So difficult to know where all of this is going. It has become fashionable in some quarters to criticize higher education focusing on the general rather than vocational orientation and on liberal leanings of the majority of faculty members. The financial problem is so complex with costs related as much to providing students the amenities they want in order to increase income from tuition in a competitive market and at the same time trying to address traditional goals. I have decided I retired at a good time
It's tough times. Our small liberal arts college just started the process of creating a single 'humanities' major to replace all discipline-specific ones in the humanities. Here across the street in the Division of Education (I'm a stealth historian), they're shutting down my home program, special education.
I have a year or two, I think, before any employment changes that affect me arrive, but in some ways it's only a matter of time.
All a long-winded way of saying, thanks for sharing your journey a few miles ahead. Those of us following along appreciate seeing that life goes on, albeit reshaped.
Thanks, Naomi. I do think (at least I HOPE!) that life goes on. The landscape is being reshaped and I suppose it's both inevitable and beneficial in the long run that I adjust to new realities about what and how people choose to learn. One of the things that has frustrated me the most about my faculty union, actually, has been their steadfast refusal to respond to disruptions as anything but attacks from an adversary administration.
So difficult to know where all of this is going. It has become fashionable in some quarters to criticize higher education focusing on the general rather than vocational orientation and on liberal leanings of the majority of faculty members. The financial problem is so complex with costs related as much to providing students the amenities they want in order to increase income from tuition in a competitive market and at the same time trying to address traditional goals. I have decided I retired at a good time
It's tough times. Our small liberal arts college just started the process of creating a single 'humanities' major to replace all discipline-specific ones in the humanities. Here across the street in the Division of Education (I'm a stealth historian), they're shutting down my home program, special education.
I have a year or two, I think, before any employment changes that affect me arrive, but in some ways it's only a matter of time.
All a long-winded way of saying, thanks for sharing your journey a few miles ahead. Those of us following along appreciate seeing that life goes on, albeit reshaped.
Thanks, Naomi. I do think (at least I HOPE!) that life goes on. The landscape is being reshaped and I suppose it's both inevitable and beneficial in the long run that I adjust to new realities about what and how people choose to learn. One of the things that has frustrated me the most about my faculty union, actually, has been their steadfast refusal to respond to disruptions as anything but attacks from an adversary administration.