In his recent address to the Academic Council, President Richard Brodhead explained, “Since the faculty presides over the curriculum, the faculty must take responsibility for assessing our offerings in the light of high liberal arts ideals.” As Duke faculty who are deeply committed to maintaining, improving and delivering a high-quality undergraduate education, we take that responsibility extremely seriously. Indeed, the reason the faculty “own” the curriculum at liberal arts schools such as Duke is to protect it from the political and commercial pressures that might otherwise hold sway—to assure that the implementation of substantive curricular changes are carefully and deliberately considered.
Digital technologies have enabled dramatic and exciting developments in research and pedagogy, inspiring the Duke administration to join the rush into online teaching. Last Fall, without consulting the Arts and Sciences Council, the administration signed a contract to join a consortium hosted by 2U—run by former Hooked On Phonics CEO Chip Paucek—to deliver “Semester Online.” 2U boosters claim that such commercial, online education projects enrich undergraduate curriculum and learning outcomes, without reference to evidence from a rich body of independent research on effective pedagogies, including those that use online and other technologies. While paying Duke tuition, students will watch recorded lectures and participate in sections via webcam—enjoying neither the advantages of self-paced learning nor the responsiveness of a professor who teaches to the passions and curiosities of students. The courses that 2U plans to offer next Fall mostly overlap with, rather than extend, our offerings. In short, 2U is a very poor fit with the stated goals for such an endeavor.
If we lock ourselves into a contract and a consortium that do not meet our objectives, we foreclose opportunities that do coincide with our ideals, which are, as Brodhead reminds us, “to engage multiple forms of intelligence to create deep and enduring habits of mind, an active, integrative, versatile spirit naturally disposed, when it comes upon a new fact or situation, to go to work trying to understand it, updating preexisting understandings in this new light.”
David Aers, Anne Allison, Carol Appollonio, Nancy Armstrong, Christina Askounis, Sarah Beckwith, Leo Ching, Eileen Cheng-Yin Chow, Rey Chow, William A. Darity, Jr., Joseph Donahue, William Collins Donahue, Ariel Dorfman, Laura Edwards, Jan Ewald, Tom Ferraro, Maurizio Forte, Faulkner Fox, John D. French, Shai Ginsburg, Margaret R. Greer, Elizabeth Grosz, Michael Hardt, Frances Hasso, Katherine Hayles, Kerry L. Haynie, Karla FC Holloway, Bayo Holsey, Guo-Juin Hong, Reeve Huston, Micaela Janan, Deborah Jenson, Anna Krylova, Nayoung Aimee Kwon, Kimberly Lamm, Adriane Lentz-Smith, Laura Lieber, Ralph Litzinger, Michele Longino, Wahneema Lubiano, Nancy MacLean, Sucheta Mazumdar, Laurie McIntosh, Ellen McLarney, Walter Mignolo, Martin Miller, Robert Mitchell, Toril Moi, Michael Valdez Moses, Mark Anthony Neal, William M. O’Barr, Jocelyn Olcott, Gunther Peck, Thomas Pfau, Deborah Pope, Joseph A. Porter, Leela Prasad, Kathy Psomiades, Maureen Quilligan, Sumathi Ramaswamy, William Reddy, Daniel Richter, José María Rodríguez García, Carlos Rojas, Pete Sigal, Rebecca Stein, Leonard Tennenhouse, Susan Thorne, Mustafa Tuna, Aarthi Vadde, Antonio Viego, Priscilla Wald, Maurice Wallace, Robyn Wiegman, and Ara Wilson
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