Ratemyprofessors.com allows students to grade a professor's clarity, helpfulness, ease and - just for fun - rate their appearance as "hot" or "not". A professor with more hot than not votes is awarded a chili pepper on the ratemyprofessors.com web site.
Hotness declines with age, but how quickly? To find out, I combined ratemyprofessors hotness scores with information on when professors acquired their PhD - the best available measure of a professor's age (this information was gathered jointly with my co-author, Anindya Sen, and his co-authors).
When I was an undergraduate, many of my professors were Canadian born and American trained. The demographic profile of Canada, and of Canadian economics classrooms, has changed since then, as our country has recruited high skilled immigrants from around the world. But has there been a corresponding change in the demographic composition of the professoriate?
As part of my on-going research project with Anindya Sen and Marcel Voia on hotness and earnings, I've been gathering data on the educational backgrounds of Ontario economics professors - where they received their first degrees, and where they studied for their PhDs. Some preliminary results are shown over the fold:
The Royal Military College of Canada (RMCC) is the only university under direct federal control, thus recent developments there indicate the Harper government's vision for post-secondary education.
This CAUT-commissioned report, whose authors include eminent economist Robin Boadway (an RMCC grad and ardent supporter of the college), describes a number of developments that merit close attention.
Ontario's salary disclosure legislation, which requires that all salaries over $100,000 per year be made publicly available, was introduced by the Progressive Conservative government of Premier Mike Harris. That government had a somewhat unenthusiastic attitude towards MUSH (municipalities, universities, schools and hospitals) and the public service. The aim of the legislation was, presumably, to build support for policies to restrict and limit public sector salaries, and put downwards pressure on salary growth.
Reforming universities is difficult. Cures tried elsewhere, like the UK Research Assessment Exercise, have induced people to publish more. Yet, to the extent that research comes at the cost of time spent teaching or engaging with students, "incentivizing" research could actually decrease the social value of universities.
University reform is doubly difficult in Canada, where universities are a provincial responsibility, and coordinated action is problematic. I suspect that Prime Minister Stephen Harper would like to pull a Margaret Thatcher, and end tenure, or whip academics into shape with frequent assessments. But the federal government has no jurisdiction to act in this area.
Hence the government is pursuing a multi-level strategy.
Assume boys and girls are identical, except: there's something in the water at high schools that causes boys to do worse than girls; and there's something in the water at universities that causes boys to do worse than girls.
Suppose you had a data set for all university students, that told you for each student i: that student's performance at university Ui; that student's performance at high school Hi; and that student's sex Si (Si=1 for male, Si=0 for female).
Suppose you ran a multiple regression of Ui on Hi and Si:
Over on Ramblings and Musings, University of Toronto professor Victor Ivrii is thinking about frivolous fees. His article is prompted by a National Post piece on "Sanctioned sex club events and Israeli Apartheid Week". The National Post article asks:
Why is their money going to support controversial events, such as Israeli Apartheid Week or the “Epic Sex Club Adventure” recently hosted by the student-funded Sexual Education Centre at the University of Toronto? While the possibility exists to opt-out of student funded groups, critics argue the process is not well advertised and even discouraged.
Professor Ivrii wisely takes no stand on the merits or demerits on Israeli Apartheid or Epic Sex. He argues more generally:
There should be no opt-out process, only opt-in. Unless student specifically indicates his/her willingness to pay a levy for a certain cause, this levy should not be imposed.
Today I'm trying to do some work with the Canadian Financial Capability Survey. This survey contains a test of financial literacy/knowledge, which I have reproduced below the fold:
Alex Usher of Higher Education Strategy Associates asked
some interesting questions in his morning blog post. The world of university funding in Canada is changing –
there is more money overall for universities but governments have been paying a
declining share of university operating budgets with the remainder coming from
tuition and assorted sources of research and contract funding. Indeed, a lot of new government money is targeted towards
capital projects or new student support programs rather funding what faculty
often see as core teaching and research functions of universities.
Carleton University admits more male students than females. But it graduates more female students than males. Why? What, if anything, can and should we do about it? (I don't know.)
The public access data is here. (Datacubes is a lovely tool, but it takes a little time learning how to use it.)
You can see there's a difference from the public access data. I can also get access to Carleton internal data. Except I can't seem to access it from home, so what follows comes from memory:
This is not about economics. Maybe it's about teaching. Maybe it's about the internet. I only have anecdata, and it is compromised by sample selection bias. I don't have any theory, and I don't have a proposed policy.
The last few weeks has seen the death of two economists –
James Buchanan and Albert O. Hirschman - whose work has influenced my intellectual development and thinking over the years. Their thoughts combined with tomorrow’s “political action” by
Ontario teachers against the soon to expire McGuinty government has caused me
to think about what forces are at work here. To be human is to see patterns (I can’t remember who
came up with that line but I’m sure it was not me) and the dispute with Ontario
teachers can certainly be framed in my mind by the concepts of Leviathan, exit
and voice.
It's hardly a secret to anyone who's worked in an economics department: some students enrol in economics because they want to study something that seems vaguely useful, but they don't have the grades, or the mathematics and language skills, to make it in business or engineering.
Making change sometimes involves an elaborate public discourse and preparation of affected stakeholders and in
Ontario the discourse is towards getting people in the public sector to do more
with less. The latest target was
drawn to my attention by Alex Usher’s Higher Education Strategy Associates (HESA)
morning bulletin, which featured the preliminary report by the Higher Education
Quality Council of Ontario (HEQCO) on The Productivity of the Ontario Public
Postsecondary System.
Imagine a world where education is of no intrinsic value, and serves only as a signal of an unobservable character trait called "ability." Performance (which can be observed) is determined by both ability and effort. Effort is costly. Some students have a high level of ability, and some have a low level of ability. A professor's job is to rank them. Professors cannot recognize absolute excellence, only relative excellence, and so grade on a curve.
There are times when a professor wishes to raise or lower his or her students' grades.
Perhaps a directive has come down from on high: "Instructors need to focus on increasing student success rates." "The average grade in this class is above the departmental norm - grades must come down."
Or a professor might wish to maximize teaching evaluations while maintaining a reputation for rigor and standards using the tried-and-true easy midterm/killer final technique.
In other universities the teacher is prohibited from receiving any honorary or fee from his pupils, and his salary constitutes the whole of the revenue which he derives from his office. His interest is, in this case, set as directly in opposition to his duty as it is possible to set it. It is the interest of every man to live as much at his ease as he can; and if his emoluments are to be precisely the same, whether he does or does not perform some very laborious duty, it is certainly his interest, at least as interest is vulgarly understood, either to neglect it altogether, or, if he is subject to some authority which will not suffer him to do this, to perform it in as careless and slovenly a manner as that authority will permit. If he is naturally active and a lover of labour, it is his interest to employ that activity in any way from which he can derive some advantage, rather than in the performance of his duty, from which he can derive none. - Adam Smith, The Wealth of Nations,
A revolution is coming to the university sector. We're not delivering good enough value for money, and the world has noticed. The only remaining question is: who will be first against the wall when the revolution comes?
Ontario’s government is now engaged in public sector
restraint and reform tackling its doctors and teachers in an effort to wrestle
down its 15 billion dollar deficit.
Soon it will be turning its attention to universities. Indeed, work is already underway on an
ambitious plan to reform the university sector which according to reports on the activities of colleges, universities and
training minister Glen Murray includes having only three year BAs, year round class
offerings, standardized first and second year course offerings that are
transferrable across institutions, more experiential learning, student centered
learning and an online university.
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