I found this interesting article in Dissent. Jeffery Williams argues that the nature of student debt binds students for years afterward. He argues that the debt reinforces class discrimination, and counteracts the notion that the U.S. can be a meritocracy.
Although Dissent is very left-wing venue, I think that Williams raises some very interesting points.
Yesterday, the Northwestern ran an editorial that is a tongue-in-cheek criticism of a UWMadison business professor who bought DVDs to show in his class.
The jocular nature of the commentary--ha-ha Seinfeld would be better--covers another slam of our profession.
They have no idea about what the prof. teaches, but only see fit to cast aspersions. As you can see from the few comments here is that you get outrage that professors waste "our" money like this.
It is a far cry from equating professors to Jeffrey Dahmer, but it continues their theme of anti-intellectualism.
Edit: Link is now fixed! Thanks to the commenter who noticed!
I have been meaning to post more often, but as usual, these first few weeks are always hectic.
For example, I really wanted to sit down and write something about the COLS strategic initiative. Koker talked about it on opening day. I discovered that 65 people went on the retreat this summer to discuss it. 65? I want to know how 65 people can get anything done, especially a room full of academics with agendas of their own!
I suppose we will hear more about it at the upcoming COLS meeting.
Anyway, I logged in to post this article from the Boston Globe. It is an education professor complaining that knowledge has again gotten lost as the latest "skills" movement takes hold. How can you "critically think" if there is nothing to think about?
I feel this way myself -- students love to discuss, as long as it doesn't involve any preparation or careful analysis. If you ask them to critically analyze an article, they balk. If you want to talk about something without data, they are good at that.
The New York Times ran a story criticizing US College graduation rates. They note that the national average at public universities is abysmal.
This isn't particularly new, as our own 6-year graduation rate is just over 50%. However, the article notes that many good students are not going to the best schools they could, with high graduation rates. Instead they opt for the nearby choice, thereby greatly diminishing their chances of success.
The example would be, I suppose, that an excellent student would decide not to go to UW Madison (graduation rate 78%) and choose to stay nearby, say at Oshkosh. They would then be much less likely to finish.
The article goes on to note that better finances would help, as low income students drop out more often when tuition increases. There is even a suggestion that colleges don't mind, because freshmen are cheaper than upper-class students, because they get stuck with pit-classes. Failure generates more income--a perverse incentive!
They also raise the issue of culture, in that failing out of college has become acceptable.
Read and contemplate as we begin our new semester.
Get ready for a new year! Opening day ceremonies have wrapped up and we are starting tomorrow!
A few observations: number of the day: 13.6 million cut from our operating budget over the next two years. Pretty traumatic, but seemingly manageable.
Wonderfully short speeches from the administration today. Art Rathjen didn't offend anyone. Petra didn't do her "I'm so hip" schtick. No hoohaa from Tom Sonleitner.
In the COLS meeting, John compensated for the lack of humor with his stories about probability and his mom.
It was also nice to see all the new hires this year. John said there were 25 new tenure-track people starting this year.
Finally, a little reading. The New York Times ran short comments by professors to introductory students about how to prepare.
My own addition for UWO:
1. Make your own education. Take the initiative and find the hidden gems at a place like ours. The faculty do great work, but you have to work harder to make the kind of contacts that you need to be really successful here.
All advice is welcomed in the comments!
This is too good of a story to pass up. A student who hasn't found a job three months after graduation is suing.
It seems like a nice case of litigation out of control, but at least no real lawyer took the case.
I haven't been posting much this summer, but this made me laugh!
When we talk about student parties and drinking on campus, I often fall back on the idea that I was a fairly big partier in college myself. I think I survived and have done alright.
However, a new study suggests that problems have actually gotten worse in the last decade. Higher binge drinking, drinking and driving, and alcohol-related deaths make me think that this is a problem beyond those of my day.
When we think about educational reform, standards, and accountability, we have to think about this huge problem. How can we break the cycle of drunkenness and disrespect for education that is becoming every more pervasive?
The Journal-Sentinal has an article today about how confusing the Governor's furlough program is for universities.
It outlines the complications that come from trying to furlough those of us who do not punch a time clock, are paid only 9 months out of the year, and deal with the pay cuts.
Most interesting is that the state is demanding the universities give back 2% for all employees, including unionized members who have not agreed to the cut. I don't know what percentage that is for us, but it is another base budget reduction, according to the article.
Just in case you haven't been paying attention, the legislators have officially rescinded our promised pay increase and voted to increase our health insurance premiums.
Although the media seems to be reporting it as a pay freeze, it is really a cut.
As our last paycheck for the academic year is on the horizon, enjoy it! You won't see as much when we finally get paid again on October 1.
The Joint Finance Committee decided today to take $7 million more back from UW auxiliary funds. They already had taken $16 million, so the new total is $23 million.
Unfortunately, I don't have the budget figures that were circulated last month in front of me, but this will surely mean another significant cut here on campus. Our share of the $7 million will go up because UW-Lacrosse's share was reduced.
It is a nice way to start our summer, knowing that the state is stripping even more from higher education here. What more will we lose before the semester starts again in the fall?
The NY Times loves these stories, and so do I. They report on the websites that are now specializing in class notes and tests.
I haven't checked to see if I am up there, but it is an interesting new electronic twist on the fraternity test bank.
As the semester winds to an end, I am taking a break from grading to mention one of the interesting sagas of the last few weeks.
Only if you live in a hole could you have failed to notice the media reports of the man in Georgia who apparently shot his wife, a couple of her acquaintances, and then himself.
The story itself is sad, but I have been fascinated by the fact that we heard endless about the story because the shooter was a professor. It shows us something about professors strange place in modern culture.
The fact that the suspect was a professor drove this to the newspapers -- after all how often do you see the headline "Police manhunt for plumber underway . . ."
The fixation obviously has to do with the seeming incongruity between "professor" and human being. In the same way that students seem surprised to run into us in the grocery store or mall, the fact that a professor might be driven to fits of murderous rage caught the media's fancy.
At the same time, how often are we ridiculed by legislators and others because we aren't in front of students 40 hours a week? How many times can they cut our pay in Madison and then insist we have no grounds to complain? How often are we lampooned by radical right activists as communists in cardigan sweaters?
My father always insists that professors also carry special respect in society because of our position as experts and scholars.
The case of the murderous Georgia professor crosses all of these stereotypes and cultural images. Here is the erudite, liberal, respectable, wimpy professor shockingly acting out in rage and violence.
Professors lie at a strange intersection of respect, fascination, and derision. If only there weren't so much grading to go with it. . . .
Gov. Doyle just announced big new cuts to the state budget, including over 3 work weeks (16 days) of furloughs over the next 2 years.
It is sort of a joke to call it a furlough, since it really is a temporary 3% pay cut. I wonder if it won't be even bigger for us since technically we are paid on a 9 month schedule. That means it could be almost 5% [updated from higher figures, because I did my math wrong].
He also is cancelling our small pay raise and raising health insurance premiums.
There will most likely be bigger cuts in the overall budget too.
State revenue has dropped at a precipitous rate, they tell us, for 2009.
It is going to be an ugly couple of years around here.
I was looking at the Northwestern this morning to see if any schools had closed because of swine flu, and noticed that the Faculty Advocacy Committee has created a blog on that website.
So far, it contains interviews with Merlain Angwall and B. S. Sridhar. They are, of course, very nice profiles of two interesting members of our community.
I don't know whether these blogs gather much attention, but it looks like a nice beginning foray into the world of electronic promotion for this group.
I read this op-ed piece in the NYTimes yesterday. A religion professor from Columbia proposes completely rethinking the university. Although much of his focus is on graduate education, he proposes sweeping changes:
1. Change curriculum to make it like the web, cross-disciplinary and cross-cultural
2. Abolish permanent departments.
3. Stop overlap between universities
4. Get rid of dissertations
5. Change graduate training
6. No tenure and forced retirement
The core of his argument is that universities produced graduates, both undergrad and PhD, that nobody wants. He thinks that current training and scholarship in the humanities is basically worthless. For him, it won't be worth anything until it is "relevant."
On top of that, he believes that old faculty are useless. In his vision, everyone gets tenure and then never changes. He obviously doesn't think much of younger faculty either, because of their over-specific research agendas. He describes newly minted PhD's as clones of their advisors.
Since we are in the midst of our own discussions about reform, centered around LERT and general education, this article does give us something additional to ponder.
Reform and adaptation are important, but eliminating the entire system? Expecting everyone to be generalists who change topics every 7 years? Increasing the pressure on faculty and strengthening the hands of administration?
The religion professor seems to have gotten business, rather than the other way around!
