Mr. Jefferson’s University and Disruptive Technology in Higher Education.

As many of you may know I received my graduate degrees (M.S. and Ph.D.) from The University of Virginia.  However, more than just providing me a credential and a couple of pieces of paper to hang on my wall, my six years at “The University” had a greater effect on my development as a person than probably any other period in my life.  As a consequence of my experiences there, Mary Jo and I often take a break on our trips north and spend the night in Charlottesville.  While it is a convenient half-way point to and from central New York, it also provides me the opportunity to tread the brick walkways upon which Jefferson once passed, admire the Serpentine Walls he designed, and reflect upon the intellectual growth I experienced in that place.

Due to my strong feelings for UVa I have paid a great deal of attention to the recent events at the institution that have led to the ouster of its recently appointed President, Teresa Sullivan.  While I am not privy to the discussions that took place among the Board of Visitors (Trustees) and their Rector (Chair), a great deal of information has been published about the discussions that led to her resignation.  At its simplest level there seems to have been a disagreement between the Board and the President about the pace of change at The University, particularly as it pertained to the adoption of on-line education.  In particular, email correspondence seemed to indicate that the board was concerned that some “bricks and mortar” institutions were moving decisively in the direction of on-line learning (Stanford was mentioned specifically) while UVa was not.  If we leave aside the notion of whether two years is a long enough period for a President to assert a particular academic vision, the issue of whether web-based and internet technologies are in fact a disruptive technology that will permanently alter higher education, as the Board of Visitors apparently felt, is an issue worth some discussion.

One article that was mentioned in the emails between the two Board members, was an op-ed piece by David Brooks that appeared in the New York Times some months ago.  In this article, Mr. Brooks asserts that just as web-based and internet technologies have completely disrupted the business of gathering and providing information (creating a serious challenge to traditional print media), these same technologies are going to disrupt higher education, permanently altering how learning is accomplished.  Further, any institution of higher education that ignores on-line learning does so at its own peril.

The question I would ask, and ask us all to reflect upon, is: Is this true?  Does the advent of web-based and internet technologies mean the end is near for the traditional notions of university and campus?

I admit I come at this from a particular point of view that holds the traditional university in extremely high regard, and as a consequence I may be blind to the current realities.  However, one reality I am not blind to is that those of us that work within the structures of the traditional university are the defenders of a thousand-year tradition; a tradition that forms a foundation of our civilization,  This is a human tradition that should not be lightly discarded.

If one looks at aspects of our humanity that tie us together within a university community, one of the things that I am struck by is that people seem predisposed to make connections, to view patterns in the world.  Evidence for this can be clearly seen when you look at the night sky.  While each individual star may be separated by thousands of light years, our perception, and our desire to make connections between these randomly scattered dots, creates the constellations and the stories and myths on how they were placed in the sky.  On a more worldly scale, our ability to connect facts and historical occurrences into conspiracy theories also speaks to a human desire to connect the unconnectable into a coherent framework.  While my discipline is Neuroscience, I am not a Cognitive Scientist but suspect that this ability to make connections is a consequence of how our brain works and is a key aspect of our human nature.

As the examples of the constellations and the conspiracy theories might suggest our ability to connect random features of our experience may not be predictable.  That is, the story of the pattern in the sky was developed as a consequence of viewing the supposed pattern.  The story emerged as we viewed the complex features; the myth is an emergent property of our civilization as we attempt to create order in the world.  In addition to the stories about the constellations, we make more rational, yet still serendipitous, connections as we develop our intellectual abilities over our lifetimes.  In my view, traditional universities are created to foster these connections in a way that is not predictable.  If these connections are lost, we will lose something as a civilization, just as the expansion of web-based internet technologies has destroyed some valuable aspects of traditional print media.  As an example, in my personal experience I owe a great deal of my scientific career to random connections between disparate facts that would not have occurred within the current, largely electronic, system of disseminating scientific information.

Back in 1988 I was looking in the journal “Science” for the registration form to apply to attend a Gordon Research Conference in Chronobiology (at the time I studied circadian rhythms in marine snails).  As I looked for the page where the form was located I landed one page too soon.  On that page was an article concerning the mathematical modeling of the cell division cycle.  In the abstract of that article the authors described the nature of their model which reminded me of something I had learned back in graduate school about how circadian clocks were analyzed.  As a consequence, I began a series of studies that attempted to tie some of the biochemical processes that controlled cell division to similar processes controlling circadian rhythms. Ten years, two NSF grants, six papers, 11 presentations, 2 graduate students, and 16 undergraduates later I moved fully into academic administration after an enjoyable and productive research career.  The important point is that I never would have embarked on this journey today.  Today I would have gone on-line and down-loaded the form.  I never would have skipped the page with the registration form; I never would have seen the article on cell division; I never would have been reminded of an obscure fact from six years earlier in graduate school.  Also, no search engine would have been able to make that connection.  No matter how much Facebook or Google knew about me, they never would have tossed a cell-division article into the column of “sponsored ads” or “featured links” on my computer screen.

This superposition of randomness leading to a transforming experience happens every day in a traditional university.  Just yesterday, at the first-year orientation event in the Edwards courtyard, I was speaking to a group of Marine Science students when Dr. Renee Smith came by with a flyer outlining the various courses and programs available in the Philosophy Department.  Being somewhat of a “philosophy groupie” I listened and agreed with her as she explained how many of their course offerings were relevant to students pursuing degree programs in the College of Science.  As the students listened and looked over the brochure one then asked: “what is Metaphysics?”  To this Dr. Smith began a detailed discourse on the nature of reality, existence of God, the value of perception, and the meaning of perception.  The students stood in rapt attention, and clearly had their minds opened to the intellectual possibilities that come about when interested minds meet interesting people.  The most important thing about this interaction is that it never would have occurred if the students were sitting at home in front of a computer screen looking at an orientation web-based tutorial on how to access their grades on the Blackboard course management system.

Now it is clear that web-based and internet technologies will play a prominent role in our ability to access information; particularly as we require the incorporation of new knowledge into our own particular intellectual framework over our lifetimes.  However, if we replace all aspects of education by a packaged and predictable system of access, that throws away the random connections that occur in physical spaces as we interact face-to-face, we will lose something extremely important.  We will lose the ability to make connections from seemingly random facts, and as a consequence never see pathways worth exploring, or beautiful patterns in the sky, as we grow as intellectual beings. 

It is not that we ignore web-based and internet technologies at our peril as David Brooks wrote.  In truth, we ignore the traditional university at our peril.  Without the delightful randomness of the interactions at the university we will ultimately fail as a civilization.  This is the tragedy taking place at the University of Virginia; that the leadership of the Board of Visitors failed to understand that you cannot necessarily predict, plan, market and sell, those things that make the University of Virginia, and all universities, a great and enduring foundation of our civilization.

MHRoberts UVa ’81, ‘84

Loss

I saw on the news and then read on-line that a young gay man killed himself in Buffalo last weekend.  This young man had been mentioned as part of the “It Gets Better” initiative and had produced a series of YouTube videos talking about his struggles with teasing and bullying.  However, for this young man there was clearly not enough time for it to “get better”.

Each time I read these stories of teen suicide I feel a sense of anguish over the lost potential, the loss of these lives from their friends, family – and the world.  Each time a young person decides that dying is the best option for escaping their personal situation, it is deeply tragic.

I feel a connection to the struggles of these young people, not only because I was bullied in high school, but for a different and somewhat convoluted reason.  As many of you may know, I was working at Pace University on September 11, 2001.  Given the proximity of the university to the World Trade Center I watched the towers fall, breathed the dust of their destruction and spent the latter part of that day walking the length of Manhattan to my home in the Bronx.  While no one I know personally was killed in the attack, seeing the towers fall, and knowing that I had witnessed a thousand people die, was a horrible experience.

Some time later – possibly several months – I was watching a documentary about the attacks that had been produced by a team of French filmmakers, who were at the site on that date.  Part of the film included interviews with first responders in a staging area prior to them being mobilized and heading up into the towers.  At one point the interviewer was speaking to a firefighter while there were occasional “thumps” in the background.  The fireman was asked what those noises were.  He responded: “jumpers”.  The interviewer then asked the somewhat stupid question: “how does hearing that make you feel?”  The Firefighter had a haunted look on his face and answered: “how do you think it makes me feel?  My job is to go up into that place.  A place where those people consider jumping out to be the better option.”

His statement continues to stick in my mind:  A place where jumping out is the better option.  The environment in those towers was so awful, so hopeless, that the reasonable choice was to kill yourself.  Through those attacks, an environment was created where people, through no fault of their own, were faced with a horrible choice, and the better decision was to die by their own hand.

When I think of this young man in Buffalo who died, I have such a feeling of sadness that he was living in an environment where dying was the better option.  His experience at school caused him so much pain, that just like the “jumpers” on 9/11, he felt that killing himself was his best choice.

I find it profoundly disturbing that we, as a society, are creating an environment for some young gay men, where they consider suicide as the reasonable option.  Each time someone flippantly says: “That’s so gay” or “don’t be such a homo”, we are figuratively flying an airplane into the twin towers of their life – their self identity and self respect – creating an intolerable place for them to exist, where they feel their better option is to jump.

9/11 Reminiscence

Coming out of the subway at the entrance near 1 Pace Plaza, you can see about the top third of the twin towers of the WTC.  However, from seeing them everyday, their size was not nearly as impressive as it had been when I first started coming down to Pace's Manhattan campus on a regular basis.  However, I do recall on many an occasion seeing them as a comfortable landmark, as I walked around downtown during lunch breaks and shopping expeditions.

I arrived in my office on the 16th floor of 41 Park Row at about 8:15.  This building, the site of many Pace administrative offices is about 4 blocks from the WTC complex.  I had a Biology 101 laboratory that met in the main building (1 Pace Plaza) at 9:05.  I pushed some paper around my desk, and ran an up-to-date class roster off my computer.  After finishing my coffee, I left the office at about 8:45, taking the elevator down to the street.  As I left the building and walked across Pace Plaza, I noticed that the groups of students that congregated in the area waiting for classes to start were all looking up into the air toward the WTC.  I remember thinking to myself, with some amusement: "Don't these people know that New Yorkers NEVER stare up at buildings."  Following their lead I looked up as well, and saw black sooty smoke rising from near the top of the North Tower.  I thought it was a fire, but since I had recently read an article (maybe 3-4 months ago) about the fire fighting systems in the WTC, I don't recall feeling much concern at this point.

As I looked up I overhead a student on a cell phone saying: "It flew right into it".  I walked over to ask him what had happened, noticing for the first time the hole in the side of the building.  He told me that an airplane had just flown into the building.  I asked him what kind of plane, and he said that it was a jet "at least the size of a 737".  I now thought that we had all witnessed a tragic air accident.  Even before I had arrived at the Plaza, sirens were going as police and fire trucks raced up Park Row.  The response time was probably longer than this, but it seemed that it had only taken seconds before the first police cars went by.

Not thinking anything more was going on, I headed into the building and up to the third floor for my class.  I got into the laboratory at about 8:55 or so, and dropped off some stuff in my departmental office next to the lab.  A few students had begun to straggle in so I split my time between the lab and the prep area to listen to the radio that had been tuned to the news station 1010WINS.  A little after nine (turns out it was 9:08) I heard some commotion in the hallway outside the lab and went out to see what had happened.  A student said that the south tower "just exploded".  I looked up and there was now another smear of black sooty smoke coming from that tower, somewhat lower than where the fire was on the north tower.  I should note that from this window, you can't see the north tower, only the south tower is visible above the buildings (150 Nassau Street, I think).

At this time the group of us watching assumed that debris from the first airplane must have caused some damage to the south tower, leading to the explosion.  However, a student down the hall, who must have had a radio, said that another plane had hit.  I went back into the prep area and heard the announcer on the radio, stating with a great deal of concern and excitement that indeed a plane had hit the south tower.  I went into the class to let the students know that we were clearly experiencing some type of attack, and were not simply witnesses to a serious accident.

Overall the students seemed calm, so I began to talk about the subject matter for the first class (microscopes and how to use them).  We did talk briefly as to who may had organized the attack, with many of us assuming it was Bin Laden.  While I was talking to the class, one of the faculty came in to ask if I had heard anything about classes being canceled.  I said that I hadn't but called up to the Dean's office to inquire.  The receptionist said that she had not heard anything.  I went back into my class and told them we may be breaking up early.  We continued to discuss Biology, as well as geopolitics, until there was another commotion in the hallway.  I went out again just in time to see the top of the south tower lean over slightly to the east, and then collapse downward fading into a rising cloud of smoke and dust.  I recall saying "Oh my God!" to no one in particular, and also thinking that I just saw a thousand people die (this was probably a low estimate).  While this was a horrible experience, it didn't really hit me for several days, as I will explain a little later.

After a slight delay, a huge wave (I estimated it at the time to be 6 stories high; I later determined it was at least 16 stories high) of dust and debris came rolling from between the buildings on Beekman Street across from the Downtown Hospital parking lot.  The wave poured over our building, creating a white-out.  As I looked out the window it began to "snow" a fine powdery ash.  I went back into the class and told the students that, needless to say, we were not going to be doing any more Biology today.  Every one was very calm.  The phones in the offices still worked at this point so students began to take turns using faculty phones to call friends and family to say they were OK.  Most of the students managed to get through to someone, although a few remained quite worried.  I called my parents leaving a message for them to inform all they could that I was OK.  A smell of smoke and fire began to be noticeable in the building, so the Chemistry Chair called the facilities staff to have the ventilation shut off.  This was done and the air didn't get any worse.

At some time after the collapse some of the Pace security staff came by to tell us that we should go down to the east side of the building and into the gym.  We waited around a bit to ensure that everyone in and around the labs was aware of what was going on.  We also began to discuss when and how we were going to leave.  We (a group of Biology and Chemistry faculty/students) decided we would leave the building and walk north to upper Manhattan.  While we were discussing this we heard another roar.  Based upon what we had experienced just a half-hour before, we knew that this was the north tower coming down.  Again, I went to the window and saw the wave of dust and debris wash over the building.  Obviously, our plans for leaving were delayed.

After about 30 minutes of "ash snow" we determined it was time to go.  Three of us decided to leave, while the others decided to stay for a little while longer to let more ash settle.  We scoured the Anatomy lab for some particle masks which we thought we might need to protect ourselves from the dust.  Between the three of us we only found two.  We left the building from a door near the loading dock on the far eastern end of the building and headed north on Gold Street.  There was a large exodus of people heading north and we joined the throng.  We passed police headquarters and picked up some drinks that were being handed out at a CVS pharmacy.

I am not sure what road we took at this point, but I think we took a slight left onto St James Place and then up to Canal; I know we did end up turning west on Canal and headed to Broadway.  We took a right and started walking up Broadway, along with a stream of people.  No one was panicking; just a determined and friendly mob moving north.  All along our journey we noticed interesting Manhattan sights.  One of our group was a long-time New Yorker and had tid-bits of information about each neighborhood:  SoHo, NoHo, Union Square, Flatiron.  I had never seen the Flatiron Building; in spite of the circumstances, and the smoke rising over lower Manhattan as I looked down Fifth Avenue, it was an interesting sight - a very nice looking building.

We continued north to Times Square and watched with the others who were watching the TV screen and "news ticker".  It seemed that most were watching in stunned silence (as were we).  Since this is New York, we did see a confrontation between a jerk who didn't want to obey the "walk" light, a cabbie, and a Times Square Business District security guard who was trying to direct traffic.  The jerk tried to appeal to the crowd that his position in the argument was valid.  No one seemed to care.  A few blocks further north I asked a policeman if Grand Central had any trains heading north.  He said that no underground trains were running, but that the elevated lines in Queens were running, as was the Long Island Railroad.

We continued our march north until we reached Columbus Circle and 59th Street.  One member of our group lived on "the Island", so decided that he would head east and then take the 59th Street (Queensboro) bridge and catch a train.  The two of us who remained continued up Broadway to the Upper West Side.  Since we were beginning to get tired, we began to think about public transportation or a cab.  We had not really seen any buses and had noticed that all the subway stations we passed were closed.  We had noticed a fair number of cabs, but they all were filled.  However somewhere in the "90's" (I think) we managed to hail a cab.  I tried the rear door; it was locked - a bad sign.  He lowered his front passenger window and asked where we were going.  We said "uptown" - I wanted to go up to one of the northern bridges to the Bronx, and my colleague lived in "Hudson Heights" near the George Washington Bridge.  The cabbie said "no"; he would only go downtown.  I pointed out to him that "there was no downtown", but he didn't care.  He drove off while we pondered the procedure to reporting him to the taxi and limousine commission (it is illegal in NYC for a yellow cab to turn down "street hails").  A little further along we had a similar experience with another cab.  This guy was a little nicer in that he told us he "thought" trains were running out of 125th Street.

We decided to continue north to 125th and try to catch a bus.  We had begun to notice buses going by, but they were all packed.  We made it up to 125th and turned east toward Amsterdam Avenue.  Shortly after we arrived a new bus arrived (this was near the beginning of the M100 route).  We boarded the bus after realizing that it was only going to go as far as 168th Street.  However I had seen on the kiosk that at 168th I could catch a Bx7 that would take me to Riverdale.  At 168th we stopped behind another bus.  I quickly got off thinking that it was the Bx7.  It was.  Just to be sure I asked the driver if he went to Riverdale (those who know me will know that I don't trust buses!).  He said that no, he was stopping at 220th, and I would have to walk over the Broadway Bridge into Marble Hill and get another bus - all the bridges were closed.

The bus started off and quickly got stuck in a traffic jam.  After about three blocks I began to get annoyed and got off.  I continued walking north past the GWB and into Inwood.  I stopped and got a drink at a pizza place.  I eventually reached the Broadway Bridge, making better time than the cars that had come in from 10th Avenue.  I walked over the bridge and into the Bronx.  I really felt I was coming home.  I headed up to 230th street and turned west.  As I neared the intersection with Riverdale Avenue, I was asked by a woman in a car what the traffic was like up ahead.  I asked her where she was going and she said "Washington Heights".  I told her she was better off parking her car and walking to the subway station (the 1-9 was running south at this point).  She thanked me for the information and I continued on.   I finally got home at 5:30, six and a half hours after I left 1 Pace Plaza.

Generally I am doing fine.  In some respects my walking tour of Manhattan was kind of fun.  I saw parts of the city that I may never see again.  However, parts of my experience have not been fun as the reality has sunk in.  I mentioned before that I didn't really "feel" the experience of the towers falling.  Unfortunately, as I read the stories of the missing and realize that people's husbands, wives, sons, daughters, mothers and fathers were in the building I saw fall, I find waves of sadness coming over me.  While I cried quite a bit on Wednesday, feelings of despair come over me unexpectedly - quite often when I read another story.  I have been told by friends to stop reading the paper.

Today (9/20) I went back to my office in NYC (I had been going to work in Pleasantville). 

The hole in the sky is still there; I don't know when it will be filled......
 

Additions:

1) Cathy asked me yesterday if I was scared at all during the events.   I honestly do not remember feeling afraid at all.  In spite of the unusual nature of what was happening (it is not usual to see buildings fall, and to have one's own building cloaked in an ash cloud), I never felt in any danger.  This may have been a stress response on my part, since I do recall thinking that I should not be at the window as the ash cloud arrived - I went into the inner labs as we were covered.

2) I went down to the WTC today 9/24 (or at least as far as they let you go) after having my lunch at the Seaport.  I had to tell a group of tourists how to get to the WTC (I guess I look "native").  I considered saying "it isn't there anymore", but instead was nice and showed them where to go.  After all, I really couldn't be too mean to them since I was going there as well.  The destruction seems MUCH greater from street level than from those aerial shots they show on TV.....  not a pretty sight.  There were rather large crowds walking slowly down the street.....  everyone was quite quiet and respectful.  A few objected to the police admonitions to keep moving along (this is New York, after all), but overall an orderly (albeit crowded) scene.

3) I went for lunch at the Seaport again today (9/27).  The whole "no cars" thing down here is getting to be a bit weird.  Also the loss of 100,000 lunch-time revelers (the estimate of the number of people in and around the WTC who are now working elsewhere) gives the area a strange feel.  This area, that used to be so bustling, now has the air of a formerly decayed downtown of a small city that was "revitalized" with cash.  Lots of lovely restored buildings, but no people.  Tourists:  listen up!  no crowds.....  cheap restaurants....  visit NYC!

4) Closer to Pace today (9/27/01), I walked along the street behind the NYU Downtown Hospital.  There is a wall with lots of "missing persons" posters.  Next to that a large crowd was gathered around the loading dock.  Workers on the dock were distributing teddy bears and other stuffed animals to local residents.  The contrast between the sadness of the posters with the generosity of strangers, exemplified by the teddy bear shipment, created another one of those strange emotional waves I've been getting.