I've been retired for several years after teaching English at Gallaudet for decades and serving as a trustee at Wabash College. I even taught part-time at George Mason forty years ago, when it was a rather unprepossessing commuter school. And my son is an assistant professor teaching finance at a major research institution, despite my advice to do anything else.
I think Bopaul's (sp?) disease & demographics have come together disastrously. Higher ed costs have risen faster than incomes, hitting underendowed private schools and under-supported red brick state schools especially hard, even has state support has declined. In turn, schools have come to rely more and more on part-time faculty, reducing quality. The decline in the college age population has made the industry a buyers mkt. Admissions offices used to process applications; now they recruit, aggressively. UGRDs aren't any worse prepared than 60 years ago; they just respond to what the market offers. There's also a market inside institutions, as disciplines compete to attract students. Given rising costs, students focus on preparing for the world of work, and many schools unable to afford under-enrolled disciplines eliminate them. Even a lot of the seemingly senseless hassles like huge syllabi come from these changes as depts try to control quality and outcomes and retain students.
All these changes make teaching a good deal less rewarding, especially in now unpopular disciplines, and will increasingly lead more and more disciplines to change and schools to close. But I'm not sure they're all together bad for students. I don't think many ever again looked at a poem after surviving a required English class, no matter how much I enjoyed talking about it. To be sure I'm more than a bit dubious about the value of business majors (my son loathes them & MBA candidates--he's at the university because of research opportunities), but insofar as they prepare people for useful, prosperous lives, who am I to complain?
I am not convinced that the mental health crisis will fade as there has not been a concerted action in recognising the mental health effects of pandemic restrictions on the generation of 18-25s. To be isolated from peers in the period of life when some of the most meaningful connections were meant to be formed will leave prolonged effects and a crippled social network for the cohort that was affected the most, and there is also a very sobering way of interpreting state reactions to the pandemic: when the lives of old people were at risk, the state could magically pull itself together and create restrictions - yet, when the lives of younger people are at risk, from, let's say, climate change or increasing inequality, which could be tackled with higher taxation and better investment strategies, particularly the lockdown of international capital flows to prevent capital flight, suddenly the state is at the mercy of market forces. It is disillusioning and sobering - where is the empathy?
I agree though, I don't think higher education is at a particular risk, but that is easy to say from an institution that has existed for over eight centuries.
It is hard to say as I am not formally in academia but I am very worried that at least Wash.U. students report that the work of being students only intensifies the mental health spiral that they are in. I also worry that Amal el-Mohtar could casually refer to the cruelty of academia in a random NYTBR SF review column. If the university cannot show that what the students are learning is helping them thrive spiritually or psychologically the forces that want it to be replaced with something else will have a lot of encouragement.
I've been retired for several years after teaching English at Gallaudet for decades and serving as a trustee at Wabash College. I even taught part-time at George Mason forty years ago, when it was a rather unprepossessing commuter school. And my son is an assistant professor teaching finance at a major research institution, despite my advice to do anything else.
I think Bopaul's (sp?) disease & demographics have come together disastrously. Higher ed costs have risen faster than incomes, hitting underendowed private schools and under-supported red brick state schools especially hard, even has state support has declined. In turn, schools have come to rely more and more on part-time faculty, reducing quality. The decline in the college age population has made the industry a buyers mkt. Admissions offices used to process applications; now they recruit, aggressively. UGRDs aren't any worse prepared than 60 years ago; they just respond to what the market offers. There's also a market inside institutions, as disciplines compete to attract students. Given rising costs, students focus on preparing for the world of work, and many schools unable to afford under-enrolled disciplines eliminate them. Even a lot of the seemingly senseless hassles like huge syllabi come from these changes as depts try to control quality and outcomes and retain students.
All these changes make teaching a good deal less rewarding, especially in now unpopular disciplines, and will increasingly lead more and more disciplines to change and schools to close. But I'm not sure they're all together bad for students. I don't think many ever again looked at a poem after surviving a required English class, no matter how much I enjoyed talking about it. To be sure I'm more than a bit dubious about the value of business majors (my son loathes them & MBA candidates--he's at the university because of research opportunities), but insofar as they prepare people for useful, prosperous lives, who am I to complain?
I am not convinced that the mental health crisis will fade as there has not been a concerted action in recognising the mental health effects of pandemic restrictions on the generation of 18-25s. To be isolated from peers in the period of life when some of the most meaningful connections were meant to be formed will leave prolonged effects and a crippled social network for the cohort that was affected the most, and there is also a very sobering way of interpreting state reactions to the pandemic: when the lives of old people were at risk, the state could magically pull itself together and create restrictions - yet, when the lives of younger people are at risk, from, let's say, climate change or increasing inequality, which could be tackled with higher taxation and better investment strategies, particularly the lockdown of international capital flows to prevent capital flight, suddenly the state is at the mercy of market forces. It is disillusioning and sobering - where is the empathy?
I agree though, I don't think higher education is at a particular risk, but that is easy to say from an institution that has existed for over eight centuries.
It is hard to say as I am not formally in academia but I am very worried that at least Wash.U. students report that the work of being students only intensifies the mental health spiral that they are in. I also worry that Amal el-Mohtar could casually refer to the cruelty of academia in a random NYTBR SF review column. If the university cannot show that what the students are learning is helping them thrive spiritually or psychologically the forces that want it to be replaced with something else will have a lot of encouragement.
I agree 100%