Posted on 08/29/2015 7:19:11 AM PDT by SeekAndFind
I have two confessions to make.
First, I was a university professor from the late 1960s to the late 1990s. Over four-plus decades at the same institution, I went from Assistant Professor to Associate Professor to Full Professor. I enjoyed my career, most of the time.
I took early retirement for personal and professional reasons.
Subsequently, I was an adjunct professor at another university where a close family member is also employed. I retired from that post mostly for personal reasons. After nearly 40 years of teaching -- I was a high school social studies teacher for two years before pursuing the Ph.D. -- I no longer enjoyed teaching.
My second confession is that I’m glad I’m no longer in Academe. There are several reasons for this.
Since my relative is still in the profession, I continue to hear and read about developments in Academe. I have also read about the history of American higher education, so I believe I understand where colleges/universities have been, are now, and are headed.
[SNIP]
Students increasingly wanted to be credentialed; learning was incidental. If one assigned more than two books, for example, the wailing was incessant. Institutions of higher education became more and more bureaucratized, and did all they could to pound square pegs into round holes. Schedules became more onerous, and one increasingly found oneself teaching what would formerly have been remedial classes. Toward the end of my career, I was told to teach subject matter to college undergraduates that I’d learned in high school.
Nevertheless, issues like changes in scheduling, course content, students, etc., were minor irritants.
Unhappily, worse things also occurred.
One was the rise of political correctness. I wish I could remember when first I encountered that by-now hoary concept.
(Excerpt) Read more at americanthinker.com ...
I can relate. I’m in my 45th year of teaching (17 in public schools, the rest in ‘higher ed’). What was once a love and joy (leading youngsters through various subjects and subject matter) turned over the years to toil. Toil of addressing the “I paid my tuition, where’s my ‘A’? Many of today’s students: entitlement at its finest with no sense of pride of accomplishment.
4 plus Decades is an ‘early retirement’ ?
Somewhere Stalin is smiling.
Will Rogers said “Education is the only thing people pay for and try to get the least of.”
I was always puzzled by people who never went to class. I asked them if they bought movie or sporting event tickets and did not go or perhaps paid for doctor visits they never attended?
Toil of addressing the “I paid my tuition, where’s my ‘A’?
...
It’s been corrupted by money. With trillions in student loans, a government that wants to corrupt, and with administrators who are willing to be corrupt, it was bound to happen.
I remember being assigned ten thick books for one of my history classes and having to read and discuss them all. We also had a discussion group outside of class with the prof.
It was disappointing to me in Trade School that the students who skipped all classes and just studied note service and read in the library got better grades. It was like those of us who attended classes in the day and studied into the late night at home were being punished. Fact is, what we were doing was inefficient. Now, those who never attended class are Orthopods at Mayo and such. Not bitching, just pointing it out. Those who studied in the library all day and had evenings free did better. Who knows, they probably would have done better if they slaved away like those of us who attended every class. The indisputable fact is those who studied all day in the library were all at the top.
TFB. You sat on your ass and let it happen. Now you can suffer for your cowardice.
The seeds of Marxism in academia has reaped a bitter harvest. When only leftist thought is considered intellectual, it sows a field of barren weeds that produces nothing.
Although I would be a little more charitable, I agree with your sentiment. It's time conservatives on these campuses speak up. Their silence aids the triumph of evil.
Look at Mike Adams, at UNC-Wilmington. He spits in the face of the leftists at every opportunity, and just won a large settlement after suing them for their double standards.
The left reminds me of Satan. Satan will eventually lose and be tossed into hell but until then, he will create as much trouble as he can before he goes. Same with the left.
On a recent visit to my Specialty Doctor we were discussing the state of higher education in today’s world. He is very educated as in Internal Medicine,Oncology and Hemotology, he also has 4 young children. His comment to me was that he is going to steer his kids away from higher education and help them explore the trades, or careers that are well paying without subjecting them to a 4 year college.
Colleges today are going to reach critical mass when all of the rhetoric is going to cave in on itself and there will nothing left but people babbling learned by rote talking points to like minded robots that are still in their classrooms.
When I was in college, it was usually the parents that were paying for the kids that never went to class.
Now that I’m an adjunct professor, it’s the government that’s paying for the kids that never come to class.
“His comment to me was that he is going to steer his kids away from higher education and help them explore the trades, or careers that are well paying without subjecting them to a 4 year college.”
That’s a great approach.
What are the trades or careers as such that are well paid?
Government comes in, quality goes out.
Women enter a profession, men leave the profession.
(I’m full of them.)
I remember all too well telling a student of mine years ago that so-called political correctness would never get off the ground because it was simply insane. Today the whole country is madder than a march hare.
Well Sir,
I, for one, stand in awe of those 45 years. I salute you. I wish I had the honor of saying that you once taught me. I was not so lucky.
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