Correspondence:
AMES, RUTH M. & COLLINS, (MSGR.) TIMOTHY S. & JR., WALLINGTON M. S1MPSON & SPRADLEY, JOHN & MURPHY, JOHN D. & PRICE, M. DANIEL & McCarthy, Abigail
CORRESPONDENCE Perfection, please Bronx, N.Y. To the Editors: No wonder there's a shortage of priests. Who could meet the standards of the critics who write to Com-monweal? [Correspondence, May...
...In a sacred context to be brief, to come to a point, to be, in some manner, concrete-it all makes for gray hair...
...Although I would not deny that murderers deserve the death penalty, neither am I prepared to assert that they do...
...Solitary...
...The courses and programs available through UOP Online are not "adjuncts to regular courses...
...As one who has participated in this mode for several years, I must challenge that implication...
...Wood carvers create beauty out of imperfect trees...
...The author replies: The world is probably divided between those who see the future made brighter by computer technology and those who worry about its potential for the dehumanization of communications...
...Peter might not have made it to Rome...
...MSGR...
...Correspondence, May 19] Having previously demanded intellectual eminence, unstinting devotion to the poor, and personal holiness, now they require silver-tongued oratory...
...Speaking as a professional historian, I believe these changes will be far more sweeping than those brought about by the printing press...
...Some do it daily because that is what we are asked to do...
...We simply do not know how to contrive a punishment that surely fits a crime...
...Students using Online, like all other UOP students, are required to take courses, do research, conduct inquiries, read texts, write papers, engage in discussions, and take tests...
...The statements by Provost Stanley Chodorov of the University of Pennsylvania, made at a gathering of eighty scholars concerned about the latter aspect, bear repeating here by way of comment on these letters: "The electronic environment may enhance, but it cannot replace the intellectual society of the university [my italics...
...Strange, isn't it, that unlike their hard-nosed predecessors of fifty years ago, today's priests "don't get no respect...
...We are at the onset of a tremendous revolution in the transmission and assimilation of information of the kind traditionally associated with college education...
...If God wanted us without imperfection, he would have done more with stainless steel...
...Obviously, the writer has never participated in an on-line course...
...Given that vision and commitment, what is important is that this technology-as deployed, for example, by the Union Institute's Center for Distant Learning- makes the university degree available to all qualified persons with access to a personal computer, so that many who thought themselves as closed out from higher education-whether because of distance, work schedule, or physical disability- now have this opportunity to realize a lifetime hope...
...Online is a quintessential example of students taking responsibility for their own learning...
...To the Editors: Paul Baumann's justification of the death penalty [May 19] is the least emotional, most rational effort I have encountered-yet I am not persuaded...
...What I would insist is that even if one concedes Baumann's assertion- "Those justly convicted for the mass killing in Oklahoma City deserve the death penalty" [emphasis added]-one does not have to call for actually imposing it...
...That students, teachers, and scholars are separated by geography and time does not mean that the teacher is eliminated...
...For example, one is not Tom Brokaw...
...Then there are obstacles...
...We are good at some of them, not so good at others-just as with family meals: sometimes the tuna tastes better than the steak...
...McCarthy implies that because Online students and faculty are not in physical proximity to one another there is no interaction among them, and that student achievement and the quality of education are substandard...
...Certainly, twice...
...Provost Chodorov points out also that there are functions of the university that cannot be duplicated by technology, such as that of "producer of new ideas...
...No text, no participation, no learning, no credit...
...Perhaps because of an aversion to orators, I don't find this crop of clerics so bad...
...Abigail McCarthy A source of contagion Montebello, N.Y...
...JOHN SPRADLEY 'Cybercampus' can work Phoenix, Ariz...
...Each Mass is to have a homily and, at least in its daily incarnation, the homily is a very challenging form of communication...
...Online students are recognized as such only when they affirmatively commit their knowledge and opinions to electronically archived text sent to the instructor and other students...
...JOHN D. MURPHY The writer is senior vice-president for institutional affairs at the University of Phoenix...
...Potentially, civic and economic participation can be increased through this medium...
...To be sure, let us be intelligent...
...True, "[w]e need transmission from teacher to student...
...TIMOTHY S. COLLINS Measuring justice Pagosa Springs, Colo...
...To the Editors: Abigail McCarthy's column entitled "Cybercampus" [April 7] contains errors about the University of Phoenix and its Online computer-mediated instructional system...
...that is precisely what happens through on-line education...
...Well, it was, and the Catholic church will be soiled as well if its leaders embrace the Coalition in the way it embraced Oliver North...
...Though North lost, and the Senate was spared his presence, and though the Coalition no longer mentions his name, it behaves as though its honor was not spoiled by its support of his candidacy...
...Life piled on life were all too little," perhaps, for working out the implications of my puzzlement, "and of one to me little remains...
...WALLINGTON M. SIMPSON, JR...
...To the Editors: No matter how much organizing, fundraising, and vote-getting the Christian Coalition can do ["Catholics and the 'Religious Right,'" May 5], its obscene support for Oliver North is a continuing source of contagion...
...Out of that experience, I would respond to her questions: • Will this delivery system entirely replace the traditonal mode...
...Far from "undermining higher education," we are presented with a tremendous opportunity to enhance it...
...When designed and delivered properly, higher education offered on a cybercampus will help save, not destroy, what's best about the academy...
...But what we are looking for, it seems to me, is the courage to reveal ourselves to one another as persons of faith and love...
...The heartlessness of unrealistic standards is not a pleasing expression of our Catholicism...
...Neither, however, am I persuaded that the death penalty is absolutely prohibited by natural law...
...I begin to suspect that there is an intractable practical difficulty with the eminently admirable abstract concept of a condign punishment...
...In fact, there are more one-on-one faculty-student and stu(Continued on page 28) CORRESPONDENCE (Continued from page 2) dent-student interactions at UOP Online than there are in courses at most traditional institutions, and students have higher levels of both achievement and satisfaction...
...they are the same courses comprising the same degree programs that UOP provides in its "on-the-ground" classrooms, except that they have been configured for delivery through text-based communications on personal computers...
...Most significantly, will solitary students, solitary teachers, and solitary scholars provide for the future civic and economic needs of the nation...
...It's real education Cincinnati, Ohio To the Editors: In her column concerning the impact of the computer revolution on higher education, Abigail McCarthy implies that real education cannot take place through this format...
...Probably not, but it will provide significant alternatives...
...But if I get it worked out, I'll let you know...
...Let us be realistic about church experiences...
...M. daniel price The writer is a professor at the Center for Distant Learning, College of Undergraduate Studies, State of Ohio...
...Every effort to rationalize the sentencing system seems to lead to irrationality...
...Can a student "really" take a college course through this delivery system...
...One may be angry about the pope, some of the bishops, feminist theology, political agitation, masculine assumptions, remembered slights, reproductive tensions, etc...
...We humans cannot thrive in bottomless, faceless environments...
...To the Editors: More about preaching...
...objectively identical punishments for a given crime might be widely disparate subjectively for different perpetrators...
...not because I would downplay the heinous-ness of the crime but because I do not well comprehend what Baumann calls the "calculus" of retributive justice...
...Can a person really do "scholarly research" using a computer...
...Of course, most of them are not as smart as their critics, who choose more respectable outlets for their intellectual and oratorical talents...
...But the subject is consistently the meaning of the day's Gospel, the message consistently of tolerance, love, and forgiveness...
...The preaching I hear in the course of a year-in the Bronx, in Northern and Southern Florida, in upstate New York, and in Vermont-varies rhetorically from inspiring to dull, the average being average...
...The technology itself is not the point...
...I understand the enthusiasm of Vice-President Murphy and Professor Price, but it seems to me that they should give the concerns of Chodorov and the other scholars due consideration...
...just as it has always been, this kind of learning is dependent on the vision and commitment of faculty and learners...
...ruth m. ames Obstacles to preaching New York, N.Y...
Vol. 122 • August 1995 • No. 14
