strange days indeed

Fine, then; let's focus on the speech. The first paragraph is just hogwash tossed upon boilerplate. The second and third paragraphs comprise a manic manifesto that glorifies creative destruction. The next six or eight paragraphs are selected UT achievements, mainly STEMM (and no mention of the wonderful sculptures throughout our beautiful main campus, the sound of the birdsongs on a crisp Spring morning there, or pausing in poetic contemplations over the peacefulness of the river that runs through it). I have seen President Jacobs striding across our splendid campus in the early morning, but his mind is obviously elsewhere. Returning to his speech: With accomplishments duly listed and drumrolls barely ceased, the President's mood suddenly darkens. This is when we are told that our public higher education system, unsubtly implying our own institution, is failed. The rest of the speech elaborates how he is going to repair the UT main campus by invasive measures like inserting a "New Entity" and so on. The bionic university. Everything Dr. Jacobs has planned and that he is now attempting to implement on UT main campus through the offices of Provost Haggett and Dean Lee is based on his faulty assumption that our institution is --body and soul -- broken. His demonstrated ignorance about the merits of a rich and traditional liberal arts education is dangerous. Moreover, his actions thus far demonstrate that he disrespects many of our faculty and their contributions, and that he patronizes our students ("extreme student centeredness"? wtf&gmab!), many of whom will join to fight him to exhaustion over his ill-conceived and destructive plans and their implementation. You, the Monk, have initiated this blog mainly to discuss the positive and negative aspects of Dr. Jacob's speech in a "civilized" way. So let's get to it. Frankly, I don't see much positive about it. Please clarify your own thoughts with specific examples from the speech, and please do so quickly. I am all for a civilized, rational conversation, but from my perspective the barbarians are already at the gates, and rolling out their heavy artillery for the summer onslaught!