Rachel Hartigan, US News and World Report, with President George Rupp

Distance learning, community support and affirmative action topped the list of concerns voiced at Columbia's annual Higher Education/News Media Dinner in Low Library on November 15th. A meeting of the minds between college presidents and journalists, the affair, hosted and moderated by President George Rupp, has become a highly anticipated forum with an earned reputation for forthrightness and thought-provoking discussion.

Opening the discussion on the state of higher education, Andy Fisher of CNBC and a Columbia alumnus, reminded the group that distance learning was an important topic at last year's event and asked what had academe accomplished in this area since. His question began a spirited discussion of technology, distance learning and consumerism that ran throughout the evening.

"I think we have to make a distinction between defensive activities on the part of the university and activities that speak to the delivery of an educational opportunity," said Dr. H. Patrick Swygert, president of Howard University. "On the defensive side, every school, college and post- secondary institution in the country seems to have some distance learning process underway."

However, if you go deep into the discussion, you find the emphasis on course and information delivery rather than on true education, he said.

Dr. Carol Tomlinson-Keasey, president of the University of California, Merced, saw the questions from a more practical perspective. "I am starting a university in the middle of California that wants to serve 250 miles of the Central Valley," she said. "The median family income in that area is $30,000 a year. To expect those families to come up with $13,000 or more for a year at a University of California system school is really putting an extraordinary burden on them. How are we going to do this without using technology? If we are going to educate a larger percentage of students, and we are not going to build a lot more campuses, how are we going to meet this challenge if not through some use of technology?"

University of Michigan President Lee Bollinger with Karen Arenson of The New York Times

Joe Berger of the New York Times commented that he was surprised that in the rush toward distance learning, universities seem willing to discount the very thing that makes them special. "What makes the university so special is sitting in a room with a bright professor who walks around the class, talks, emotes, acts and thinks in front of you. I don't think that can be duplicated on the Internet," he said. "I'm sure there is a place for the Internet in remote areas where there is no other choice. . .I'm surprised how quickly many colleges forget that the experience of going to college is not burying yourself in a room of books; it's going to class"

Dr. Jim Wyche, executive director of the Leadership Alliance academic consortium and vice provost at Brown University, disagreed with the assertion that the biggest issue facing higher education is the delivery of education through the new technology.

"It is really not about education but about research," he said. "It is research in America that is really going to make the difference between the haves and the have nots. Of course, it is important to be able to train and educate people, but I think the people who are going to benefit the most are those who have experienced a relationship between professor and student. You use distance education and the Internet as supplemental information; you do not use them as primary sources to train students."

"It is easy to get mislead by a metaphor, and I think distance learning is a misleading one," said Dr. Donald Harwood, president of Bates College in Maine. Dr. Harwood suggested using hemp rope as an alternative way of thinking about learning. "We should recognize that the slice of rope we call learning or education does not just have one strand running through it but has any number of interlocking pieces. Distance learning is one strand in that piece of rope called learning."

Rachel Hartigan of US News and World Report raised a concern about educators becoming "service providers." "There seems to be more of a focus on students as consumers and what they can get out of school," she said. "What kind of nice dorm can they stay in, what kind of internships will the schools provide, and what are the career services. All those things don't really speak to the romance of intellectualism."

Missie Rennie of CBS and CBS.com picked up the consumerism in education theme by asking how important is it to educate students for the workforce. "Speaking collectively, there was a time when you got a liberal arts education, and you were a well educated person as a result of the process, but now we have kids going into the process who are nervous about what their job is going to be coming out."

"For the top 50 or so institutions, times have never been better for jobs for our graduates," responded John T. Casteen, president of the University of Virginia. "Employers line up wanting to hire them, and they like liberal arts backgrounds. But there is a pecking order among employers where they will not look at students from alternative institutions but want the pedigree that goes with the top-tier institutions.

Howard University President H. Patrick Swygert

"I think we have let the system stratify itself both on the employer and the education sides in ways that may defeat our national purpose of having a higher education be the great equalizer for the society. That worries me," said Dr. Casteen.

As moderator, Dr. Rupp summed up the topic, saying, "It is fair to say that we at Columbia are as aggressive as any of our peers in trying to make the most of the new technology. However, the way we deal with our undergraduates is to insist that they take a very structured, very demanding core curriculum that has been virtually the same since 1917. That means that they have a grounding in the major ideas and institutions that have shaped our country as well as requirements about other cultures."

Dr. Rupp added that while this grounding in Western Civilization is the core, distance learning should not be ignored. "The Web does open up new possibilities to which I think it would be ill advised for any of us to close our eyes.

"I would say that one of the most important developments on the Columbia campus in the last year is that we have continued to invest in our Center for New Media Teaching and Learning. We now have 400 faculty who have availed themselves of the services of that Center - not as a replacement of what we do but as a supplement to it. We can enhance the education that our own students have in small, discussion-based classes, but allow ourselves to make the delivery of that education even better."

Noting that things are going well for prestige institutions but not as well for others, Karen Arenson of the New York Times asked if these elite schools have a responsibility to their communities, K - 12 schools, the state school system and the other institutions less fortunate than themselves.

Dr. Rupp responded, "This elite institution is firmly committed to being an avenue of upward mobility for people who have not had the opportunity in their families to go to college before. About a fifth of our students in Columbia College are from families where neither parent has gone to college before. We have need-blind admissions and full-need financial aid for domestic students, and we are migrating toward it for international students.

From left, Amy Argetsinger, Washington Post, Arlene Levinson, Associated Press and Desa Philadelphia, Time Magazine

Dr. Rupp said that how Columbia relates to the community is also fundamental to us, as it is to many urban institutions, and we have made a great effort to relate in three specific ways: a large array of volunteer programs, relating our core education and research mission to our community through health sciences, and the university's role as a major economic actor in Upper Manhattan.

Another major discussion area was affirmative action, an issue vital to higher education as a whole but one in which the University of Michigan is on the frontline.

Dr. Lee Bollinger, president of the University of Michigan, who described the court proceedings in which his university is embroiled, said, "This is the most significant issue that we can face as a university; it is as if we were told not to teach Joyce's Ulysses. It is not an add-on to what we do but something that cuts to the core of the educational choice to decide what is an education in the modern world. There is still a great issue of race in America. We are trying to present evidence that, in fact, students learn better in a racially diverse environment.

"To our great joy, every single university in the country, the AAU (Association of American Universities) and ACE (American Council on Education) have filed amicus curiae briefs on our behalf. Higher education is united on this issue."

Dr. Rupp ended this discussion by pointing out the depth of the division between those who educate and other factions in society over this issue and the need for its further exploration. "There is a disconnection between the people on the ground educating our students that is out of step with some conventional wisdom," he said. "There are those who recognize the value of affirmative action as a way to achieve diversity in the educational experience for all our students and to help prepare them to serve in a pluralistic society, and those with simple-minded views that think adding together SATs and grade scores is the way to conduct admissions."