Archive
Everything, in one list
Thirteen pages under four sections. The front page carries six of them; this page carries all of them.
- 01 · The hour as a containerThe Carnegie unit
A unit of seat-time devised around 1906 to make transfer between institutions possible still governs how a degree is assembled.
- 02 · The hour as a containerCredit hours in a bachelor's degree, assembled fifteen at a time
The arithmetic of a degree is a total to be accumulated, which shapes scheduling, staffing and what a semester can contain.
- 03 · The hour as a containerThe hour as a container
Seat-time measures exposure rather than learning, which is the criticism the unit has carried since it was invented.
- 04 · Who says a degree countsA private committee certifies the degree. The government pays for it.
American accreditation is carried out by private bodies, and the federal role is exercised through funding eligibility rather than approval.
- 05 · Who says a degree countsRegional against national accreditors
The two categories are not tiers of quality but different histories, and transfer credit is where the difference bites.
- 06 · Who says a degree countsWhat a site visit actually is
Peer review by visiting academics against published standards, on a cycle, with a report that is not always public.
- 07 · Thirty thousand acres a seatThirty thousand acres a seat
The 1862 Morrill Act funded colleges by granting federal land in proportion to congressional representation, and the land was elsewhere.
- 08 · Thirty thousand acres a seatWhere the acreage went, state by state
The grants were sold rather than settled, and tracing what was sold and to whom is a documented and uncomfortable history.
- 09 · Thirty thousand acres a seatThe second Morrill Act, and the institutions it created
The 1890 Act extended the settlement on segregated terms and founded a distinct group of institutions that still exist.
- 10 · A weighted composite is an opinionA weighted composite is an editorial position
Every ranking is a set of chosen indicators with chosen weights, and the weights are the argument.
- 11 · A weighted composite is an opinionWhat a reputation survey measures
Peer-assessment scores are substantially autocorrelated with previous rankings, which is documented.
- 12 · A weighted composite is an opinionThe indicators that actually move a position
Small changes in a heavily weighted input produce large movements, which is why positions are unstable at the margin.
- 13 · A weighted composite is an opinionOnline delivery, and what the accreditors decided counted
Correspondence courses, the Open University's 1969 charter and the decisions that made distance study creditable.