Course gives students at 2 campuses a look at universities' inner workings

By Linda Myers

Why do some colleges manage to hire more women and minority faculty members than others? Why does tuition keep going up despite large endowments at private universities? And what does on-campus parking really cost a university?

Professor Ronald Ehrenberg instructs students in Ithaca, in 115 Ives Hall, and at Binghamton University, by remote video access, for the class Economic Analysis of the University, Sept. 9. Charles Harrington/University Photography

These are the kinds of questions that keep Cornell labor economist Ronald Ehrenberg up at night, and also the ones he discusses with his students in the Economic Analysis of the University.

"It's an integrative course," said Ehrenberg, who is the Irving M. Ives Professor of Industrial and Labor Relations and Economics at the School of Industrial and Labor Relations. "For ILR students, it combines a lot of what they've already learned -- labor economics, organizational behavior, statistics and human resources. It helps economic majors see how economic principals are used or not used. And it's a primer for understanding complex decision making in all nonprofit organizations, not just universities."

This semester 55 Cornell undergraduates are taking the course, along with 25 students from Binghamton University, with the help of classrooms set up for distance learning in Ives Hall, here at Cornell, and on the SUNY Binghamton campus.

"Harpur College at Binghamton was my alma mater," explained Ehrenberg. "Delivering the course to them gives me a way to pay back that undergraduate institution for all that it did for me as well as to illustrate how academic institutions within the same SUNY system can share resources to improve the quality of education." On the Binghamton end, the course is being coordinated by Edward Kokkelenberg, chair of the economics department. Handouts are sent in advance, and each professor handles papers, exams and grading separately.

The students and professors can see and talk with one another live via large-screen monitors and sound equipment in their classrooms. Although Cornell has a costlier, more sophisticated setup, the transmission technology is virtually no cost for both institutions -- two-way compressed video over the Internet using phone lines.

Ehrenberg's vision for the course is: "To show students how simple economic concepts are used, and not used, in the running of universities." Students look at the way different institutions parcel out resources across their campuses and make critical admissions, financial aid and endowment policy decisions. They discover the high cost of science and of faculty compensation at a research university and learn what it costs to house and feed students and heat and cool a campus, among other things. And they learn how college rankings work. "They begin to understand that university are competitive places," said Ehrenberg.

Lessons are reinforced by guest speakers, who this semester include SUNY's vice chancellor, the arts and sciences deans at Cornell and Binghamton and several Cornell trustees. Last year's speakers included Janet Corson-Rikert, director of Cornell Health Services, and Susan Murphy, Cornell vice president for student and academic services, who also is an alumna of the course.

One class in October looked at why universities have been sluggish in the hiring and promoting of women and minority faculty. Ehrenberg described the obstacles -- among them location, differing job preferences for men and women and a limited applicant pool of women and minorities in certain subject areas. He discussed the difficulties universities like Cornell and Binghamton, with their more-rural locations, may have in attracting two-career academic couples and members of some minorities groups and touched on the controversial proposal to give women faculty with young children an extra year to gain tenure -- counseling that such a benefit would need to be offered to parents of either gender.

Key to the course is a research paper, which is done in teams and gives undergraduates the experience of doing empirical research on serious subjects, said Ehrenberg. Some topics this semester: Does age affect faculty productivity? Why is tuition for out-of-state ILR students so high? And why has the tremendous increase in student organizations at Cornell occurred?

Ehrenberg's long-standing interest in the economics of the university was enhanced when he served as Cornell's vice president for academic programs, planning and budgeting in 1995-98. He has since gone on to found and direct the Cornell Higher Education Research Institute (CHERI), which promotes national research and conferences on the subject. Research, including the first study on graduate student unions and their effect on stipends, done by three ILR undergraduates working with Ehrenberg, is posted on CHERI's web site, http://www.ilr.cornell.edu/CHERI . Substantial grants from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation and Atlantic Philanthropies support the institute's efforts and also aided in the writing of Ehrenberg's Tuition Rising: Why College Costs So Much, the main reading in the course.

Beth Herskovits '03, current editor of the Cornell Daily Sun, took the class last year to improve her understanding of how Cornell and other universities work. She said: "The course showed me how the endowment works and got me to look at town-gown issues like Lake Source Cooling and the West Campus construction initiative more objectively. I still call up Professor Ehrenberg for advice on editorials."

Seth Harris, also a former student and Sun staffer, said of Ehrenberg, "He not only taught the economics of the university, but he told us stories from his experience as a vice president that truly made it come alive."

And Aaron Page, another former student, who continued his own research on a course-related project even after the course was over, called the class invaluable: "I developed a greater appreciation for the difficult job of college administrators in balancing the interests of different stakeholders," Page said.

Ehrenberg offered the course in conjunction with the University of Virginia last year and hopes to team with another institution next year.