Its not either/or

Online education as an extension of, and support for, the Kings mission

By Marvin Olasky

As we all know, King’s is a special place. Our goal is to limit maximum class sizes to 17 in writing courses and to 30 in other courses. We make exceptions in some specific circumstances, but we want to emphasize interaction between professors and students. Our professors have substantial office hours and welcome student visits.

Our goal is for all courses to have a special Kingsian emphasis on true ideas based on biblical teaching concerning liberty, human dignity, inalienable rights, limited government, free enterprise, and beauty. Our courses do not marginalize the Bible, ignore the Constitution, or replace ethics with relativism.

Most college education around the country is very different. Students, at least in their freshman and sophomore years, typically sit in large lecture classes and remain largely unknown to professors. (I had the unpleasant experience of teaching courses of up to 500 students at the University of Texas.) Except in rare situations, students receive indoctrination from professors who trash Western civilization and American institutions, present atheism as wisdom, and propose socialism as the equitable answer.

Many students in such situations would learn more from good online courses that require students to respond regularly to professors’ questions and stay involved in other ways. They would especially benefit from learning true ideas. In my view, online education is not as good as learning in a small room with a great professor, but a good online class is much better than anonymously sitting in a large lecture hall, especially when the agenda is indoctrination.

Heres an analogy that might help: The Metropolitan Opera at the end of this past summer showed HD films of ten of its operas in the Lincoln Center plaza. My wife and I went to and enjoyed three of them. Im no opera expert, but being inside the opera hall is great if your seats are up close so you can both hear the music and watch the expressions on the singers faces. Its not so great if youre in the balcony, especially if youre paying $160 to hug the back wall.

Students around the country pay big bucks to hug the back wall. The analogy breaks down at this point because the singers they hear are terribly off-key, but I hope the point is clear: No one is saying that the Metropolitan Opera movie is the same as the live performance, but its a way of offering the opera to people who would otherwise not see and hear it. Some may say NO: If youre not inside, tough. My sense is that it doesnt take anything away from the inside experience to offer the film to folks in the plaza.

Let me bring this home: The Kings board, executive team and faculty are discussing having some courses online as a way to provide a greater number of students the opportunity to learn true ideas. We expect Kings to derive from online education some significant financial benefits that will help us to maintain and improve our classroom offerings. We dont know how far well go with online education, but our goal is to continue to focus on what happens in our classrooms. We envision online courses as worthwhile in themselves but also acting Ill switch from opera to football — as the offensive line that protects our quarterback.

Initial Kings efforts will be focused on high school juniors and seniors who could enroll in a “Get a Jump on College” program that allows them to take a few core classes online. This program will begin in the spring of 2010 with three courses: Introduction to Politics, Introduction to Economics, and College Writing 1. We hope through this program to encourage bright students to come to Kings.

What to do beyond that is still under discussion by the Kings board, executive committee, and faculty. But I can assure you of this: In all our thinking the core of Kings is and will be classroom education. Our mission remains the same: The teaching of true ideas to bright, hard-working students who will one day lead strategic public and private institutions, and the support of professors as they communicate true ideas right now by writing in and appearing on leading media. We believe that in the end, it is ideas that rule, not armies, and that leaders with true ideas can change the world. We want to get these ideas to leaders around the world.

The question weve been discussing is: What is the best way to teach these true ideas to people we cant bring to Kings? We believe that the Bible is true for all people at all times, and that political, economic, and cultural concepts derived from the Bible are good for people not only in New York but in Beijing, Nairobi, and other cities as well. Online education seems to be a good way to spread these ideas. We are interested in your thoughts about this and welcome your suggestions about ways to promote the global vision of the College.

If we can begin to achieve this goal, we believe the reputation of The Kings College, New York City, will continue to grow. We will not do anything that devalues a Kings degree or suggests to students that theyre better off taking online courses than being here in person. Weve been emphasizing Gothamization for two years and will continue stressing the advantage of our location for its educational challenges, its internship opportunities, its ability to attract distinguished visitors, and its provision of the most impressive campus in the world. No online curriculum can match being here.

Ill conclude with a request: Please help us think about how to get Kings ideas out to the world. The speed of innovation is staggering. New technologies and ideas sprout every hour of the day. We appreciate your suggestions.

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The following report was approved by The King’s Council at a special meeting on Wednesday, November 4^th, 2009. It was approved 8-0 with the representative from QE1 being absent. Minutes of the meeting will be available at http://council.tkc.edu.

Student Committee on Academic Affairs Report

The Student Committee on Academic Affairs met on Friday, October 30th, at 6:00 p.m. in order to prepare a report for The King’s Council in reference to Provost Olasky’s letter soliciting student opinion on online education. In attendance were John Hundscheid (Chair), Penelope Gelwicks (Secretary), Jacob Bedlion, Lucas Croslow, Holly Hall, Laura Herrod, and Andrew Schatz (ex officio). The Committee has prepared the following report:

The Committee wishes to thank Provost Olasky for committing his thoughts regarding online education to writing, and for inviting a student response. This document is respectfully submitted in acceptance of his invitation.

It is the understanding of the Committee that the College is preparing to launch a program in online education in order to more widely disseminate “true ideas” and to generate revenue to support existing operations. The scope of the program as described by Provost Olasky seems to the Committee to be acceptable. New student recruitment, granting of dual enrollment credit, raising the public profile of the College, and supplementing the “brick and mortar” education of existing students are laudable goals and well within students’ understanding of the institution’s mission. The Committee therefore endorses the Provost’s vision for online education, with the following concerns.

First, in implementing online education, the institution will have to make choices about where to allocate resources. This will necessarily affect the “brick and mortar” student experience. For example, if online enrollment swells to great levels, more professors will be needed. The quality of new faculty and the division of their time between online and on-campus work should be of foremost concern. Faculty time is a scarce resource that is already in tremendous demand. The creation of a second major source of demand on faculty’s time will force the institution to make allocative choices between the on-campus and the online divisions of the College. We appreciate the Provost’s commitment to “focus on what happens in our classrooms,” and the Committee agrees that the on-campus experience should take strong priority over online education.

Second, the Committee seeks clarification regarding how the admission process would be conducted for online education. Some institutions offer online courses to anyone who will pay. If King’s does the same, it is essential to brand the online program separately, lest the value of King’s classroom credit be equated with the value of King’s online credit.

Third, it is undeniable that the experience of a King’s class online is drastically different from the traditional King’s experience. Online students will not participate in the House system or other important aspects of student life. Without being on location in New York City, the value of Gothamization will be negligible. The Committee is concerned that reducing the King’s experience to what can be learned in a classroom—and a non-Socratic classroom, at that—cannot adequately train leaders and thus fulfill the College’s vision. The Committee finds it particularly troubling that College Writing I, which the College has always treated as the foundation of the curriculum, is being offered online next semester. It seems counterintuitive to offer a writing class-one of the most interactive, discussion-based, and collaborative classes offered by the College-online.

The King’s College mission is to equip students with both ideas and virtue. This virtue—discipline, professionalism, teachability, and humility—issues from a combination of shaping forces: rigorous classes, living in a community of honor in New York City, and a dynamic academic culture with fellow students. The Committee is concerned about the compatibility of online education with the educational philosophy of the College. Just as one would not want to be treated by a doctor who got his degree online, the true ideas taught at King’s are important enough that they require “field experience” to fully equip a student to wield them.

In light of all the above, the Committee offers the following recommendations:

¶ Treat King’s online credits as transfer credits if a student decides to enroll as a traditional student. This distinction would serve to emphasize the institution’s commitment to traditional education.

¶ Limit the number of credits a student can earn online to sixty, just as we limit the number of transferable credits for incoming students to sixty.

¶ The institution should never consider offering a degree program online. To do so, would be incongruent with the mission, vision, and educational philosophy of the College.

¶ Offer only the most objective, lecture-driven courses online.

¶ Never alter the curriculum or class structure in service of the online program.

¶ Limit the number of students admitted to the online education venture. This is made necessary by the institution’s primary commitment to the traditional educational experience and the overriding importance of preserving the fundamental identity of the College.

The King’s Council is pleased to announce that Kristen Stack (aka K-stack) has been appointed and approved as Director of Finance. Kristen, a senior Business Management major, has extensive experience creating and managing budgets. Her analytical skills and adherance to fiscal responsibility will be crucial in helping the Council achieve its goal of stewarship.

As she says, “Stewardship is utilizing well the gifts and resources that are provided to us. It is foundational because it defines who we are and shapes the decisions we make in all the areas of our lives.” To her, accountability is absolutely central to the mission of not only the Council, but also to the college as a whole. As such it will be a major focus of her work.

Kristen replaces outgoing Director of Finance Angie Giannetti, who resigned due to time constraints.

During the campaign last year, a hot topic was the fact that reading days for the spring semester finals were on the weekend. Many students, myself included, felt that this was a bit silly. If the purpose of a “reading day” is to give us more time to study for the test, why do they fall on the weekend? In the fall, we had two reading days in addition to our normal weekend opportunities for studying, this was not so in the spring.

Now we find ourselves in a similar situation with the exception that one Logan McDonald raised awareness on this issue with more time to deal with it. It appears that our reading days in the spring semester are once again on the weekend. Dr. Bleattler is one of the most prominent faculty members involved in the exciting process of calendar making. I asked him why it was that we had to do all of our reading on the weekends and this was his reply. It has some unfortunate news (accredidation requires a set number of weeks for classes and commencement is already planned) and some relatively good news. With any luck, the Spring of 2011 will have at least one reading day.

-Andrew Schatz

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Dr. Bleattler Wrote:

A number of students have asked me why there are two “real” reading days at the end of the fall semester but two “fake” reading days at the end of the spring semester.  By “fake” they are referring, of course, to the two weekend days between the last day of spring classes and the beginning of finals.   Despite some who believe this to be a cruel joke perpetrated by pointy-headed intellectuals in the Ivory Tower, it just isn’t so.

The reason for the fake rather than real reading days is the timing of the school year calendar.  Each semester we have a week’s worth of days off scattered throughout the calendar (not including Spring Break).  In the fall, the last day of class falls exactly 14 weeks after the first day of class.  Because the last day of finals is always a bit flexible (it can happen anytime up to and including the week before Christmas) we have been able to place two reading days before the beginning of finals.

In the spring it is more complicated.  Because graduation is usually the second Saturday in May, finals must be the previous week.  There is no wiggle room here.  Counting back fourteen weeks from the last day of class you’ll find yourself in early January where the start of the semester is less flexible.  Accordingly, the two weekend days before spring finals have been traditionally designated reading days.

This explains how we got to where we are.

But take heart!  The mysterious powers that be are looking into carving out at least one real reading day for spring 2011.  If they are able to do this, there will be three days free, the two weekend, or fake, days and one real reading day.  My sources tell me that we’ll know if this is going to be possible very soon.

I realize that this does not help out a whole lot for this coming spring.  We’ll at least stop calling those weekend days reading days.  But who knows, perhaps the provost with the help of his able assistants, will hold up his staff and stop the sun from moving and give us a Joshua day.  Stay tuned.

Hello All,

The Media Lab was gracious enough to record an MP3 of the entire conversation today. Please let me or your House President know if you have any thoughts or ideas for what you’d like the Council to do next (with Rugby or anything else).

Shoot me an email if you want the file, I couldn’t find a good way to host it for free on the internet.

Andrew Schatz
aschatz@tkc.edu
Student Body President

The King’s Council is proud to announce that one of our college’s clubs was featured in a national newspaper last week. The Network of Enlightened Women seeks to empower conservative women to understand their beliefs and ideals and to fight radical feminism. They hosted Heritage Foundation Communications Fellow and pro-family speaker Rebecca Hagelin on our campus, and when she returned to DC, she wrote an article in the Washington Times, discussing ways to fight radical feminism on campus. She said the following of our NeW students:

This past week I witnessed the beautiful joy and keen minds of NeW members firsthand. I spoke at King’s College in the heart of New York City and was delighted to find smart, feminine, happy college women who celebrate the uniqueness and strength of their gender – and also admire and value men and chivalry. These young women reflect the same grace that I found in Miss Agness and NeW Executive Director Holly Carter, whom I met several years ago, who are just the type of role models of femininity and intellect that young women need.

Congratulations, women of NeW! Keep up the good work!

Earlier this month,  The King’s Cabinet met with a group of  about 10 incoming students to ask them about how their adjustment to NYC, their initial perception of the Council and to field any concerns they might have. This gave us a good opportunity to see what was going on at King’s from their perspective. One of the issues they raised was the lack of essay writing in “writing placement exam.” This seemed odd to me since the writing placement exam that I took 3 years ago was an AP-style 45-minute essay prompt. I approached Prof. Campbell and in the end I agreed with him that the new, more objective, method is better than the old approach. If you disagree with me, please let me know ASAP. If there is sufficient disagreement, I’ll approach Prof. Campbell again and request that the test be changed.

Below you will see Prof. Campbell’s official response to our conversation. Please continue to bring your concerns to the Council so that a resolution (or at least a fair answer) can be provided. I applaud the freshmen for having the courage to do this in a responsible manner.

-Andrew Schatz, SBP

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In the fall of 2005, the writing faculty at King’s agreed that we needed an additional measure, besides SAT and AP scores, to determine whether students should place out of College Writing 1.  Most standardized tests, we have discovered, are fairly useless as indicators of a student’s actual writing ability.  So we developed a test of our own, which we hoped would measure a student’s preparedness for upper-level writing courses at TKC.

Now, four years later, this test is still a work in progress.  Early versions included a reading comprehension section (as the current version still does) and a 45-minute open essay.  Over the years, however, we have grown increasingly frustrated with our attempts to evaluate students through this test, since its standards are so subjective.  A timed essay can show us clearly which students write well under the gun, but not much else–and even this information has limited value, since students rarely encounter this type of writing situation outside of final exams.  Most students are neither brilliant nor hopeless in essays of this sort, but fall somewhere in a wide, undifferentiated middle, which we had the unlucky task of trying to sort out.  In short, we needed a more objective standard.

So we created the test that we administered for the first time this fall.  After a 15-minute reading comprehension section, students had 45 minutes to identify 20 grammar mistakes in a two-page essay (without knowing how many there were to catch) and to identify two passive-voice sentences.  We did not require that students know the terminology associated with each grammar error (comma splice, misplaced modifier, etc.), only that they identify the flawed sentences and correct them.  For those students who had the opportunity to place out, a passing grade was 14 out of 22 (63%).  The test included several “minor” mistakes, such as an incorrect usage of “who/whom,” a dropped apostrophe, and pronoun disagreements.  But in order to fail the test, a student also had to miss several major grammatical errors, such as run-on sentences, sentence fragments, and subject-verb disagreements–mistakes which indicate, to us, that a student is not at the level we expect by the end of College Writing 1.

Of course, the test still needs refinements.  We recognize that it may not possible to test a student’s writing ability in any meaningful way in 45 minutes.  Good writing is an art that resists attempts to “standardize” or measure it.  On the other hand, there are particular skills related to writing that we can measure objectively, and we will continue to search for the best ways to do so, so that incoming students are placed in the classes that will help them the most.

Prof. Campbell

Last week, The King’s Council passed the following resolution specifically defining stewardship for our body and setting out detailed guidelines for how it will be held accountable to these standards. Read the resolution, and let us know what you think.

Whereas, The account of creation in Genesis 1 demonstrates that men are stewards of the earth, exercising dominion over it only because it is the pleasure of God that they do so; and

Whereas, The Parable of the Talents in Matthew 25 teaches us to exercise care in the disposition of our resources, for he who is faithful with little will be entrusted with much; and

Whereas, this Council wishes to dispel confusion regarding the principles of stewardship and their practical applications, now, therefore, be it

Resolved, by the Houses of The King’s College in Council represented, That The King’s Council is steward, not owner, of the resources entrusted to it by the trustees of The King’s College; and

That these resources are to be deliberately allocated toward the best interests of The King’s College as a whole; and

That the preeminent financial goal of the Council is to achieve maximum value through prudent spending; and

That all financial decisions of the council shall be made with regard to the costs and benefits they entail, following justification by the requester of funds and deliberation by the Council; and

That the Cabinet is accountable to the Student Body President, the Student Body President to the voting members of the Council, and the entire Council to the students and administration of the College to see that the foregoing principles of stewardship are faithfully adhered to; and

That the Treasurer shall provide a complete set of financial statements, consisting of a balance sheet, income statement, and cash flow statement, at each regular meeting of the Council, and that the same shall be made available to the students of the College along with the minutes of the meeting in which it was presented; and

That a complete accounting of all transactions shall be made available on request by any member of the Council; and

That the Treasurer shall make a report, at the request of any two members of the Council, of the projected financial consequences of any measure proposed for the Council’s consideration, given that a budget has been provided by the requester; and

That a two-thirds vote of the Council is required for the adoption of this resolution, and for its amendment or rescindment.

The previous Student Body President was elected under a campaign heavy on school unity (as opposed to students loyal solely to their house).  As a result, an interim Athletic Director (Becca Tingstrom) was appointed to research a sports program that would be directed by The King’s Council and we were given an additional $15,000 to use towards this purpose.

Since one of our values this year is tradition defined as “instilling pride in our heritage and inspiring optimism for our future,” continuing this program has been a priority for the current cabinet. At tomorrow’s meeting, Becca will be available for a phone conference to present her plans to the Council. The current Sports Committee will then present their revised budget and how they hope to adapt her plan to our current situation and the Student Body.

It is now up to the nine House Presidents to make the final decision on how much of the plan we want to pursue. If this is something that you have an opinion on, we encourage you to speak with your House President tonight and attend the meeting tomorrow at 4:30 PM in the Founder’s Room on the 15th floor.

Budget Proposed by the 2009-10 Sports Committee:

Marketing: $826
Men’s Basketball (already allocated by Council): $3,200
Women’s Basketball (in Spring): $3,200
Men’s Soccer: $2,250
Women’s Soccer: $2,250
Soccer Player’s Fees: ($700)

Total Needed: $11,026

Click on the links below for more details:

Sports Budget (as adapted and prepared by the current Sports Committee)

Sports Program Business Plan (as prepared by Becca Tingstrom)

The back-to-school BBQ-turned-hurricane-relief-party has come and gone. I hope you had as much fun as I did watching Boy Meets World and wearing a poncho. The turn-out was great, and I want to personally thank the student body for participating. I also want to publicly recognize the people who made that event happen, as I will try to do with every major event hosted by the King’s Council in the future. First I want to thank Logan McDonald for being so willing to help, at the last minute, by brainstorming ideas for a plan-B event, making that sweet weather video, setting up the media equipment (along with Dr. Salyers), and just being an all-around cool kid. Nick Swedick and Ben Stubbs were also extremely helpful by helping with the Costco run, setting up the lounge, running last minute errands and probably convincing most of the girls in attendance to go the week before with door-to-door visits. They are kind of awesome. Megan Fox, Amber Burgey, Liz Suzio, Blair Muller and Emily Gouge also helped with set-up and clean-up. We couldn’t have done the hurricane party without these talented people. So if you see them around campus this week, be sure to thank them for all of their hard work!

–Lindsey Stoehr, Director of Student Events

Hey Everybody,

Student Development has an exciting meeting coming up on Tuesday and they asked me to publicize it. Clay Cook (Alumni Relations) and his wife, Lyn, have offered to train interested King’s students on how to lead Bible Studies. If you have been asked by your President or Helmsman to lead a small group or if you are just interested in your own personal development, they would love the opportunity to teach from their experience.

The first meeting will be in the Student Services Conference Room on Tuesday, Sept 8th, at 12 noon. Please shoot an email to David Leedy (dleedy@tkc.edu) if you are interested in coming.

Yours,

Andrew Schatz
Student Body President