Hidden Cameras at Harvard

Daily Report: Hidden Cameras at Harvard Raise New Privacy Concerns – NYTimes.com.

I commented.

Think of all the claims that universities make that this story gives lie to.

They are transparent.
Their professors should be believed.
They are not a business.
etc..

When it comes to the many incidents that demonstrate that universities are not what they claim to be, Harvard is not at all alone.

When I taught math at Washington U. in St. Louis, I wrote an assoc. dean (who was also Dean of Student Academic INTEGRITY) that the students who cheated on the homework did poorly on the test. He wrote back: don’t “discourage” them, “retention” is important. My chair had asked me to make the course a “cookbook” course. (The whole story is on my blog inside-higher-ed , along with copies of the emails, and more.)

These universities are going to continue to operate as businesses with naive “customers” (once quaintly called “students”) if we don’t regulate and monitor like businesses. Even monitoring them like banks would be better than what we have now.

(For more on Harvard, though, I recommend “Excellence Without a Soul” by a former Harvard dean, Harry Lewis.)