1. If students are primarily going to college to get a good job (and, consequently, good jobs are requiring college degrees), should the focus of Higher Education be more on vocational training rather than well-rounded education? Why or why not?

2. Do you think that a liberal arts education succeeds in creating a critical thinking, complex-reasoning individual who can contribute innovation to the workplace?

3. If means of personal education is highly accessible nowadays due to technology, should society place such a strong emphasis on going to college? Is there an inherent factor within the college system that makes it more worthwhile than seeking knowledge on one’s own?

4. How could a capitalist society go about transforming its ideals to place a larger focus on social equality rather than economic incentive?

5. How do students who aren’t adequately prepared to be critical thinking, complex reasoning individuals factor into the national (and global) economy?

1. Why do we place so much value on graduation rates as a measure of a college’s success if they don’t tell us the whole educational picture?
2. Do the educational benefits of diversity validate the idea of a quota system?
3. Could an institution’s mission affect how that institution approaches the demographics of its student body?
4. How does gender affect the idea of diversity and an institution’s quota system?
5. Affirmative action has the potential to push students of a certain group to institutions that they aren’t academically ready for, thus creating a problem not in access to higher education, but completion. How could admissions be changed to combat this “false sense of opportunity”?

Could MOOC’s be a viable alternative for students ill prepared for college-level work?

Hybrid programs are shown to have promising results but are quite expensive. Are they worth the cost?

How do MOOC’s affect the traditional role of professors as course creators/facilitators? Do they limit professors or free them?

Will MOOC degrees have as much power as traditional degrees? Should they?

Could/Should Higher Education institutions use MOOC’s as prior learning assessments to help competency based evaluations?

Who governs MOOC’s?

Though some MOOC’s have no monetary fee, they can be personally invasive. Are free MOOC’s really free/worth it?

3/6 History of Higher Education

Though Higher Education as a system has its roots in personal enrichment, Higher Education in the U.S. had a strong public-focused base. Should Higher Education in the U.S. focus more on personal growth or aiding the public good?

Higher Education prepares prospective professors more for the research side of academia while the teaching side is often neglected, leaving professors to be drawn to research universities and favoring research over instruction. This process aids in mission creep and can lead to under-prepared students, creating poor efficacy within the Higher Education system and, consequently, in the job market and society as a whole. If neglecting the teaching side of professorship has such negative consequences, why neglect it?

3/13 History of CUNY

City College ended up falling prey to under-prepared students once it started open admissions, leading to a plethora of remedial classes and college dropouts. Are we trying to fix the problem from the wrong end? How can we help restructure K-12 in order to create students that are prepared for Higher Education and, later, life?

How can the Higher Education system measure academic potential in a student?

How did veterans factor into City College’s academic profile and revolutionary student body in the 1960s?

3/20 Governance

Many Presidents of Higher Education institutions are often looking for ways to leave their impact on their school in order to gain a list of accomplishments in order to find a higher salary in a more prestigious institution. If mission creep affects presidents, how might their actions affect the educational experience of the students?

If mission creep is leading to various institutional, administrative, and financial burdens, why don’t Higher Education institutions reevaluate their missions to be more niche and stratify the landscape rather than trying desperately to seek to be “the next Harvard?”

If a President is the face and chief fundraiser of a college/university, would it actually pay off for a president to embody the mission of their institution?