Responses

Michael Discussion:

Greetings everyone,

This week we are asked to talk about Carnegie classifications.  These classifications got their start from the Carnegie Commission on Higher Education, created, and originally led by Clark Kerr, who led the University of California system through its biggest period of change and expansion.  The Carnegie classification system was created to categorize higher education so that it could be further and more easily studied and researched (Douglass, 2005).

The institution I chose to explore are the Sage Colleges located in Troy and Albany, New York.  They are once college split across two campuses, and are a 4-year or above, private not-for-profit school with 2,525 students in the fall of 2017.  The basic classification is doctoral/professional universities, and the undergraduate instructional program is balanced arts&sciences/profession, some graduate coexistence.  The graduate instructional program is listed as research doctoral; professional dominant, and the enrollment profile is majority undergraduate.  The undergraduate profile is four-year, full-time, selective, higher transfer-in, and the size and setting category is four-year, small, highly residential (Carnegie, 2017).

Russell Sage College lists their mission as providing opportunity for students to advance personally and professionally, the ability to contribute to society, and the recognize the responsibility of an education (Sage, 2021).  Russell Sage’s history began in 1916 and has slowly grown into separate schools offering different types of academic and professional instruction and were combined as of July 1, 2020 into one college with two co-educational campuses (Sage, 2021).  Some of this information can be inferred from the Carnegie classification as to its size and educational makeup, but the classification fails to explain the growth and history of the college itself.  While the classification provided a system to categorize and illustrate the breadth of American higher education, one of its critiques is that its “present uses have far exceeded its original purpose” (Douglass, 2005).  In this way, the classification may not be the best “end all” system for researching higher education.

The classification system provided a means by which to organize higher education for further study where one did not exist before.  By forming categories that were applicable throughout, this system provides the ability to categorize schools that are vastly different.  It is these differences though, that are often overlooked by the classification, often to the chagrin of the schools involved.

 

References

Carnegie Classification of Institutions of Higher Education (Carnegie). (2017). The Sage colleges. Indiana University School of Education; Center for Postsecondary Research. Retrieved from: https://carnegieclassifications.iu.edu/lookup/view_institution.php?unit_id=195128&start_page=lookup.php

Douglass, J. (2005, November). The Carnegie commission and council on higher education: A retrospective. Center for Studies in Higher Education. Retrieved from: http://www.cshe.berkeley.edu/sites/default/files/publications/rop.douglass.carnegie.14.05.pdf

Russell Sage College (Sage). (2021). The Russell Sage college mission. Mission & History. Retrieved from: https://www.sage.edu/about/mission-history/

Russell Sage College (Sage). (2021). History of Russell Sage college. Mission & History. Retrieved from:  https://www.sage.edu/about/mission-history/

Jaime Discussion

I chose to look at my alma mater, SUNY Potsdam.  SUNY Potsdam awards at least fifty master’s degrees but less than twenty doctoral degrees (Medium Program master’s college) and the dominant degree in these programs revolve around education. Within their undergraduate programs, their dominant majors include the arts and sciences. Most of the students are four-year students and eighty percent of the undergraduate population are fulltime students, are in the 40th to 80th percentile amongst selectivity of baccalaureate institutions, and at least twenty percent are transfer students. At least half of the undergraduate students attending also live on campus in a residential facility (The Carnegie Classification of institutions of higher education, 2017.)

SUNY Potsdam’s mission is as follows:

“The State University of New York at Potsdam prepares students to act as engaged global citizens and to lead lives enriched by critical thought, creativity and discovery. As an inclusive scholarly community, rooted in our historic role in providing exemplary teacher and music education and our leadership in the fine and performing arts, we are committed to the liberal arts and sciences as an academic foundation for all students. With an abiding sense of responsibility to our region and to the world beyond, SUNY Potsdam fosters an appreciation of and respect for the variety of human experience.” (SUNY Potsdam mission statement, n.d.).

Circling back to the Carnegie classification, their mission embodies the classifications they are meeting. The institution is known for their education and performance classes, especially their coveted Crane School of Music and thus it would make sense that their dominant degrees include the arts and education. Their high transfer in rate may come down to the fact that if a student does get accepted to the music program, many complete their liberal arts credits at a local school and then transfer in when they are ready. The music school also may be what keeps the school in a higher selectivity rate for acceptance as one must audition and pass select theory and history tests in order to make into the music school housed at the Crane School of Music.  Now when doing research on the Carnegie Foundation, it did make sense that the classification aligned so well with the mission of the college. That is because the classification was originally created as a research tool to classify colleges based on their mission, however as time went on it started being used as a way to rank institutions based on quality and resources striving to be ranked in the top group for their type of institution (Lombardi, 2000).  If the classification is accurate, it should align with the institution’s mission so long as the institution itself still aligns with it stands for. The big question is, should the classification go back to its original origin as a research guide or should it be used for classification? It seems that higher education already is such a competitive field, do we need another tool to verify this role? I think it should be used as it was intended to be used for and as we are using for this class.

 

References

Lombardi, J (2000, September) How classifications can help colleges. In The Chronicle of Higher

Education. Retrieved from https://www.chronicle.com/article/how-classifications-can-help-colleges/?cid2=gen_login_refresh&cid=gen_sign_in

SUNY Potsdam mission statement (n.d). In State Univeristy of New York Potsdam. Retrieved        

                from https://www.potsdam.edu/about/mission

The Carnegie Classification of institutions of higher education  (2017) Retrieved from

                 https://carnegieclassifications.iu.edu/lookup/lookup.php