"Where We Shine" is a "review of four innovative (Ball State) programs." Or that title is how the current issue of the Ball State "Alumnus" magazine describes "excellence" in this academic milieu.
Marked by excellence, the magazine proclaims, architecture, nursing, communications and the art museum "are leading the university into a new generation of learning."
How is "excellence" defined? What is this "new generation of learning?" What may we nonachievers learn from the "excellence" of BSU's very best? People of BSU "excellence" should bestow their privileged knowledge upon the rest of us. Not their budgets, just their knowledge?
Architecture, nursing, communications and the art museum are really not part of any definitive academic/liberal arts focus. They drift towards the milieu of "professional schools" -- for undergraduates. The liberal arts are distinguished from professional and technical subjects. No university was ever started to program computers, to police accountants, to train prison guards, or turn on television cameras.
Classical definitions of what a university is are grounded in literature, philosophy, languages, history, art, math, politics, economics, sociology and cultural subjects.
However, the department of art is not included. The museum of art is. The emphasis is on professionalism of architecture, communication, nursing and the art museum -- and not are core content traits of these endeavors.
Andrea Paul writes about "Researching communities: Building Futures Institute." Laurel Peffer writes about "Classroom for a new age: iCommunication." Denise Greer writes on "Education beyond campus: The Graduate Nursing Program." Sara Billups concludes with "Renovating a masterpiece: The Museum of Art." Two common failings mark these essays.
First, they tell readers nothing about where (what national publications) these BSU programs rank on a national or even international scale. If architecture, communications, nursing and the art museum are excellent, how does each program rank nationally? Without indicators of national prestige, these essays fall into categories of "puff pieces." If so, that reality is a disservice to the excellence of the BSU units so advertised.
Second, no unit budgets are mentioned. Excellent academic programs also reflect effective use of government money. Honest-to-goodness excellence has a bargain quality to it. Are these programs client-consumer-student bargains?
These short-comings do not end the review of excellence at architecture, communications, nursing, and the art museum. What method or methods did "Alumnus" editor, Charlotte Shepperd, employ to determine BSU academic "excellence"? Was some semblance of an ordinal scale used, as criteria, for selecting excellent BSU programs?
Also, if architecture, communications, nursing and the art museum "shine," why do the rest of us "not shine"? Maybe non-innovative programs suffer from "trickle down acanomics"?
Excellence, in its various forms, is based on the cultural context of a particular function.
Readers are not told why and how these programs rank nationally. No mention is made of the context of why these essays appear in the "Alumnus" -- now.
Finally, who decided this assembly of innovative, excellent and shining BSU programs? And how was the decision made? Inquiring minds want to know.
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