The Collegiate Experience

As a writer concerned with the current events of higher education, it is only appropriate that I comment on the recent speech by Education Secretary Margaret Spellings. Unfortunately, I feel like I am entering in the middle of this discussion, and I am not ready to begin participating in it. Instead I'm simply going to offer you some article links and talk about something else.
The Spellings Plan
The Sounds of Conciliation
In Focus: The Spellings Commission

Instead of Spellings, I want to talk some more about the implications of Course casting. I know that I've already posted on this, but I just can't get over the excitement of what it all could mean. Everything to follow is my personal and probably overly optimistic hopes for the changes that would follow the widespread availability of quality courses online with audio visual components.

If the content of a course is available free for everyone, what are the students who decide to pay to be there really wanting? They want the Collegiate Experience. Without lectures what is the collegiate experience? It is going to a place where experts of the field congregate. It is mentorship and networking. It is access to lab equipment and primary resources. It is peer discussions and study groups. It is RSOs and football games. It is the cafeteria and the local hangouts. It is living with strangers and making new friends. It is leaving home and growing up. It is the whole student.

I'm sorry I got a bit carried away there. What does this emphasis on experience mean? Well in my ideal future, there will no longer be lecture halls full of 50+ students. Faculty will be leading smaller classes where the group spends more time working with the content than they do trying to absorb it. Learning communities will have a surge of popularity, and faculty involvement outside the classroom will be expected.

Eventually everything will level out. One of the perks of American Higher Education is it's diversity. There will be colleges with huge lecture halls and there will be colleges that offer the experience emphasis. What might change for good is which one is considered mainstream.