North Dakota State University plans to add 32 new faculty members to keep up with enrollment growth, “the most new instructors the university has ever added at one time,” the Associated Press reports:
NDSU has about 20 students for every faculty member. [President Joseph A.] Chapman said he would like to get the ratio to about 17 to 1, which would put NDSU on par with similar universities in the country.
Adding to the faculty ranks will cost about $1.8-million a year, Chapman said. NDSU will use state money and increased tuition revenue from the growing enrollment to pay the salaries.
In addition, the university plans to hire 14 new student advisers — that’s twice the number currently on staff — to assist students with academic planning, the AP writes.
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18 Responses to North Dakota State U. to Hire More Professors
Gerard Harbison - July 21, 2011 at 6:41 pm
Haven’t we already admitted that to conceive of the humanities in the context of higher education is to ask what is at stake in the debate—on all sides? This is a political question.
Begging the question, and I gave at the office, sorry.
22259152 - July 22, 2011 at 8:27 am
I agree you cannot remove politics from education. It is evident by your article you consider only one side of the political spectrum as incapable of handling the debate. Unfortunate.
Sigivald - July 22, 2011 at 1:41 pm
What’s a “collective need”?
No, seriously – this question is not rhetorical.
What does that formulation refer to? How does it differ at all from the summation of individual needs? Does it?
You sure seem to be indicating that it should differ somehow, but how it could and in what way is unclear.
This philosopher (BA, 1999) wants to know what the hell that could actually mean that isn’t just hand-waving, or simply the aggregation of individual needs.
What is there in the “shared experience” and “collective needs” that is not reducible to the individual experience that definitionally are what make up the entirety of that experience and set of needs?
(Or, if not definitionally so, what in God’s name do you imagine this “society” which is “shared experience and collective needs” to be made of, if not the individual experiences of the individuals composing it?)
William Dix - July 22, 2011 at 2:07 pm
So..let me see if I can summarize your argument without the ideological justification.
That being so long as the political views being expressed are the ones you agree with, you’ll support to having education be politicized. So long as that politicization is in line with the political views and beliefs of self appointed purveyors of “truth” whose ideology is compatible with yours. In addition any political views and opinions other than those you support must be suppressed or ignored.
Why is it that otherwise brilliant people can’t seem to think through to the logical consequences of what they are advocating. In this case what you are advocating is for all practical purposes no different than the propaganda spoon fed to children in dictatorships in order to ensure the loyalty of the populace to the regime.
In the end what you are advocating here is nothing other than calling for the suppression of all dissenting or opposing views of events and facts other than those that you consider ideologically correct. In any case I have little if any doubt that you would be quite at home as a propagandist and indoctrinator of a classic fascist or stalinist dictatorship.
Jason Van Steenwyk - July 22, 2011 at 2:10 pm
Please tell me this is parody.
Buzz Lightyear - July 22, 2011 at 2:14 pm
Oh, my goodness. The Chronicle has now hired writers from The Onion!
William Dix - July 22, 2011 at 2:38 pm
Judging by my quick scroll through his previous posts I’m sorry to tell you it’s not a parody.
ftgaines - July 22, 2011 at 3:26 pm
This is hilarious! This is some of the worst writing i have ever read. He packs one word into ten over and over. I suppose that makes sense when what you say doesnt.
Aaron - July 22, 2011 at 10:17 pm
“Politics is the most obvious active form of our recognition of society.”
No, my most obvious interaction with society is driving. And then work. And my friendships. And I study politics as a passionate hobby! You claim libertarians are closed minded about the function of society, but the average libertarian is familiar with the works of Marx, Rawls, Keynes, etc. How many of those “open minded” people who make the assumption that the state is a constructive force have read the works of von Mises, Hayek, Rothbard, Nozick, etc.? I’m guessing not so many. In fact, most libertarians do not start off as such, but have gone through a pretty amazing rethinking process the average statist has not.
Your whole analysis falls apart because you start with the assumption that society and politics are things we should expand upon for our own good. It is completely possible that the state is a hindrance to happiness and that “society”…well, actually, I’ll wait for you to explain what you mean by that. I’ll just say that there is no sentient being known as “society.”
gpurcell - July 22, 2011 at 10:24 pm
“[I]t is a fear of the sort of change that encourages rethinking basic assumptions about the social world and moral principles.”
Somehow, I suspect Professor Brown is utterly blind to the irony in this statement. When, I wonder, has he employed his capacity for critical thought to his own beliefs and assumptions? Is it possible that he really, truly believes his entire career is not one long discourse of intensively ideological thinking? Has he considered, for example, where, precisely, “shared experiences and collectives needs” might exist other than in individual experiences imprinted in our physical brains?
William Dix - July 22, 2011 at 10:35 pm
Buzz the scary thing is that the writer is serious about what he writes. In addition to being one of the die hard Marxists which have taken over certain parts of academia much to the detriment of their chosen fields.
beebleemoore - July 23, 2011 at 6:23 am
I’m very impressed that other commenters have understood enough of this to be able to comment on it. Its lugubrious sociologese is way beyond me. The essential gist, so far as I could make it out, was that politics is a good thing, and is necessary to justify the humanities. (I did not understand Dr Fish to be disputing this – I thought he was merely suggesting that particular political views should not form the axioms of a sociological discipline.)The most puzzling aspect of Prof Brown’s remarks though, aside from the English, was his notion that that sect of right wing opinion of which he most disapproves – libertarians – is unwilling to acknowledge society and collective life. I can’t think that he actually believes this – those people who bang on about “freedom” in preference to banging on about “equality” and “justice” are all in favor of society and collective life, but they would prefer them to be organised as far as possible by voluntary association, rather than by imposition. To the extent that Prof Brown uses the word “politics” to mean “other people ordering you what to do, and how you may associate with others, under threat of punishment” it’s hardly surprising that people who value freedom will be unenthusiastic about a large role for “politics.”
doubting_rich - July 23, 2011 at 7:23 am
In misidentifying the source of the complaint every sound argument in this whole essay is simply used as a means of entrenching the problem.
The irony is that Mr Brown comes so close to a correct assessment of the problem in correctly identifying the complainants as right-wing.
The problem in education is of course not that there is politics involved. There are good arguments that politics in education is positive, even essential in some fields. The problem is that the politics is almost entirely left-wing, yet this entire essay seems to argue that left-wing politics is necessary in education.
Not only is a balance of political views the only acceptable way to bring politics into education, but confining politics in education to the left is a restriction on that education. It seems that Mr Brown is like most lefties: he doesn’t understand right-wing views, and doesn’t see what they can bring.
Hell, I can stop being non-judgemental. Mr Brown says that some libertarians “..decide against society in advance”. The guy clearly doesn’t understand right-wing politics. That is the core flaw of politics in education, and the core flaw of this essay.
teapartydoc - July 23, 2011 at 7:36 pm
Life does not consist of the garbled abstractions of a substandard subsidized mind. In the future there will still be little essays like this, but they will not be written with the tone of one ensconced in an office down the hall from a faculty lounge, but from a dingy apartment retired to after a night of waiting tables.
caradoc - July 23, 2011 at 9:10 pm
As a white man I’m not permitted to have an opinion on race, supposedly because I can’t understand it because I’m not black. I’d like to suggest that Mr. Brown has no business writing about conservatism because, as a liberal, he has no idea what it means.
Conservatives DO acknowledge society as a shared endeavor. By claiming they don’t he sets up a typical strawman and proceeds with the usual, and usually deliberate, misinformation and false claims of conservative ideals. Contrasted neatly to idealized interpretations of liberal ideology.
The irony of him claiming conservatives as dividing people into a good us vs. bad them as he proceeds to do just such division is apparently lost on him..
All in all, this article is a waste of time — by misrepresenting conservative ideals the article leaves the realm of analysis and enters the realm of polemic and propaganda. Mr. Brown would do better to stop writing about conservatives and start learning about them.
Trochilus - July 24, 2011 at 12:34 pm
“The humanities bring to the forefront of thought the existence of
society, disclosing the necessity to recognize the politics that comes
with collective life.”
Obfuscation, deliberate or otherwise, frequently surfaces as a handmaiden to the expressive efforts of those, like Michael Brown, whose otherwise seemingly earnest communications, are basically aimed at heralding a dangerous collectivist ideal. One of the basic forms is vagueness, and this piece takes a backseat to none in that regard! That relatively simple device can actually be enhanced by simply inserting quotation marks around multiple words and phrases, almost as if to signal certain readers of a coded meaning thereto, one which presumably only they can understand. Michael Brown has employed this device in extremis. Witness, in particular, the third and fourth grafs in the above piece.
For obvious reasons, the many facets and forms of collectivism have had an increasingly rough go of it over the past century or so in the various efforts to attract adherents. Tsk, tsk! But, the supposed ideal keeps revisiting us in a variety of costumes and voices.
The historic point is, as we know, that the victims of collectivism have tragically measured in the many-fold millions worldwide. For lack of a better explanation the culprit seems to have been denial, that terrifyingly powerful force which somehow keeps us (both individually and in groups) banging our heads against the wall, all evidence to the contrary notwithstanding. Group denial somehow stalled the understanding and made room for the cruel subjugation of multiple peoples and nations as the century unfolded. The 20s and 30s in the Soviet Union should have been an undeniable signal for a course correction. Yet, even the NY Times, through Walter Duranty, willingly participated in the suppression of that horror.
So, while I could not agree more with the author than that the encouragement of critical thinking is (or at least ought to be) a central value of the academy, the notion that it should be employed for the purpose of ushering in a collectivist ideal, should be viewed with the greatest of suspicion. As was consistently revealed throughout the history of the 20th century, the ideal quickly devolves into inhumane forms.
mstr_rick - July 30, 2011 at 9:32 pm
Yes, Mr. Brown, EXACTLY what DO you mean by this “collective need” and who decides what it is? You? The Politburo? The INDIVIDUAL is of the highest order, not the collective. Did you just move here from the Eastern Block?
“The moral purpose of one’s life is to seek out that which brings you happiness, in your OWN best interest” – Ayn Rand
A “civil society” is a function of Ordered Liberty Mr. Brown, it’s based on a Harmony of Interests and rules of cooperation between men of good will, not state enforced “collective need”.
Your article smacks of typical left wing rhetoric to deny the individual his inalienable rights while empowering the state some abstract right to subjugate.
Put down the Marx and try some Hayek.
joechill - August 4, 2011 at 10:02 am
Obviously, my conservative friends, he’s suggesting that the needs of collective life are determined by political means and that higher ed should not blind itself to these means. If you replace the bogey man of a socialist collective with a church, neighborhood, or even family, what he’s saying is not as ideologically rigid as many posters have suggested.