thing and going and changing another thing and then another thing and building on. And the interrelated parts. You cant change curriculum without changing assessment. We have time i think for two more questions. Do we have yes, maam. Im so glad i came speedy we are glad you came this evening, too. Thank you. Recently retired from Hunter College and at a a minister position so this is so thickly, makes it also want to go back and try one thing. [laughing] i make it your name. Terrifying. I would like to hear your thoughts about the way a lease in university of Public Institution has put a lot of emphasis in attempting to compete with the elite by creating programs such as the macauley honors were students who couldve gone to the elite institutions to particular support financially as well as mentoring at all kinds of things. Were students, the average students just kind of got you are there and hopefully you get through. I dont know a lot about the program in particular but i know enough. I know enough to admire it very much. I would love the standard for get into the program to ensure equity going in because i think the structure of the Program Going out would help people to rise to the level. I think there many of this kind of programs all over the country and every school has been. They are often on the periphery of small compared to the large general and i want more those programs to be the core of the periphery. There are ways to do that. There are many, many ways to do that. Thats basically the theme of the book is to take, how you can take things that are already tried and true on the periphery and make the center. What can we learn and make the center. Yes, sir. Thanks. One thing what youre saying is wonderful, absolutely right on. Your book should be required reading and the two of you should take over the system. [laughing] what they need to get in this country is education is infrastructure. Because every dollar you put in you will get back millions, hundreds, thousands we have all the data, yes. That thing on the west side, a highrise. I knew here in new york. I come from california. Look at all the money that is generated. Look, i have a friend, chuck feeney you might be familiar with the went over to ireland to change the economy by dumping his own money into the system. But once you are done with reform the colleges, please get involved with the primary and the secondary because guess what. We havent underbelly of uneducated people in this country who dont make it to college, and those systems have to be changed. My last book was about k12. Significantly k12. I think until Higher Education changes, k12 cant change. The reason is because no parent who wants the best for the kid will mess things up in way the kid cant get to college. College is the gatekeeper. Until college really changes, and thats what and so bullish on Community College. I also dont think college is the answer for everybody. I think there are phenomenal things you can do in this World Without a college education. I wish we support those because there are very few things you do without training. You need some kind of training on everything you do. There are many different ways to do that. One of the things i talked about in my last book was how sad it is that weve taken Vocational Training out of so many of our schools. Im going to brag, i had a brilliant nephew, he is a genius and he always was, who can barely read and write. But hes a mechanical and a computer genius, and his mother would drive him to the one Vocational School that allowed him to work on computers. He went from that school, two hours to drive into the school, he went to a forprofit school that works on technology and he now has over 100, he is 25, he has 100 people working for you. This kid is in charge of the audiovisual. That mom had to fight for that. There was a time when those resources were available at every public school. I went to a workingclass public school. There were all kinds of tracks like that ms school whether its for hairdressing which will not be automated, or farm mechanics, or anything else. Its horrible and is part of the prison address the complex because we have delegated much of the socalled manual labor to free exploited racially biased and racist prison labor. Prison and us or complex has replaced the education as the great infrastructure. Education is infrastructure. Prison system is a total exploitation, and degradation and an exploitation. We could change about. There are more and more and more of these examples of extraordinary humans in this book. We have barely scratched the surface. I urge it upon you and on your friends, as i said i hate the word transformative, but this is of that. So please join me in thanking Cathy Davidson. [applause] cathy will be signing books just outside. And thank you all for caring enough about the subject to the spending, to voluntarily to be giving your time to be here. Thats the optimism that i have. Thank you so much. [inaudible conversations] you are watching booktv on cspan2 with top nonfiction books and authors and the weekend. Booktv, television for serious readers. This weekend on booktv we are live from nashville for the southern festival of books featuring National Book Award Finalist Patricia Bell scott, and many others. For a complete schedule visit booktv. Org. You can follow us on social media or on twitter, facebook and instagram. Our handle is booktv. Also during this weekend on our after Words Program Craig Shirley document the life and career of Newt Gingrich with former virginia congressman tom davis. Its 48 hours of nonfiction authors and books, television for serious readers. I was trying to figure out my life as an pastor, life as a new minister for education, all these 24 years working with nasa that identity was gone because i retired from it. I moved back home and the reason i become was to be with my dad. Hes now gone. That was a moment of really trying to dig deep and understand the purpose and why im here. I was told mark twain always said the two most important days of his life by the day you were born in the day you figure out why. Why were we born, both what is her purpose. Then i was told by my editor when have mark twain, they said mark twain didnt really say that. If you look in the book theres no mark twain reference. I still use mark twain because it still kind of cool i think. Figuring that why out and as a society in this day and age with all of the things have gone on, all of us collectively figure out why were here to help the people that hear will be the explorers to change a planet for the positive, thats why i wrote this book. Its, you will share your story, its the Family Community not giving up believing in the when i didnt believe in myself. Its a journey of steam education. I grew up not even knowing what stem was, or steam was, but i was living it every day with the adolescence and building bicycles and trucks in all these different things. One of the things thats going to help us as a civilization is when we realize that we are really on this really small little blue marble together, technically working together as one civilization, a planet we dont always see this happening every day, but from the Vantage Point of International Space station, when i look out over virginia and i see my hometown from space, its only 240 miles up, the distance the distance from dc junior, not that far really, going around the planet every 90 minutes seen a sunrise and sunset every 45 minutes, doing this with people we used to fight against. I was there with the russians and the germans, and having these moments where im filing flying over virginia five minutes later where over paris where leo, one of my crewmates, hes looking down, hey, my mom is probably eating down there, too. And russia, a couple of minutes, it shows you how connected we are as a people. And then flying over afghanistan and looking down and seeing how beautiful it is, but knowing whats happening down there, you know, aleppo, all these places of unrest and fighting and these things going on, but from that Vantage Point it is simply stunning. And some going to try to get you all signed up for space exhibition like [laughing] ive got some coupons up here. When its on your book you might be the lucky one who gets the spacex ride. Ready to get an opportunity and whether its through cr or whether the experience you have to get to see this, it fundamentally cognitively changes you as a person to make you want to do better when you see our planet from that Vantage Point. You can watch this and that the programs online at booktv. Org. Host the name of the book is the scandal of money why wall street recovers but the economy never does. The author is george gilder. George gilder, you open with a quote from friedrich hayek. The source and root of all monetary evil is the governments monopoly on issue and control of money. Is there an alternative to the government controlling money . There sure is. Gold is the most obvious alternative. Because money is really a me