Don Olcott Jr.

VOL. 12, No. 1/2, 271-275

In her response article, Transforming Vision into Practice: A Reply to Don Olcott, Rossner-Merrill questions the recent popularity (reality in my opinion) of the market-driven “education on-demand” vision of higher education. She also infers that my emphasis on the increasingly competitive nature of higher education signals the coming apocalypse of higher education and that our only hope for survival is educational technology, particularly distance educators as the enlightened catalysts for institutional change. Henry L. Mencken once said that for every complex problem there is a simple solution . . . and it’s wrong! I am somewhat perplexed that Rossner-Merrill believes my view of the higher education environment conveys such a “simple” assessment for the future.

Before I respond to Rossner-Merrill’s initial assertions, let me frame my commentary within the “constructive enlightenment” context of the title. I have used this title to convey, first and foremost, that the fundamental question facing higher education today is what do we preserve of the academic heritage to balance the adoption of new innovations (i.e., technology, policies, practices, mission, etc.).

Whether the rhetoric of change focuses on the new student consumer, restructuring technological infrastructure and organizational structures, rewriting promotion and tenure guidelines, or rethinking the role of educational technology, the underlying question still revolves around balancing the old with the new. This is not a simplistic either-or proposition. Indeed, Mencken’s words are most apt for the future of higher education. Lets examine Rossner-Merrill’s premise. First, market-driven higher education is not a fad nor a popularity contest that will become extinct and leave Rossner-Merrill’s status quo bastion of higher education completely intact over time. One only has to gaze across the higher education landscape to grasp the realities facing institutions. First, the unprecedented level of competition for higher education markets is growing and will continue.

Second, the new student-consumers are objectively assessing an institution’s ability to serve them, and they will select institutions (or corporate universities or private providers) who meet their needs. It is dismaying that Rossner-Merrill, as so often is the case among academic traditionalists, has not even mentioned students. Do any of us really believe the inner corridors of the academy are immune from changes in the market and consumer characteristics of our students? Whether one agrees or disagrees with the specific points of my article, the changes and recommendations I made inevitably are designed to better serve our students.

Now I must concede (accepting utter defeat may be a more accurate metaphor) regarding Rossner-Merrill’s point about the plausibility of moving towards a market-driven higher education enterprise. As educators, it is inconceivable to envision a higher education system that defines our work as a mere product. This view of the educational experience is incompatible with the developmental tenets of teaching and learning. This is true regardless of the level of increased competition and a more demanding student clientele.

Education is a process, a multidimensional cultural and social experience, where defining success purely by its utilitarian value is antithetical to the best ideals of our profession. Constructive enlightenment emerges here and demands that we collectively explore how to balance the old with the new. More precisely, how do we retain the best elements of the academic heritage and yet adapt our system to changing conditions? This is, and will remain, the major challenge for higher education. Rossner-Merrill argues that a better way to position distance education within the academy and leverage change is to “use familiar structures, processes, and procedures already in place for academic units to create a distance education unit among them, one that includes the resources typically associated with distance education support systems” (p. 122).

The basic premise of this approach is true, yet it is predicated on the assumption that current structures, processes, and procedures are working. They are not in many instances, and if they were, higher education leaders would not be spending time, energy, and resources to restructure these institutions. But, I concur with Rossner-Merrill that the process of blending the old with the new requires us to build upon our existing infrastructures, even when those systems have become partially obsolete.

One of Rossner-Merrill’s major points of argument is that “there is little ambiguity in understanding what faculty members do and how they go about doing it” (p. 123) and that the position, place, and role of the distance educator varies across institutions. I agree with her latter point.

The assertion of “unambiguous faculty roles” is unsubstantiated and represents a traditionalist viewpoint of the academic faculty. The realities are that faculty roles, incentives, promotion and tenure, and the things they do are, in fact, under increasing scrutiny and at best objective analysis. Would Rossner-Merrill agree that all faculty see research, teaching, and service (and how they do it) through the same lenses across all institutions? The new professoriate entering the profession are caught in a “faculty twilight zone” trying to meet the demands of the traditional system and at the same time confronted with new demands for technology integration, outreach, and practical research. Of course, our senior faculty who perpetuated the current system and sustained it up to the present will defend the old with a rigid intensity. In their eyes, what they do and how they do it is unambiguous despite being incompatible with new realities.

Rossner-Merrill further argues that faculty participation in distance learning when it actually requires a change in the way they do things would be viewed as intrusive and unworkable given the normal expectations for teaching, research, and service expected as a matter of course. Without belabouring the point, Rossner-Merrill assumes that the roles and functions of our faculty are static and that teaching, research, and service are universally defined (and accepted). Neither of these assumptions are valid. A final point that Rossner-Merrill makes is that where distance education is placed in the institution has some bearing on the way distance education is perceived, both by faculty and administrators. I agree with Rossner-Merrill on this point as well as her point that most faculty do not view themselves as distance educators. My question to her would be why do we even want faculty to consider themselves distance educators? How about simply calling them “educators” regardless of how, where, when, or with what technologies are used.

I believe Rossner-Merrill would agree that our definitions of “distance learning,” even if unintentionally, are perceived by faculty and many administrators as synonymous with “technology.” Recently, during a keynote address, I was asked when we would truly know when distance learning had arrived. “When we don’t use the word distance or distributed anymore,” I replied. “When we view our most important role as improving teaching and enhancing learning, regardless of the technologies we employ.” Distance learning is about teaching and learning not about technology nor about “distance.”

In her conclusion, Rossner-Merrill suggests elevating distance learning onto a level playing field with other mainstream academic units. This is the ideal; however, the further progress we can make towards fostering distance learning as a viable discipline will leverage this elevation to equal status. Rossner-Merrill goes on to suggest it is unreasonable to expect changes that alter faculty roles to serve particular ends. The fact of the matter is that higher education is about plurality, about serving different ends, about being responsive to multiple constituencies. I would have thought that serving particular ends would have been an ideal embraced by an academic traditionalist who believes in preserving the status quo. According to Rossner-Merrill, “it is naïve in the extreme to expect that traditional education institutions will take seriously a vision put forward that threatens demise for those who do not share it.”

Once again, Rossner-Merrill has dispersed with a middle ground viewpoint; it is either all or nothing. Finally, Rossner-Merrill points out that I ignored the for-profit ventures using technology that do not compromise those areas of intrinsic educational worth whose value cannot be measured in dollars. I guess she was referring to the Western Governors University, the University of Phoenix, the Open Learning Agency, the British Open University, the California Virtual University, the Penn State World Campus, the University of Texas Teletraining Center, Novell, Intel, Hewlitt-Packard, IBM, and others.

In conclusion, let me offer my sincere thanks to Dr. Rossner-Merrill for her fair and objective response to my original article. Moreover, let me stress that moving distance learning towards full discipline status requires these types of professional dialogues in conferences, publications, and, most importantly, on our campuses. I feel enriched by Rossner-Merrill’s unique viewpoints (although I may not agree) on many of the identical challenges we all face in the distance learning arena. She has given me new perspectives about the academic enterprise, what it is, where it is going, and how we might get there with or without technology.

In summary, I encourage us to consider employing a constructive enlightenment approach to our most fundamental challenge: blending the best of the old with the best of the new. It is not an either-or proposition. Modern technology, in and of itself, cannot get us there. Our future truly depends upon a common synergy of our traditional academic heritage with the new market realities.

Correspondence To:

Dr. Don Olcott, Jr.
Associate Dean
Extended University
The University of Arizona
88 N. Euclid Avenue
P.O. Box 210158
Tucson, AZ 85721-0158
U.S.A.
Telephone: (520) 621-3944
Fax: (520) 621-2099
E-mail: dolcott@u.arizona.edu

References

Olcott, D., Jr. (1996, Fall). Destination 2000: Strategies for managing successful distance education programs. Journal of Distance Education, XI(2), 103-115.

Rossner-Merrill, V. (1996, Fall). Transforming vision into practice: A reply to Don Olctott. Journal of Distance Education, XI(2), 121-125.

Dr. Don Olcott, Jr. is Associate Dean for Extended University at The University of Arizona. Prior to joining the University of Arizona, Don was Manager for Institutional Services with the Western Cooperative for Educational Telecommunications and Director of the Institute for the Management of Distance Education.

Don previously served on the faculty and administration at Oregon State University, the University of Missouri-Columbia, Western Washington University, and the Western Interstate Commission for Higher Education.

Dr. Olcott is the 1998 recipient of the Charles Wedemeyer Outstanding Distance Education Practitioner in North America. This prestigious award is given every two years by the University of Wisconsin-Madison and recognizes outstanding leadership and professional contributions to the field of continuing and distance education in North America.

Dr. Olcott was the 1997 recipient of UCEA’s Noflette Williams Leadership award for exceptional leadership in the field of educational telecommunications and the 1994 recipient of the University Continuing Education Association’s Adelle F. Robertson Professional Continuing Education Award for outstanding leadership, scholarship, and contributions to the field of continuing and distance education. He is a graduate of Harvard University’s Institute for the Management of Lifelong Learning (MLE), and serves on the Editorial Staff of The American Journal of Distance Education.

Dr. Olcott has published extensively in the areas of institutional and faculty support systems for distance education and has served as a consultant to colleges and universities across the U.S. and Canada. Dr. Olcott earned his bachelor’s and master’s degrees from Western Washington University and his doctorate from Oregon State University in higher educational administration and leadership. He lives in Tucson/Denver with his wife Janie and daughters Kelli and Carrie.

ISSN: 0830-0445