Yukon U: 'Cause antlers give you reach, too

Want Cheap Tuition? Try Yukon College

Classes are small, and now it's a key outpost of climate change study.

It seems an unlikely place for a college, serving a territory the size of Sweden and with a population of only 35,000. But Yukon College has made an advantage out of its smallness and remoteness. And on Wednesday of this week, it became the home of the Yukon Research Centre of Excellence, dedicated largely to studying the impact of climate change on the north.

[. . .]

Yukonners are famous for multi-tasking: running gold mines and tourism operations, or B&B's and security companies. Yukon College, too small to survive with a single specialty, is doing the same thing. In the process, it may teach survival skills to colleges in southern Canada as well. (Crawford Kilian, “Want Cheap Tuition? Try Yukon College,” The Tyee, Oct. 23 2009)

Guys, remember to compliment you antler-head U training, with at least some courses from Princeton and MIT at itunes U. They're free, and there is now talk of the inevitable: professors okaying your results, acknowledging your competency, without the 60 000 fees, deference-registering perfect "A" gpa, and perfect SAT scores.

Remember, Kilian is not your friend. He delights in the idea of an aristocratic (high-order thinking) few governing the plebian many.http://thetyee.ca/Views/2009/02/27/PostSecondary/ He likes the idea of university being restricted to the few really worthy of higher learning. He's much more Plato Republic than he is Dewey democrat.

Let's not encourage people to see the world through a trade school point of view. Leave the nut-gathering stuff to squirrels.

talk of the inevitable?

hey patrick, wondering if you could elaborate on "there is now talk of the inevitable: professors okaying your results, acknowledging your competency, without the 60 000 fees, deference-registering perfect "A" gpa, and perfect SAT scores"

I'd be curious to read more about this conversation (steveo, response to post, “Want Cheap Tuition?”)

This is a good link to get a sense of just what's going on right now with itunes u. Right now, people are both stunned at just how many courses from top universities are available at itunes u, and just how many downloads they're getting. Millions of them.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/life_and_style/education/article6869552.ece?print=yes&randnum=1151003209000

There is an article out there written in the last week or two about professors discussing grading, or acknowledgements, and itunes u, but can't find it just now. Some universities are already playing defence, though: Oxford is arguing that its education is tutorial, mostly about advisors, not lectures, and thereby distinguishing itself from universities which are mostly about lectures -- and which are therefore now competing rather inadequately against the very best lectures available out there for free. Inertia can keep things going for awhile, but soon enough we'll get some big names endorsing just downloading Princeton, Oxford, MIT lectures, and completing their coursework (MIT has made their coursework available, I believe), rather than taking undergrad at any old. Smarter universities are going hybrid, loadly proclaiming how their students can attend classes physically, or just use their ipods and download. Helps them seem with it. But in sum, itunes U is gradually making most mid-level universities seem rather PC redundant. Old style university attendance could end up seeming fit for fobs, slow-moving sloths. Mightn't you already see the (devestating) commercial?

Steward Brand did Whole Earth Review as an alternative to university. He, Rheingold, Jobs, all very non-placative attitudes towards university, but were huge on learning. Itunes U fits with that attitude, at a time when the talk at universities is all about raising tuition fees and closing doors. University's public image is not that much better than wall-street right now, really. All parents want their kids to do "Harvard," though, and in face of being told that while they can't do/afford UBC, hey, there's always Yukon U, they'll want, THEY'LL PUSH someone like Steve Jobs to make Itunes Princeton a legitimate way for their kid to participate in the ivy-league and seem of the now. As more savy, in fact, than the next door who thinks it's all "so" that their kids attending UBC.

The very best, wherever they're to be found, and all for free -- that's itunes U.

Link: Want Cheap Tuition? Try Yukon College (The Tyee)

photo by tommy forbes