Month: October 2013

New Movement In Higher Education

/ Gregory Clark / Leave a comment

The ideas in this New York Time article can be applied to many different areas of education in addition to higher ed. For those who do not wish to read the entire article, I’ll provide a brief summary. There is a recent movement in higher education to grant degrees for the amount of knowledge and skills you can demonstrate; this is in place of how long you have studied. In order to keep down the costs (money AND time) of obtaining a college degree, higher education institutions have begun to offer credit for finishing the work. These “competency-based” programs are all about outcomes, providing certification once learning requirements can be demonstrated. Many institutions, including the University of Wisconsin, have started testing these programs, and from what I can tell they are exclusively online.

Are you skeptical of these new programs? You’re not alone. A lot of questions (some are my own, and some are in the article) are being raised about whether or not degrees obtained this way can be compared to those conferred by a traditional college or university. Is the quality of education provided high enough? What about the classroom experience? If credits can be earned quickly, can we be sure the students have learned anything? How can we be sure they have learned the right things?

My largest concern is about assessment. In most areas of learning, it is a constant challenge for instructors to know how to create assessments that reflect what a student has (and should have) learned throughout the course. My initial reaction to this article was fear that it may be impossible to grade a student who a professor has never met, and who sprinted through the material in three weeks. But this is not entirely unique to online courses. College and university courses usually have only a few graded assignments; they just take four months to complete and occasionally an instructor will actually interact with the student. So in this light, any concern about assessment may actually be misguided.

This can also be applied to K-12 education. The role of assessment is growing in importance every day it seems. After No Child Left Behind, the results of standardized tests carry weighty consequences. If we’re comfortable with assessment when applied frequently (as in K-12), and infrequently (in higher education, online and/or on campus), what is it about a large standardized test that is so different and controversial? Is it the weighty consequences? College exams have weighty consequences. Is it their frequency? Some courses only have a midterm and a final exam.

I find myself unable to provide a full answer to the questions raised by this article and my own analysis of its significance. Please feel free to comment and let me know what you think.

Bringing Lincoln Back From The Dead: Luxury Cars and American Automaking

/ Matthew Clemente / Leave a comment

Bringing Lincoln Back From The Dead: Luxury Cars and American Automaking

Today, NPR’s Planet Money podcast reran a story about how Lincoln is attempting to recapture its image as a cool luxury car and the economic implications of a successful re-branding. 

Here is a description of the podcast: 

Lincolns used to be the coolest cars in the world. They used to be driven by kings, moguls and celebrities. Today, Lincolns are driven by the old, the out-of-touch, and the guys hustling you at the airport.

On today’s show: How Lincoln is trying to regain its former glory — and how the story of Lincoln may be the story of the U.S. auto industry, for better or for worse.

Food Miles: Should We Believe the Hype?

/ Danielle Kloster / Leave a comment

Locavores love to talk about the number 1500. It’s cited as a reason to eat seasonally, to eat locally, and to support local farmers and farmers’ markets. It is the supposed number of miles that food travels to get to its consumer. This number has been used in reference to different kinds of food in different parts of the country and has essentially become gospel truth to members of the local food movement. However, the number comes from a single study published in 2001 out of Iowa State University’s Leopold Center for Sustainable Agriculture. Due to data limitations and a narrow research question, the study uses publicly available terminal market data on the distance 33 types of fruit and vegetables traveled to reach a produce market in Chicago. This data is also limited in that it shows the state in which the produce was grown, but not where in that state. The researchers were required to use the geographical center of the state as a proxy. The argument against using this statistic has been well developed by James McWilliams in his book Just Food (1) (a fantastic read challenging a few of the prominent assumptions made about the food system) and Jane Black in a Slate article (2).

 
So, if 1500 miles isn’t an accurate statistic, how do we determine the true energy cost of our food system? And how do we implement policy to make that food system, on which we are completely dependent, more resilient to volatile energy markets and potentially decreasing fossil fuel supplies? It turns out that transportation of food from production to consumer is a relatively small piece of the energy cost pie (about 14% of the total fossil fuel energy input to the food system, according to a University of Michigan report (3)). A significantly larger chunk of the energy use is in the household for storage and preparation of food (31.7%, ibid.). Production represents 21.4%, processing 16.4%, packaging 6.6%, food retail 3.7%, and commercial food service 6.6% (ibid.). So focusing only on reducing the number of miles our food travels may help reduce the energy and carbon footprint of that food, but there are larger fish to fry, so to speak.
Importantly, food traveling fewer miles is not necessarily more energy efficient. Food traveling by rail, ship, or large tractor-trailer likely requires less energy on a per-unit food basis than food transported by an inefficient farm truck to a market. Additionally, trying to grow tomatoes in the off-season in northern New York would require a huge amount of energy in the form of grow lamps, heated greenhouses, and interior irrigation. However, they can be grown with much fewer energy inputs in areas of the world experiencing their growing season while we are not. Without the globalization of our food system, we could not eat tomatoes in December (or May, or October, for that matter).

 
Additionally, farmers’ markets are not always the havens for locavores that they claim to be. Many markets, including the Syracuse Regional Market, allow “out of state” vendors to set up at the market. These vendors purchase produce produce, sometimes locally but primarily from wholesale markets out of state, and resell it at the markets. They blend in with the local farmers, sometimes owning vans labeled with a farm name (despite the fact that they do not own or work at a farm), and pass off their produce as local. It’s more obvious when they have lemons and kiwi for sale that have obviously not been grown in New York, but sometimes it can be difficult for a consumer to make an informed decision.
My point is not that we should not be making an effort to reduce energy consumption in the food system, or that eating locally isn’t worthwhile. There are many reasons to eat locally, including nutritional benefits derived from fresh, minimally processed foods, the support of local businesses that provide jobs, and the connection to the land and people that feed you. However, as far as policy is concerned, we should be thinking about the larger system. The increase in energy consumption in the processing industry has been large over the past few decades, as Americans have increasingly relied on processed and convenience foods. Encouraging the consumption of minimally processed, minimally packaged food (which is also arguably healthier) by focusing subsidies on fresh produce rather than corn (a prominent ingredient in a wide variety of processed foods) could help reduce this energy sink. Additionally, over 30% of the energy is used in the household for storage and cooking. More efficient appliances, rated through Energy Star and supported by a buyback program (a sort of “cash for clunkers” for refrigerators and stoves), could help reduce this enormous portion of the energy costs of the food system.

 
On a personal level, as noted by the authors of the University of Michigan report, we can reduce our own food energy/carbon footprint by reducing the amount of meat in our diet. Animals are highly inefficient at converting grains to meat, and it is much more energy efficient to consume the grains directly. Organic foods may also reduce the energy costs of production because they are grown without synthetic fertilizers and pesticides, which require large inputs of energy in manufacturing (ibid.). The University of Michigan report also notes that while refrigerators have become substantially more efficient over time, they have also become larger, negating the efficiency gains. Buying smaller amounts of food at more regular intervals and relying less on frozen convenience meals may allow us to reduce our refrigeration needs.
There’s a great deal we can do to reduce our energy demands in the food sector, we just need the proper information to make informed choices. Maybe in the future food will be labeled with a carbon or energy footprint label to allow us to make those decisions fully-informed, but until then we should use the data available and common sense to inform our policy and our personal choices.

 

(1) McWilliams, J.E. 2009. Just Food. New York: Little, Brown, and Company.
(2) Jane Black “What’s in a Number? : How the press got the idea that food travels 1500 miles from farm to plate”
(3) University of Michigan “U.S. Food System”

Civic Engagement and Political Disillusionment

/ Matthew Clemente / Leave a comment

Last Tuesday, I attended a talk hosted by the University Lecture series featuring Eric Liu.  Liu’s talk, which was titled “The True Meaning of Patriotism,” offered a progressive definition of patriotism and citizenship. He argued that since the 1960s the American Left has largely abandoned the concept of patriotism and allowed the Right seized it as part of its ideological lexicon.  Because the notion of patriotism has largely gone uncontested in the public arena, the idea has become impoverished, reduced to a jingoistic affirmation of American military and economic power.

However, Liu asserted that patriotism is a far richer concept than this.  Instead, patriotism, at bottom, is about putting country above self.  It is about public service and civic engagement—or as he put it “showing up” to one’s public obligations of being politically informed and part of the democratic process.

Underpinning Liu’s definition of patriotism is a commitment to the philosophical tradition of civic republicanism. As we all learn in our high school civics classes, the United States is not a democracy but a republic.  However, Republicanism (the classical political theory as opposed to the current political party) stands in contrast not only to Democracy as a form of government, but also Liberalism (classic philosophical liberalism as opposed to the current political ideology).  Where Liberalism is largely about rights and non-interference, Republicanism is rooted in civic obligations and engagement.  According to Republicanism, self-governance requires moral virtue and public spiritedness. Although Liberal and Republican thought can be seen throughout American history, the latter was more prevalent at the Founding than it is today.

Part of what Liu’s talk was about was reinvigorating our Republican tradition.  At one point during his lecture, Liu argued that the notion of “Rugged Individualism,” a very Liberal concept, was a “myth.”  According to Liu, self-governance cannot work if we think of our Nation merely as a conglomeration of egoistic individuals who use government only as a means of advancing and protecting our own interests. Rather, being part of a Republic requires some sacrifice, putting country above self.  It requires sacrificing some time and mental energy to being an effective citizen—keeping informed about social issues and engaging others about them.

There can be no doubt that our politics suffers when it focuses solely on individual rights to the exclusion of the common good.  However, where I was disappointed with Liu’s lecture is that he did not address what he considered to be the major barriers to civic engagement. Instead, Liu echoed Gandhi asserting essentially that the solution to our civic deficit problem was to “be the change you want to see in the world.”  This strikes me as a good first step but insufficient the face of systemic obstacles.

Hyper-partisanship, gerrymandered congressional districts, a broken campaign finance system, and parallel media universes (on the Left: MSNBC and liberal media outlets, and Fox News and conservative talk radio on the Right) all combine to prevent citizens from being engaged in their government.  As a result, to quote Yeats, “The best lack all conviction, while the worst/Are full of passionate intensity.”  Until we can empower the silent majority of reasonable people to enter the political fray—something that is understandably considered to be unsavory and pointless, we are destined to be politically disillusioned.

“League of Denial: The NFL’s Concussion Crisis”

/ Matthew Clemente / Leave a comment

Recently, PBS’s Frontline ran a powerful documentary about concussions in the NFL.

The full video is available for free from the Frontline website.

Here is a description of the program:

From PBS and Frontline: The National Football League, a multibillion-dollar commercial juggernaut, presides over America’s indisputable national pastime. But the NFL is under assault as thousands of former players and a host of scientists claim the league has covered up how football inflicted long-term brain injuries on many players. In this special investigation, FRONTLINE and prize-winning journalists Steve Fainaru and Mark Fainaru-Wada of ESPN reveal the hidden story of the NFL and brain injuries, drawn from their forthcoming book League of Denial: The NFL, Concussions and the Battle for Truth (Crown Archetype, October 2013). What did the NFL know and when did it know it? What’s the truth about the risks to players? What can be done? The FRONTLINE investigation details how, for years, the league denied and worked to refute scientific evidence that the violent collisions at the heart of the game are linked to an alarming incidence of early onset dementia, catastrophic brain damage, death, and other devastating consequences for some of football’s all-time greats.