# Two metaphors for professors and course delivery, comparing North America and China


I have described the historical and contextual background for the Top
Level Courses Project, and compared it with the MIT OpenCourseWare
project using a typology based on four different purposes. I have also
discussed the possible impact of the MIT OpenCourseWare project
conceptualized as either a norm or a policy innovation. However, what
about reversing the picture, and asking: what are the chances that the
Top Level Courses Project could be a policy innovation that might
inspire North America? Apart from the decentralized higher education
system in North America, which probably makes a similar project led by
the federal or even a state government an impossibility, there is
another factor which makes it difficult to conceptualize the
implementation of a similar system even within a single university.

To explain this, and to illustrate what I believe to be a fundamental
but little commented upon difference between the two university systems,
I will propose two different metaphors for conceptualizing a professor,
and the act of teaching a course: *The professor as an artist and the
course as a masterpiece, or the professor as an artisan, and the course
a piece of craftmanship.*

What we today call the multiversity does not have one single historical
lineage, but brings together a number of different traditions. However,
academics have since the early universities in Bologna and Paris
struggled to establish a respected profession, with limited entry, that
was largely self-managing. William Clark (2006) describes the
“charismatic academics” that emerged in the 18th Century, that
cultivated their charisma by insisting on their professorial dignity and
by gathering admirers of their lecturing and research achievements. This
emergence is related to the development of a specific university model,
as symbolized by Humboldt University in Germany, originally the
University of Berlin, where professors were given “Lehr und
Lernfreiheit”, or the freedom to teach and research (Kopetz 2002). This
led to the idea of “academic superstars”, even though in the current
research universities, the way to fame has changed from applauding
students attending your lecture, to publishing in the most prestigious
journals.

If we think of this “charismatic academic” with a spark of genius as an
artist, and their courses as master pieces, a number of things become
clear. Although the patron of an artist would hope to see the artist
deliver a string of masterpieces, one would never thoroughly examine a
masterpiece to provide feedback on how next year’s artwork could be
“even better”. Even less would one want an artwork designed by
committee. Thus a tenured professor in North America is usually free to
teach more or less what he or she wants, and although there is a system
of student evaluations, there is no rigorous quality improvement system.
The same academics that willingly submit their research to review by
their peers, will not accept anyone sitting in on their classes, to
offer friendly advice at the end, and a course tends to be a personal
achievement that disappears when an academic disappears, developed
alone, and not shared with others.

However, this is not the only historical model of a university. Husén
(1991) introduced four different historical models of the university.

-   The Humboldtian research university, where research and teaching
  interacted from the very beginning.
-   The British residential model, with close informal contact between
  students and professors
-   The French grandes écoles, intellectually and socially elite
  institutions as part of a state-directed, meritocratic society,
  featuring only teaching and no research.
-   The Chicago model, with a strong focus on the liberal arts.

If we look at the two first models listed, the Humboldtian research
university, and the British residential model, they both focus on
charismatic academics, and the idea that teaching did not need to be
carefully planned to be successful, merely coming into contact with a
great professor, and working with them in a form of apprenticeship, or
mentor-mentee relationship, would be sufficient.

The French model, on the other hand, was much more centralized, where
professors were hired as civil servants who helped produce future
bureaucrats and political leaders. This was a much more goal-oriented
system, and it separated research from teaching. Because of cultural
affiliations, the French system had a large impact on Russian higher
education, which began the introduction of technical higher education in
1809 with creating copies of the grandes écoles. This highly
state-directed system also suited the Soviet Union, and was the
inspiration for the system that would eventually be transmitted to China
in the 1950’s (as we have seen in chapter two) (Gouzevitch 1995).

The significance of separating research from teaching is profound,
because it implies a specific epistemological view. According to Hayhoe
(2008, 29):

> Within Soviet Communism, knowledge was seen as encyclopaedic,
> embracing all of the subject matter developed over human history. Thus
> the major subject disciplines developed in 19th century Europe were
> preserved in the curricula of secondary and tertiary institutions.

If you believe that knowledge is “encyclopaedic”, it is possible to
centralize and organize the teaching of this knowledge in very
standardized forms. The purpose of a university degree becomes to
transmit a certain body of knowledge, and one can measure and improve
the delivery mechanism. In the German system, education could be seen
not as transmitting a body of knowledge, but as cultivating certain
attitudes and modes of thought among the students, training them to
think scientifically.

Although these two models differ significantly in their view of
epistemology, the act of delivering a course would still be entrusted to
a single teacher. Distance universities offer a very different image of
an academic, and the development of a course. At the Open University in
the United Kingdom, whenever a new course needs to be developed, a
committee is put together. This will typically consist of subject
specialists, instructional designers, media specialists and web
designers. The development of a new course typically takes several
years. Once the course has been designed, it can then be offered to a
large number of people (Bissell and Williams 2008).

Above we suggested that in the traditional research university, a
professor could be seen as an artist, producing masterpieces. The
distance university mode of production suggests a very different
metaphor, one of an artisan. An artisan is skilled at what he or she
does, but it can be learnt. He or she may work alone or together with a
group of people towards a well-defined goal. The most important aspect
is that the final product is improvable, it can be tested and evaluated,
and it can be improved upon.

Just as not all courses in North America are developed following the
untouchable masterpiece metaphor, academics in China certainly do not
fully adhere to the artisan metaphor. However, there is a very different
tradition for developing courses, and improving on these in concert with
others. Some of this comes from a history of a very centralized
curriculum, and a lack of academic freedom and professorial autonomy.
But some of this humbleness and willingness to work together, and to
improve, would surely be welcome in North America as well.

Thus the Ministry of Education is intent on promoting teaching teams
consisting of senior, mid-career and young academics, to promote
knowledge transfer and the involvement of senior faculty in
undergraduate education. Courses have often been developed over a
twenty-year period, in some cases being handed from mentor to mentee.
Courses also regularly undergo internal and external peer-review, and
many of the informants spoke of the way this had allowed them to reflect
on their teaching methods, and share good ideas with colleagues. That
all seems like a very sensible approach, although one that would be very
difficult to implement in a system still characterized by the image of
artists and divine inspiration.

However, it is possible that things will be changing at North American
universities as well. Distance and online learning is already growing at
a very high pace, not just at traditional open universities, but at all
institutions of learning. Because of the technical requirements, and the
mode of delivery, these courses often end up being produced much more
collaboratively.

This might have an impact on regular courses as well. James Bess (2000)
has proposed that college teaching is so complex that its various roles
cannot be expected to be filled by only one person. There are many
different cognitive roles involved with developing and delivering a
course, and Bess identified seven: content research, instructional
design, instructional delivery, discussion leading, content/activity
integration, assessment, and mentoring. Collaborative teams might be
able to provide more comprehensive service to students than individual
teachers. It would also mitigate the current “intellectual and physical
isolation of the faculty member as teacher”, and the resulting “paucity
of opportunities for significant reward” which Bess believes plagues the
North American system (p. 2). In light of this perspective, perhaps
North America could learn something from the Chinese Top Level Courses
Project.

* * * * *

The quotes in this text is from the MA Thesis "The Chinese National Top
Level Courses Project: Using Open Educational Resources to Promote
Quality in Undergraduate Teaching" by Stian Håklev, University of
Toronto 2010.

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