[Cicero]

Having taught in the liberal arts sector of American universities since 1965, I couldn't agree more. What's happened in most English, history, politics, philosophy, comparative literature, and similar departments is despicable.

But fixing it won't be easy. When you let things go to the point where the inmates are running the asylum, it's extremely difficult to cure the situation. You have no one you can trust to do sensible hiring. You have few sensible graduate students coming out of the system to hire. You have few people you can trust to run the departments and improve them. This mess will take a long, long time to straighten out, if indeed it can be straightened out at all.

Hillsdale never went that way, and there are other exceptions. But all the formerly "best" universities are now, in this regard, among the worst. It's a very sad situation.

[Drippy]

On a good note,I notice that the anti-war protests at my local state university are small and numbers at these affairs are way down from the levels of the Vietnam era.Back then protests grew to 4-5000.Lately there have been small protests,but most students seem unwilling or don't feel a need to oppose the war on terrorism.