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A MUST READ FOR ALL ACADEMICS! Now on Amazon Kindle. Click on Professor Goat above to be directed to the book.
DON'T BE A SHEEP
UT's Officially Disapproved Information Source and HISTORICAL ARCHIVE. The only source of truth, where Paradox Manifests: Hundreds of thousands of visits. Yet No One Admits to Reading It. Welcome to the "Grey Area" where "Unethical Utterances," i.e., criticisms of administrators, are commonplace. Make U.U. here where genuine civility still reigns, a.k.a., freedom......................... UNIVERSITY OF TOLEDO'S EQUIVALENT TO RADIO FREE EUROPE
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NEW!!! Hard Eight by Professor Extreme
HARD EIGHT
Hard Eight: Auto-Ethnographic Essays on Academic Culture Featuring the End of the Arts & Sciences College, University of Toledo, 2010
Daily Koan
Should the newly discovered black hole be named in honor of UT BOT?
Swamp Bubble
Do you agree or disagree that University of Toledo suffers from administrative bloat?
How do you feel about the proposed UT Degree Guarantee program? (Reposted to allow more people to vote.)
How do you feel about the proposed UT Guarantee program?
How would you grade the overall performance of the Jacobs' administration on running the University of Toledo?
COMMENT OF THE WEEK
Bloggie applauds this perspicacious observer:
"The administration is in a panic mode to implement controversial and irreversible structural and curricular changes campus-wide by early February fiscal plan deadlines with only the vaguest notions of their impacts. The plan is, according to an interview with a top administrator published in the most recent Independent Collegian, to cast out many seeds and "see what grows." This experimental garden, as most senators articulated in many different ways, seems a costly recipe for disaster. Utter madness. Stay tuned."
Print Version of Dictionary of Academia Available on Amazon.com
The profound ruminations of the goaty Sage are now available in this 119 page satirical masterpiece. See: http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1480292494/ref=pd_lpo_k2_dp_sr_2?pf_rd_p=486539851&pf_rd_s=lpo-top-stripe-1&pf_rd_t=201&pf_rd_i=B009RC0SJA&pf_rd_m=ATVPDKIKX0DER&pf_rd_r=1JV8N5BYAYY9WC9SJWD2
"Dictionary of Academia" Read it While it's Hot
A MUST READ FOR ALL ACADEMICS! Now on Amazon Kindle. Click on Professor Goat above to be directed to the book.
Comment of the Week
"This is that old tension between the corporate way of doing things and the academic way of doing things. In the corporate world, you sweep everything under the rug to make your b.s. as shiny, pleasing to the nose, and profitable as possible. In the academic world, you operate with a higher moral standard. Veritas and all that."
Comment of the Week of August 13
Re UT academic posers and hypocrites:
Have their checks calculated in units of postmodern theoretical currency and issued in photocopied legal tender notes signed by Walter Benjamin with a photo of Karl Marx and a seal stamped “In Derrida We Trust”.
Comment of the Era
Wow! Ain't that something.
-Anonymous
Comment of the Week
Mention goes to the the anonymous commentator of Feb 7, who, regarding UT President Llloyd Jacob's "Investing in Faculty" letter, stated: "If we could use the same criteria for 'investing in administrators' we could cut most of those positions."
Comments to HLC
Make sure you address your comments to HLC to the email address listed below in the "Higher Learning Commission Wants to Know" post. This may be the only chance you have to be heard. Bloggie hears that UT administration has discussed giving faculty "training" so that faculty members know how to "properly" talk to the HLC folks. How's that for stacking the deck? Does everyone get a little script to read? Make sure you practice before a mirror at being bright-eyed and bushy-tailed.
Comment of the Week!
Definitely, the Comment of the Week award goes to Anonymous 12:14 pm, Dec 3, under the "Higher Learning Commission Needs to Know" posting by Diogenes. Pithy and pointed!
--Love,
Bloggie
MESSAGE OF THE DAY:
DON'T BE A SHEEP
Independent Collegian Article on Dicey Administrative Spending
IC reporter Casey Cheap looks at bow ties, apartments and movie tickets purchased by UT administrators at university/public expense. See
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Letter and Petition from Foreign Languages Faculty Member
A couple weeks ago, at the beginning of summer break, we in the Department of Foreign Languages were informed that our secretary's position was being eliminated and that while she will not lose her job (she'll be transferred), that position is not to be filled. We apparently will be expected to do our own jobs plus what we can of the secretary's. That is clearly not acceptable, and so one of the steps we in FL are taking against it is an online petition now available for any who want to (including those who for whatever reason--not a registered Ohio voter, not a US citizen, etc.--cannot sign the petition against SB5), to read and sign.
I know not everyone on the blog will be interested in this; I'm not asking anyone who doesn't want to, to sign or even read the petition. I do think that there are many who would be interested and would want to sign it--if they knew about it.
It's scary to post this under my own name; I'm as afraid as anyone of repercussions. But this is simply too important to keep quiet on, and we have to do something! FL is not the first department that this has happened to, and it's almost certain not to be the last if we don't speak up in a way that the administration will hear us and in a way that makes clear that other people are seeing that it's going on.
Here's the link to the online petition:For those who can make it, there will also be an informational meeting--including lunch and petition-signing--next Friday, May 27 in FH 2420, 12:00 - 2:00 p.m.
I know not everyone on the blog will be interested in this; I'm not asking anyone who doesn't want to, to sign or even read the petition. I do think that there are many who would be interested and would want to sign it--if they knew about it.
It's scary to post this under my own name; I'm as afraid as anyone of repercussions. But this is simply too important to keep quiet on, and we have to do something! FL is not the first department that this has happened to, and it's almost certain not to be the last if we don't speak up in a way that the administration will hear us and in a way that makes clear that other people are seeing that it's going on.
Here's the link to the online petition:For those who can make it, there will also be an informational meeting--including lunch and petition-signing--next Friday, May 27 in FH 2420, 12:00 - 2:00 p.m.
Katherine Best
Wave of the Future or Merely Sometime Later This Week?
The Chronicle of Higher Education ran a deeply fascinating article called, "When to Dissolve a Faculty Senate." Apparently this is any time that it becomes "adversarial" to administration.
The online comments to the article are priceless.
Nemeth on Mammon in IC
David Nemeth's most recent tour-de-force
Professor Nemeth has another fabulous and timely article in the new and increasingly wonderful Independent Collegian. See http://www.independentcollegian.com/forum/the-kraken-attacks-1.2340091
Nemeth Does it Again
See the forum article in The Independent Collegian at:
Nemeth's New Article in Collegian
The Independent Collegian has run another of Professor Nemeth's fine and provocative articles in its latest edition. This one discusses the double-talk by mouthpieces for the current UT administration concerning the effects of and reasons behind so-called strategic reorganization. Make sure you get the latest version of Newspeak 5.1 if you want to decode what UT administrators are really saying.
UT Ranks 13th Nationally on Administrative Bloat
See Appendix B of the Administrative Bloat report posted on 8/28 for evidence, but UT now has a higher proportion of administrators to students than all but 12 public universities in America. President Jacobs has finally put University of Toledo in the top tier. With Strategic Organization he may be aiming for number one.
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Recent Letters from The Blade
Jacobs' arrogance is astonishing
Recently, President Lloyd Jacobs of the University of Toledo stated that bonuses were justified because his administrators "took all the risks."
As a professor at UT, I am outraged that President Jacobs claims that administrators take all of the risks. What risks do they take that the other faculty and staffs on campus do not?
Administrators are protected by state and federal employment laws and by their contracts.
When ex-President Vik Kapoor was terminated, he remained a professor with a salary near what he was paid as president.
As president emeritus, Dan Johnson retained a salary greater than his pay as president.
In the recent layoffs, exceptionally few administrators were terminated. It seems to me that low-level personnel at UT have far more risks because the greater proportion of the layoffs have come from their ranks. And they did not have continuing salaries.
President Jacobs' answer to questions on two occasions regarding relinquishing part of his bonus was to the effect that he earned his bonuses and what he did with them was his business.
Administrators do not risk their personal money in their duties: they use taxpayer money and funds collected through donations and grants to the university.
Administrators take home salaries in the hundreds of thousands of dollars and then add bonuses for longevity and whatever else the president decides is fitting for their contracts.
However, the lower-level personnel have much lower salaries and no such bonuses. Where is the risk?
It seems to me that these bonuses are convoluted: The lower-level personnel are taking the greater risks with no bonuses while the administrators with very rewarding jobs with little risk receive large bonuses.
Am I missing something here?
WALTER W. OLSON,
Mechanical, Industrial, and Manufacturing
Engineering,
University of Toledo
It's the same old, same old at UT
I could hardly believe the arrogance of Dr. Lloyd Jacobs, president of the University of Toledo, when a reporter asked if he would be willing to forgo his bonus in light of the layoffs, raise in tuition, etc.
His comment was that he worked for it. Is that to say that the ones being laid off did not work for their pay?
All I can say is, business as usual at UT. Some things never change.
SANDY FLICK
Rose Acres Drive
UT also has checks, balances
In response to letter titled "Professors must focus on teaching," I would like to point out that the University of Toledo operates on the basis of shared governance.
This means that faculty members participate in the administration of the university.
A focus on teaching requires faculty to address administrative issues such as policies, procedures, and yes, finances, because these all affect classroom outcomes. A university with solid and equitable finances benefits everyone, including and especially the students. Just as the U.S. government is constituted to have checks and balances, so is our university government.
The UT-AAUP is one of those checks against UT administrators who most recently have displayed more concern for their own profit rather than a concern for the common good.
LINDA M. ROUILLARD,
Associate Professor
of French,
University of Toledo
Quote of the Year (so far)
The following is excerpted from the recent UT AAUP newsletter concerning the official university response to news of the bonus scandal:
. . . . Either Jacobs is misleading the media or he has misled the Board of Trustees. President Jacobs objected to "the general tone" of the UT-AAUP Newsletter. Many persons on this campus object to the "general tone" of the Jacobs Administration. During his tenure as President, he has introduced an administrative culture of fear and intimidation. . . . A point of logic must be raised here, with all respect to UT AAUP, the conclusions that President Jacobs has (1) misled the media and (2) the Board of Trustees are not mutually exclusive. Both would seem likely given his considerable talent at spinning "visions." |
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26 comments:
The chair of the board of trustees, Bill Koester, advised Faculty Senate last week to "praise publicly and criticize privately." How convenient.
This is the same advice that allowed the Catholic priests and Jerry Sandusky to escape justice for so many years.
This is that old tension between the corporate way of doing things and the academic way of doing things. In the corporate world, you sweep everything under the rug to make your b.s. as shiny, pleasing to the nose, and profitable as possible. In the academic world, you operate with a higher moral standard. Veritas and all that.
Well he does not have to worry about UT faculty - who cannot be found criticizing anywhere other than this blog. Try reading Faculty Senate minutes and see if you detect a lasting, recurrent concern?
Where is Walt Olson when you need him?
a different responder than just before, but a valid question. why does walt olsen, 4 years ago, have the only gonads to raise objections in name? he had no more security than anyone else. why? should we start naming names? AAUP Chair; Senate President? Dean? Previous AAUP reps?, Harvey?. When will the faculty step up? Or will you play an epistemoligical game with your distractors? Disgust and hope are barely fathomable. play your games about 200 years of political history or deal with the present. Your call.
Need to write a thesis/journal article?
Lack fresh and relevant research ideas?
Can't nail down a topic for the life of you?
Well, here's a free and "automatic" thesis generator based on common liberal arts terms, people, and/or pretensions.
http://pseudoacademic.com/
Faculty Senate in fact raised concerns about COIL and other of VP Pryor's initiatives that by-pass faculty at every opportunity. The competency-based core curriculum was passed by Senate, but that body also made it clear that it was only voting only for the core to be organized around competencies, and not for the upper level courses, yet. From my experience, faculty who read the material from Learning Ventures on the ICE program are concerned and are asking questions. There is no need for us to set our hair on fire to call attention to the feeble plans that VP Pryor issues. His proposals demonstrate lack of thought and depth.
The Random Postmodern Universe
Re Anon 6:33 – Pseudoacademic.com
Good one.
I’ll see your pseudoacademic.com and raise you one postmodern random jargon generator: http://www.elsewhere.org/pomo/
This is the grand-daddy of all PoMo gobbledygook generators.
It spits out entire PoMo academic papers at the click of a button that are indistinguishable from the “real” thing.
At the end of each essay is the disclaimer:
“The essay you have just seen is completely meaningless and was randomly generated by the Postmodernism Generator. To generate another essay, follow this link. If you liked this particular essay and would like to return to it, follow this link for a bookmarkable page.”
Knit a couple of these essays together and you’ve got yourself a bona fide PoMo PhD, or journal article or even a book.
If you want to see versions of the “real” thing produced by some of your illustrious PoMo colleagues in the humanities and social sciences – just go look up the PhD thesis or journal articles (if there are any journal articles…) of some of your favorite PoMo Profs – like Dr. Previous, for instance.
Some recommended academic departments and pseudo “disciplines” to search where this sort of meaningless, pretentious pseudo-academic PoMo fairy dust is particularly prevalent include (but are not limited to): English, Linguistics, Writing, Art, Philosophy, Anthropology, Sociology, Psychology, History, Political Science, Education, Journalism, Law and Social Thought and also, strangely enough, French, Law, Economics and even some Biology-related pseudo-life sciences.
Truth be told, these days you can find this sort of BS almost anywhere in academe – even business and the hard sciences and certainly throughout academic administration – from Student Services to the Provost’s Office.
Also check out pretty much anything with the word “studies” in the discipline or course name, i.e. Women’s and Gender Studies, Literary Studies, Cultural Studies, Africana Studies, American Studies, Disability Studies, Urban Studies, Interdisciplinary Studies, etc.
Also pretty much anything beginning with or containing the words “theory,” “theory of,” “philosophy of,” “women,” or “postmodern,” i.e. Art Theory, Film Theory, Education Theory, Writing Theory, Queer Theory, Gender Theory, Feminist Theory, Feminist Philosophy, Women in Education, Women in Philosophy, Women in Art, Marxist Theory, Postmodern Literary Theory, Postmodern Art Theory, Theory of History, “Philosophy of Seinfeld,” Continental Philosophy,” etc.
Also see Popular Culture and related courses and any course titles that sound either just plain ludicrous (“Newton’s Principia Mathematica: Math, Science and the Patriarchal Rape of the Divine Feminine”), or like they might be a children’s TV show (“Why Boys Are Bad and Girls Are Good”), or anything vaguely (or not so vaguely) weird and kinky (“Philosophy of S & M: Whips, Chains and Socrates…Oh My!”).
It's like playing Where's Waldo, except "Waldo" is everywhere.
Folks, I am not making this stuff up.
Don’t take my word for it – choose a couple of your favorite PoMo pseudo-disciplines (or pseudo-administrative departments or programs) and a couple of your favorite PoMo Profs or PoMo Administrators (hint – in addition to Dr. Previous there are several among the Gang of 12) and then go find some of the things they have written – or (given that most of them don’t publish squat) some of their PowerPoint presentations or reading lists on their syllabi.
Then… prepare for shock and awe.
In closing, presented for your approval – An After-Hours Rendezvous with The Continental “Philosopher”:
http://www.nbc.com/saturday-night-live/video/the-continental/274956
JdS
Deconstruct This!
An obvious quick shortcut to the above recommended review of the "literature," as it were, would be to obtain the desired CV's - which can serve as a handy Cliffs Notes executive summary to the Decline and Fall of Western Civilization.
Caution: Do not approach any of these PoMo materials while eating, drinking, handling sharp objects or operating heavy machinery.
Sudden outbursts of uncontrollable laughter caused by exposure to any postmodern "text" may necessitate the Heimlich Maneuver, or even lead to serious injury of one's normative cognitive functioning - e.g. the "Previous" scene involving Chief Inspector Clouseau, et al.
Excessive gaseous pretensions, verbal incontinence, speaking in tongues, ego bloating, fake foreign accent disorder (FFAD), smug curled lip syndrome (SCLC) and wearing turtlenecks and ludicrous trendy eyeglasses are also all common PoMo side effects.
Consult your doctor before viewing ANY postmodern "art" or reading ANY postmodern "text".
This Means You!
JdS
Here's a link to a column written by Michael S. Roth, president of Wesley University.
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/09/06/opinion/john-deweys-vision-of-learning-as-freedom.html?_r=1
Roth contrasts the instrumentalist view of college (only what I need to get a job) with John Dewey's philosophy of education as a path to fulfillment and self-actualization.
The current mentality of educational reductionism which seeks to mold students to fit industrial needs risks intensifying the deep abyss between the haves and the have-nots. The state seeks to abdicate its responsibilities to its taxpayers while industry wants the student to pay the bill for an education that in the end will benefit the employer alone, even as industry is being subsidized by the state AND universities who pour more of their budgets into commercial ventures. What's wrong with this picture?
Rising University?????
Now, is it rising like a phoenix rising, sinking like a brick, or barely floating like water buffalo (latin: bubulus bubulus)? Perhaps UT is the new competitor of the University of Phoenix. Perhaps ICE with the razorsharp vision or Ben Pryor will take on this giant.
The truth is: UT has been sinking under this administration, and Pryor's arrogant Machiavellian (albeit ineptly emulated) management style is only keeping it submerged. It's not ISE, Arts Axis, iPads, etc that signify progress -- you can throw all those acronyms and gadgets at naive people until they awaken -- it's that informed vision that Pryor is too incompetent to develop.
He embodies narcissism, hubris, and all the anti- intellectualism that money can buy -- the kind of money that Jacobs gives him (and all his other cronies) for failure. Now, he is surrounding himself with cronies in the fallen COIL (College of Incompetent Leadership) empire. Likewise, ICE may mean something like Intellectually Crippled Enterprise.
Better yet: let's crowdsource it -- reach for that ipad and start to innovate and create new acronyms, buzzwords, and lead the ignorami into a future where their ideas will only worth the profit they bring in.
You continue to amamze me after three decades. Individually you are brilliant, collectively not so much. ICE is a simple plan to outsource the majority of humanities and social sciences classes in an effort reduce or eliminate the need for tenure track faculty in those fields. Get out of this sandbox and fight for yourselves before it is too late.
I don't think the interpretation of ICE made by Anonymous September 7, 2012 5:40 AM holds. ICE would have to lasso a lot of students for it to have any meaningful impact on faculty loads, and the more impact it has on the numbers of students in classrooms the more impact it has on lost UT revenue. And the group of faculty it would impact most, initially, would be lecturers and visiting professors, who teach the bulk of these classes. For ICE to justify the elimination of tenure track positions in the humanities and social sciences, the departments in those areas would also have to be eliminated. I think this is just one more initiative attempting to make a UT prince-ling relevant. However, one thing the many UT prince-ling administrators seem adept at is creating some new program or college or initiative as a way to hide a recent failure or live up to their PR blitzes.
"ICE would have to lasso a lot of students for it to have any meaningful impact on faculty loads, and the more impact it has on the numbers of students in classrooms the more impact it has on lost UT revenue."
ICE - Intelli-Collapse Enterprises
You'll love the irony when you hear Pryor preaching to his disciples about generating revenue from library and other instructional services yet outsourcing an essential part of UT academic programs in the Humanities and Social Sciences.
Pryor - So right for Ronmney, So wrong for the Rest!
Yet another laughable part of UT's business model. Benny, are you ready for another round of bonuses while you are denying your staff and faculty the recognition they deserve. You are smothering them! Even Scarborough will laugh at you...
I wonder how these faux businessmen and BOT proteges spend their time on the golf courses, and perhaps what they are doing to each other that so overrides their semi-intellectual capacities...
ICE - Intellect-Corrupting Enterprises will be either the parent organization or subsidiary of UT Press with Pryor as Chief Censor (and intellectual father of the university) further degrading the unwanted disciplines at UT.
Next book: Leadership Secrets of the UT Quintette: How the Jacobs-Gold- Scarborough-Gaboury-Pryor Clique Transformed Academia
Future UT Press books: How to Discard Kidneys - A Pictorial Guide to Disposing Organs and Kicking Personnel.
SShh! You did not hear this in the library...
"Faculty Senate in fact raised concerns about COIL and other of VP Pryor's initiatives that by-pass faculty at every opportunity. The competency-based core curriculum was passed by Senate, but that body also made it clear that it was only voting only for the core to be organized around competencies, and not for the upper level courses, yet."
You should know that the competency-based program in the COIL (college of incompetent leadership...a paradox right here) also envisioned graduate programs -- maybe PhD, hence was his visit to Harvard.
COIL PhD would have been "Harvard on the cheap" I can imagine the laughter echoing through the halls of that institution...
The truth: Benster would have by-passed the Faculty Senate just as he did the library for many of his delusional initiatives.
JdS,
Your commentary on this blog is both refreshing and thought-provoking, and is highly appreciated by many of the enlightened readers of the A&S blog. You are truly a breath of fresh air coming from the stagnant swamps of Toledo and higher education.
As a University of Toledo alumnus with degrees in both the natural sciences and social sciences who is currently considering graduate education, I was wondering if you might be able to provide some guidance in regards to selecting a university that fosters a healthy and stimulating academic environment for graduate education.
Essentially, my question is this.
Where do I find a university environment both intellectually rigorous and low on academic/administrative shenanigans?
I am looking at various universities across the country and keep encountering the same pattern of pretentious pseudo-academic drivel being produced in both the natural sciences and social sciences. Egregious acts of administrative excess are par for the course. Graduate education is a highly individualized endeavor, of course, and some departments and areas of study will have much lower rates of academic drivel than others … there is much less fluff in the natural sciences as compared to the social sciences, of course, but it is still there. My observations indicate that individual departments tend to be heavily influenced by the university community they reside in, and if the university environment is toxic towards true academic achievement, the department environment will also be toxic.
In all seriousness, I beginning to think the best use of my time may just be going to my local public library and spending the next 4-5 years reading the great works of literature, law, science, and the arts.
I have been a staff member and faculty for many years. Since the present administration took over I feel very much devalued and insulted financially, academically and even personally through all the hoops I have been commanded to jump through. I pay more for insurances, am expected to do more but my pay never increases but only decreases in real terms because it does not keep up with inflation. Don't expect any more from me. I am going to work to the rule, do the minimum to get by, and if you want a smile or some type of positive expression.....well you are going to just have to pay extra. Until this administration leaves, it is no longer my university, but "their university." I am an outsider.
JdS replies to Anon 2:56 – Re where to find quality higher education
Thank you for your kind words of support and your thoughtful comments.
I honestly don't know where someone might go for a truly high quality, effective, efficient and affordable non-BS non-PoMo/PC advanced education these days.
Even the Ivies have been subverted by the Commissars of PC.
Based on my own fairly extensive investigation into contemporary Higher Ed, it appears the problems are systematic, pervasive and more or less inexorable and unavoidable.
In this regard I must concur with Pres. Jacobs when he says higher ed is “inbred.”
Former President of Columbia University’s Teacher’s College, Arthur Levine, said as much a number of years ago in his extensive report on American Education Colleges – see www.edschools.org.
You might inquire initially at Hillsdale College in Hillsdale Michigan. I do not have much direct knowledge about them except insofar as knowing they are unashamedly conservative in terms of politics and education – so you will at least not be burned at the stake for daring to inquire about the possibility of finding ways to educate yourself outside the PoMo/PC Church of Higher Ed.
Hillsdale may actually be the answer you are looking for – though I imagine out-of-state tuition for a quality college like Hillsdale has to be prohibitive these days. If you are independently wealthy that won’t be a problem. Or maybe you can audit courses or access online courses.
Personally, I concluded a long time ago that the only way I was going to get the sort of real education I wanted for myself was to go it alone. I went through the motions of college and got what I could on the formal track. Yes there were some good courses and good professors, but the entire process could have been FAR more streamlined, focused, coherent and expedited. All in all, almost everything I learned that I now consider truly valuable, I learned on my own.
Given that you have already run the gauntlet of higher ed and have years of experience and life wisdom to rely on, I think your idea of creating your own curriculum and educating yourself at the library with Great Books etc. is an admirable, viable and in many respects preferable option.
But doing it yourself assumes you have the luxury to take the time for yourself and don't need to offer anyone any formal proof of certification…a.k.a. proof of purchase.
The elitist and largely PoMo/PC higher ed machine is a rigidly controlled monopoly and Members Only Club – the PhD (or MFA etc.) sheepskin being the only acceptable junior membership card – and academic tenure being the only acceptable vetting of senior members.
If you are able to circumvent all the time, expense, logistics, politics, bureaucracy, busy work etc. involved in formal higher ed by simply focusing on your own quality education on your own terms – then you should be able to accomplish this in a fairly straightforward manner.
As far as a reading list or “curriculum” – there is Mortimer J. Adler’s classic Great Books list as well as Harold Bloom’s Western Canon – but I would personally re-edit and streamline these lists to focus more heavily on truly great readings and weed out extraneous readings, particularly the obligatory starry-eyed liberal idealist, degenerate and politically correct propaganda masquerading as scholarship, philosophy or “literature”.
I would also highly recommend at least some general survey coursework in the history of ideas, history of science and in the current state of affairs in present day science and technology. There are plenty of good popular science books.
If you’re feeling really motivated – break out your old high school algebra, trigonometry and calculus books. Math perhaps more than anything else really gets the proverbial cerebral juices flowing. I will post an outline of some further specific recommendations for you regarding readings etc. shortly.
Best,
JdS
Mike Dowd, Pres of Faculty Senate, had a report he wanted to present to the BOT Academic and Student Affairs committee, expressing faculty concerns about the appointment of Dr. Scarborough as Provost and the process of choosing him. His report was not made to the BOT because the chair of the BOT committee rejected it as gossip or some such nonsense.
JdS,
Thanks for the realistic and slightly depressing outlook on the current state of advanced education. It is nice to know that my somewhat incredulous attitude towards the current feckless antics of academia is not completely unwarranted. I sometimes feel like I am a voice crying in the wilderness in regards to the excesses I see on a daily basis at UT and other universities... gender neutral bathrooms anyone?
I moved away from the University of Toledo community a few years ago and work in the tech industry(I taught myself programming and tech so that I am employable in spite of my degrees!), so graduate school for me is more a change of pace and way to expand my academic muscles rather than a way towards a new career. Like yourself, almost everything useful I've learned has been of my own volition.
I am really not quite sure what I will do in regards to graduate school. Perhaps I will look into what universities in the UK are offering, although I have a sneaking suspicion it could be even worse there in terms of academic BS, PoMo/PC, etc.
Dear anonymous September 13, 2012 11:42 AM,
if you want to go to graduate school without all this BS, just go to some of the continental European countries (Germany, France, etc.) or to places like Brazil. No PoMo
BS there.
Enjoy!
bloggie, can you cut this esoteric crap and let the remaining folks deal with the revolution? For all I know you are LLJ, but in the event that you are not, cannot you stop the philosophical bullshit? Imagine a FOI on all responses. How will we argue with a straight face that the POMo and ICE folks represent our faculty. "We must be united, not distracted." I challenge you to publish that as a statement of the day, week or year. Are yo LLJ?
Bloggie is LLJ? An intriguing possibihillbilly that could really undermine our nearly successful efforts to overthrow Jacobs Inc.
Meanwhile, I agree that Bloggie should seriously consider directing any and all future babble and rants by "JdS" (J.D. Salinger?) to the spitoon -- at least until (s)he cries out "Uncle Obama!"
"Mike Dowd, Pres of Faculty Senate, had a report he wanted to present to the BOT Academic...[but] His report was not made to the BOT because the chair of the BOT committee rejected it as gossip or some such nonsense."
Here is a theory: Mike's report was not worded eloquently, and because he represents those 47% freeloaders that the BOT despises. Keep on fighting, Mike and we...freeloaders...must be behind you! This regime must go!
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