future of the university
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Professors on contingent contracts are ESSENTIAL
Until faculty realize that their vocation as MAGISTERS and DOCTORS, as those with TEACHING authority, actually transcends the MINISTERIAL and CURIAL power of adMINistrators and trustees, they will continue to launch little more than empty critiques of neoliberalization. Continue reading
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What Ph.D. graduates have in common with industrial Rust Belt workers (essay)
A PhD in classics mulls over the future of graduate studies and the need for alt-academics. Truth: The need to discover new outlets for those who continue onward in graduate studies has become most real. I myself plan to do… Continue reading
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Professors remain blind to boom in humanities
Gotta love that crisis mentality. Cause the sky be falling and falling. Youth are too fragile and the humanities have no future among our youth. Part this arises from seeing how administrators treat humanities programs and politicians deride them. Part… Continue reading
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The Big (Soul) University
The entire existential project behind Karl Jaspers’ Idea of the University involves integrating a professor’s research with students’ search for their own selves. The Socratic teacher turns his students away from himself and back onto themselves; he hides in paradoxes, makes himself… Continue reading
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Debtfare: the Commodification of Student Debt
Despite the uneasy relationship between the profitable student loan industry and growing student debt defaults, students continue to borrow to pay for college, and educational loans are the only form of consumer debt to increase markedly since 2008. The industry… Continue reading
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Philosophy Department Fights For Survival | Daily Nous
I’m the chair of the only remaining Department of Philosophy at a public university in the state of Louisiana. (LSU has a department of Philosophy and Religious Studies, which is the only other public university in the state where a… Continue reading
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The slim chances of getting on tenure track without an “elite” school PhD
This is why I am keeping my PhD studies oriented toward these targets: (1) becoming a coffee consultant, (2) setting up a practice as a philosophical counselor, and (3) looking for a job in the academy. Why do folks sign up… Continue reading
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Teachers must Care; Students must Attend
That is, mentors must be engaged with mentoring people, seeing the student as an Existenz, with all of the possibility that this entails. And learners must attend, being fully now/here wherever they are, focused on this happening with the mentor. It… Continue reading
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The Reality of College Statistics – UnCollege
Even if you do everything you’re supposed to, there are so many variables at play, many of which you can’t control… The influence of any one of them can void the value of college for you. What you can control… Continue reading
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College: Class Warfare 101
It seems most are looking at this from the perspective of folks who are in the university rather than those who “need” the university. The piece is not an economic piece. It is a sociological piece. This is the crux… Continue reading
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What Can You Do With a Humanities PhD Anyway?
This piece by Elizabeth Segran in The Atlantic (March 31) offers some food for thought if you are entering, already in, or find yourself a director of graduate studies in a humanities program. Here are some highlights that I found… Continue reading
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Finding Life After Academia — and Not Feeling Bad About It – NYTimes.com
According to a 2011 National Science Foundation survey, 35 percent of doctorate recipients — and 43 percent of those in the humanities — had no commitment for employment at the time of completion. Fewer than half of Ph.D.’s are expected… Continue reading
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Colleges are teaching economics backwards
…here’s one temporary fix for introductory economics: teach it backwards. Reversing the order in which introductory economic classes are taught today might be the easiest way to respond to the crisis in undergraduate education. Plus, the history of how it… Continue reading
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Brain Drain and Brain Gain
In a new book, “Paying the Professoriate,” to be published this month, Mr. Altbach and his co-editors examine academic salaries, contracts and benefits in publicly funded universities in 28 countries. They depict a world increasingly divided “into two categories —… Continue reading
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Henry A. Giroux | Public Intellectuals Against the Neoliberal University
Across the globe, the forces of casino capitalism are on the march. With the return of the Gilded Age and its dream worlds of consumption, privatization and deregulation, not only are democratic values and social protections at risk, but the… Continue reading
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Surviving the post-employment economy – Opinion – Al Jazeera English
A lawyer. A computer scientist. A military analyst. A teacher. What do these people have in common? They are trained professionals who cannot find full-time jobs. Since 2008, they have been tenuously employed – working one-year contracts, consulting on the… Continue reading
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The necessity of self-promotion
Women may fail to win chairs because they do not cite themselves enough. One of academia’s deficiencies is that, though its lecture halls and graduate schools are replete with women, its higher echelons are not. Often, this is seen as… Continue reading
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Ripping Off of Young America: The College Loan Scandal
Good investigative piece from Matt Taibbi and well worth your time. If you are not sure, just read these few paragraphs and decide if you can afford to not read the whole article. …How is this happening? It’s complicated. But… Continue reading
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