The Death Knell for Tenure

Email from friend:

What professor is going to have time to look at student papers with attached video? Papers will now be spec'd by time? Instead of 1000 words, 5 minutes of the prof's time? Wirelessness reveals what a college always has been, a virtual institution. Goodbye bricks and mortar. They'll be selling courseware, and prof's time and attention instead of room and board, and classroom and lectures.

Link was provided to an article in the NYTimes about Dartmouth College in New Hampshire along the CT river.

My reply:

Re: Dartmouth - Tenure is overrated and soon, very soon, we will see faculty free agency where the students follow the teachers rather than the institution (exept in the case of big time sports clubs). That is, star teachers will be able to teach around the globe and you are right, teachers will be instructing from their virtual home studios and cashing in directly.

Article Slice:

It's not that he doesn't like them or doubts his teaching ability, but Thomas H. Luxon, an English professor at Dartmouth College here, wants to see his students less next semester, hoping they will learn a lot more without having to look at him in a classroom.

...Officials added that the system is secure because the video component is not installed on computers, but instead is downloaded every time it is used. But for right now, faculty and staff like Cynthia Pawlek, associate librarian of the college, are focused on how the network will change teaching and learning here.

"The possibilities are really endless," she said