Fucking education! How does it work?

[The Lone Ranger]

Originally Posted by Goliath

Are the administrators primarily folks who are not faculty in a STEM discipline? If so, then I'd just about bet my left nut that they're jerking you around.

Oh, you have no idea!

The two at the top give new meaning to the words "scientifically illiterate."

For instance, the President, in one of his speeches, told us how we must be more like eagles. You see, when an eagle reaches the age of 40 or so, its talons and beak are too blunt for it to be able to hunt effectively, and its feathers are too worn for it to be able to fly effectively. So what does it do?

It flies to the top of a remote mountain, rips out its feathers, pulls out its talons, and then uses a convenient stone to knock off its own beak. Then it fasts for 3 months or so while it's growing new feathers, new talons, and a new beak. Once it has done this, with its new feathers, new talons, and new beak, the eagle can live for another 40 years or so.

He actually said this. In front of a crowd of well-educated people. And he was serious. I was just flabbergasted. And my colleagues tell me that this is by no means the most ridiculous claim he has made in those speeches. In fact, I've been told that some of the more seasoned faculty members have a sort of betting pool going to see what ridiculous and scientifically-illiterate claims he'll make in each of his speeches.


Another recent example. At a meeting of the Science faculty, he explained to us how, when you put some magnesium into hydrochloric acid, helium is released. We all thought that was pretty funny. Unfortunately, one of the chemists corrected him. (Some of us were kind of hoping to see how far he was going to take this.)


And the Dean is no better. In fact, this person is a graduate of a Christian school that's widely believed to be only one step up (if that) from a diploma mill. This person had never taught a college class before being hired. And from some of the things I've heard this person say, I'm reasonably certain that our illustrious Dean of Arts and Sciences is an outright Young Earth Creationist. (Which would certainly help explain some of the perceived hostility toward the Science Department.)


I tell ya, you just can't make this stuff up!

[seebs]

What the...

WHAT?

That's a statement that has less credibility than Just So Stories. I mean, some of them are actually more possible.

[The Lone Ranger]

Tell me about it!

This was my first semester, in fact, the very first College Address that I attended.

Some people in the audience were obviously having trouble buying his claim, and so he actually looked at me and said, "The Biologists in the audience will confirm this." Fortunately (for both of us) he was doing this rhetorically, and didn't actually call on me or even give me a chance to respond.

So afterward, I went up to him and very quietly and privately told him that his story wasn't true. I was very polite and respectful -- heck, more or less apologetic -- but he made it clear that he neither believed me nor appreciated the correction.

Simply amazing.

[Doctor X]

So I gather ripping the fingernails and teeth of the president out then flaying him alive will rejuvenate him.

--J.D.

[The Lone Ranger]

Oh joy, it just gets better.

I found out yesterday that -- without consulting with me beforehand, or even informing me -- they decided to make the course that I normally teach during the Summer session a 12-week course, instead of a 7-week course, as it always had been.

In other words, no Summer vacation for me. The last day of classes this semester is a Wednesday. I'll spend all day Thursday frantically grading, and turn in the grades on Friday. Graduation is Saturday. Then the Summer Session starts on Monday.


And it goes until August. By the time the Summer session ends, I'll have only a week before all the mandatory meetings for the upcoming Fall Semester begin.



One of the few good things about this place is that for the past 2 years I've had 6 weeks of vacation time during the Summer. Time enough to get out to my beloved Appalachians and to lose myself in the woods for awhile.

But it doesn't look like that's going to happen this Summer.

My only hope is that I can -- somehow -- find an adjunct to teach the course instead. But that's not a very good bet. It's an advanced A&P course, and qualified instructors aren't exactly growing on trees.

(The school would have to pay an adjunct a lot less to teach it than they would to have me teach it, since I'm already teaching more than a full-time load. So I doubt they'd make a big stink if I suggested that we have an adjunct teach it.)



I can guess why I wasn't consulted about this change in scheduling, nor informed about it until it was already a "done deal" and printed on the course schedules that were distributed to the students. I would have said, "no."

If I don't get a Summer vacation, I'm not going to be a happy camper.



Have I mentioned that I hope I get tenure -- so that I can start aggressively looking for a way out of this place?

[Doctor X]

Look at it as hope to acquire a better stereo in the future. . . .

--J.D.

[Dingfod]

Originally Posted by The Lone Ranger

If I don't get a Summer vacation, I'm not going to be a happy summer camper.

[PopeyesPappy]

I ran across this little gem on Jerry Coyne’s blog today. One of the problems with our education system today is that we are catering to people like Madison Murphy.

[Doctor X]

Nice to know gravity does not exist since it is "only a theory."

--J.D.

[Qingdai]

Also her name sucks. Madison. Son of Matthew? Sucks.

[BrotherMan]

Relax Mr. The Long Ranger, I am here to solve your problem(s)! Teach your normal 7 week course. Use the remaining 5 weeks as an extended field trip where participation is voluntary.

[Ari]

Originally Posted by PopeyesPappy

I ran across this little gem on Jerry Coyne’s blog today. One of the problems with our education system today is that we are catering to people like Madison Murphy.

"I don't think..." - Madison Murphy
"We know." - Evolutionary biologists

If only she had followed her own advice and actually did some exploring on her own, because after her opening line's she's clearly never been around the source material of her article.

[Ari]

Originally Posted by BrotherMan

Relax Mr. The Long Ranger, I am here to solve your problem(s)! Teach your normal 7 week course. Use the remaining 5 weeks as an extended field trip where participation is voluntary.

While I could see the school being pissy about this, it's a great idea! Some of my favorite science classes were done partly outside.

[LadyShea]

Audit: ND university awarded unearned degrees - CBS News

The report depicts Dickinson State as a diploma mill for foreign students, most of whom were Chinese. Of 410 foreign students who have received four-year degrees since 2003 — most of them in the past four years — 400 did not fulfill all the graduation requirements, it said.

The report raises questions about whether public universities, strapped for cash at a time of sharply declining state support for higher education, are cutting corners to attract foreign students who typically pay full out-of-state tuition. It also comes amid an unprecedented boom in the number of Chinese students studying at U.S. universities.

[Goliath]

Originally Posted by The Lone Ranger

Oh joy, it just gets better.

I found out yesterday that -- without consulting with me beforehand, or even informing me -- they decided to make the course that I normally teach during the Summer session a 12-week course, instead of a 7-week course, as it always had been.

In other words, no Summer vacation for me.

If I were you, I would try to break out of academia ASAP. With luck, you can get a job offer in time to quit immediately (with no notice) before the Summer class even starts.

[Angakuk]

I ran across this article today and it struck me as being at least marginally relevant to this discussion. I would be interested in seeing our resident Canadian academic's take on it.

How to Turn a University Into a Glorified High School

Ian D. Clark is Professor of Public Policy and Governance here at the University of Toronto. He has attracted a lot of attention lately because he and his colleagues advocate the creation of Teaching-only Universities in Ontario. The scary part of this ridiculous idea is that it might soon become official policy of the Ontario government as described in a recent article by Louise Brown in The Toronto Star [Teaching-only universities would cut education costs, author says].

It certainly looks to me like a thinly veiled attempt at cost-cutting disguised as education reform. I can't help but think that, if it goes into effect, it is going to end up devaluing degrees from Ontario's university system.

I am aware that "university" is a rather variable term, particularly in the U.S. Nevertheless, it seems to me that the practice of calling schools that only grant undergraduate degrees and do not sponsor research to any significant degree "universities" makes a mockery of the idea of the university as a community of teachers and scholars. I know that this is already happening with online universities and that there is at least one two-year university that primarily grants associate degrees. Just because it is already being done (and in the case of Vincennes University the practice has a long history) doesn't mean I have to like it. Am I being elitist here or is it a legitimate concern?

My undergraduate degree is from a private liberal arts college and my master's degree is from a Lutheran seminary, so I have no personal investment in preserving the sanctity of the university, but Clark's proposal still strikes me as ill-advised and contrary to the historical concept of the universitas magistrorum et scholarium.

[Goliath]

Originally Posted by Angakuk

Am I being elitist here or is it a legitimate concern?

This is highly off-topic and may warrant a thread of its own, but I've never understood why the term "elitist" should have any kind of negative connotation. Isn't it good to want to be elite?

[Demimonde]

Oh dear, I think you are serious.

Nothing is wrong with excellence, but that is not synonymous with elitism. Whenever you create any kind of hierarchy some kind of gatekeeping is required in order to enforce that hierarchy. The issue arises in that while the mission of academia is pursue knowledge and recruit the best minds to complete that goal, historically it has instead been used as a means of excluding individuals based on class, race and gender.

For centuries academic institutions have been used to keep individuals with hereditary power on top. This was ostensibly a choice to select the best and brightest, but it resulted in creating an elitist system in which only a select few could even hope to be admitted. One could argue that this was damaging to the pure mission of Universities but an unfortunate economic reality.

In the mid-twentieth century, post WW2, we began to see an increase in access to Universities enjoyed by the middle class in America, thanks in large part to the GI bill. However, in many cases minorities were still excluded to a large degree as well as those below middle class economic levels. This began to change largely, IMO, because of open admission which occurred to protest the Vietnam war as well as other policies put in place in response to the civil rights era.

The issue arose in the latter part of the 20th century, once the gates were open how to moderately close them again for the benefit of academic standards since protecting the young from the draft was no longer an issue. This coincided with extreme reform to attempt to undo the racial and economic biases which plagued institutions before. They still have yet to find a real solution.

The other situation which arose in the latter part of the twentieth century and persists today, is the economic components of obtaining a degree. Universities are much more concerned with profit and they have found that excluding students decreases their customer base. That disincentivizes them from finding any kind of solution and will until there is an economic need to raise standards to increase scarcity.

Pretty much, my generation is stuck in an economic academic bubble in which we are almost unemployable without, and sometimes even with, a degree.

Gatekeeping is becoming necessary once again, but it must be conducted on a basis of excellence, not on socioeconomic elitism, otherwise much of the progress which was attained during the last half of the twentieth century may be reversed. We cannot return to the era in which great minds from the less privileged classes and minorities are excluded.

But yes, that is why "elitism" has a negative connotation for those historically excluded from such institutions based on anything other than our own merits. The desire to "become" an elite is a discussion fraught with other implications which I don't think it would benefit us to discuss here.

[Goliath]

Originally Posted by Demimonde

<snip, snip...something about how those horrible racist academics are bringing minorities down, etc, etc>

[Demimonde]

Wow. I doubt I have seen anyone with such a low tolerance for reason.

That would be braggable if it weren't so sad.

[lisarea]

Ha ha, you guys are having a semantic argument about a semantic argument.

Whether or not making a distinction between a university and a college is elitist depends entirely on what your definition of elitist is.

I don't think elitist necessarily has negative connotations, although it can. I think it's worth distinguishing between elitism based, directly or indirectly, on social class vs. based on content.

So if one were to discount Sarah Palin's opinions on fruit flies or Goliath's opinions on social phenomena, based, respectively, on the fact that she talks funny and he is a white guy, that would be class based elitism. If you were to discount them based on the fact that they're uninformed and willfully ignorant on those topics, that would be prudent and justifiable elitism.

Similarly, if you were to distinguish between colleges and universities based on the demographic makeup of the schools or the tuition prices or something, that would be classist. If the distinction were based on whether they're an academic research institution vs. a trade school or High School 2: Electric Boogaloo, that would be elitist in a reasonable and defensible way.

There is a pretty serious anti-intellectual streak in our culture, where defensive "everything I don't understand is bullshit" arguments are given far too much weight, and because of that, it's very common for liberal arts education to be conflated with vocational training, so I think that making a clear and direct distinction is probably useful. And maybe elitist.

[erimir]

Originally Posted by Goliath

< snip, snip... those niggers didn't deserve to go to college anyway, etc. etc. >

We're doing JEROME impressions, right?

[Kael]

Originally Posted by erimir

< snip, snip... I think I'm smarter than everyone else, etc. etc. >

Yes.

[seebs]

Goliath: The problem for the most part is that elitists are rarely actually elite.

If you play MMOs, the players who are going on and on about avoiding "bads" and "scrubs" have one trait that's nearly universal among the set: They suck horribly at the games. Skilled players don't have that attitude.

So quite often "elitist" means "thinks he's better than everyone else despite evidence to the contrary" rather than "is trying to promote effective use of resources".

[Doctor X]

Originally Posted by seebs

So quite often "elitist" means "thinks he's better than everyone else despite evidence to the contrary" rather than "is trying to promote effective use of resources".

That might apply to YOU lot.









But not to me.





In the rain.

--J.D.