Great work on this podcast Steven. You do a wonderful job of empathizing with the concerns of the educational institutions. The people I work with at the Extension School would be nodding their heads the whole way through as they try to think about how our at-large differs from the paid non-credit option they offer in our course. As you note, they do not want to give up that income source, especially because the cost of providing education to non-credit students is not negligible. In fact, I am so convinced by your empathy that at the end of the podcast it is hard to imagine how you can convince me that free at-large education could possibly be beneficial for educational institutions. If you could add another 2 minutes to this podcast where you turn the corner and make the case for why an educational institution should want to offer a free at-large option I think your empathy in the first half would mean that they would listen to what you have to say and be open to being persuaded.
rebeccanesson
November 16, 2006 @ 9:50 am
Great work on this podcast Steven. You do a wonderful job of empathizing with the concerns of the educational institutions. The people I work with at the Extension School would be nodding their heads the whole way through as they try to think about how our at-large differs from the paid non-credit option they offer in our course. As you note, they do not want to give up that income source, especially because the cost of providing education to non-credit students is not negligible. In fact, I am so convinced by your empathy that at the end of the podcast it is hard to imagine how you can convince me that free at-large education could possibly be beneficial for educational institutions. If you could add another 2 minutes to this podcast where you turn the corner and make the case for why an educational institution should want to offer a free at-large option I think your empathy in the first half would mean that they would listen to what you have to say and be open to being persuaded.