next »

[merce]

not a chronicle article but something that surely the Chron will cover.

Various students and other interested parties held a funeral for Tennessee Higher Education  in protest or consciousness-building of the move to make changes to Higher Education including those cited in the Chronicle last week (pushing for online courses with no faculty contact; senior students teaching junior students; higher dependence on adjunct faculty, etc.)

Nashville News coverage:

http://www.wkrn.com/global/story.asp?s=9816452

The website for those opposed to the manouvers:
http://www.saveourschoolslive.org/


How will things turn out?
How popular will the changes be and will we see them across the US sooner rather than later?

[high_energy_photons]

Tennessee is not the only place where they are having funeral services for higher education, and it is not the only place with drastic changes occurring.

[merce]

Tennessee is not the only place where they are having funeral services for higher education, and it is not the only place with drastic changes occurring.

Ummm, is that supposed to make me feel better?

[jackofallchem]

I remember seeing a picture of a tombstone erected by students on a campus years ago.  It read


                _________
      _____                ______   
      |                                |
      |   Engineering Program |
      |                                |
      |        18xx-19xx          |
      |                                |
      |       Buried Alive         |
      |                                |
      |                                |
      |                                |
__________________________________


We may see a lot of such markers.

[high_energy_photons]

Tennessee is not the only place where they are having funeral services for higher education, and it is not the only place with drastic changes occurring.

Ummm, is that supposed to make me feel better?

Not really, but it is more of a, "we're all in this handbasket together," type of support.  It is terribly frustrating what is happening right now in higher education.  Majors, departments, and colleges are getting disestablished.  People are losing their jobs and students are losing their dreams.  In some ways, I think the funeral services suggest that students are being driven to do something.  That brings a very tiny spark of hope into this terrible time.

Sorry if my response seemed flippant, but some days it just seems like all of academia is crashing down on my head.

[svenc]

A workplan for destroying a state's long-term economic prospects:

1.  Revolutionize the higher education system to be the most cost-effective in the country (measured by cost per credit hour delivered).  Considerable cost savings can be achieved by eliminating face-to-face contact between faculty instructors and students customers.

2.  Take pride in the innovation.  Make sure that the public knows how unique your state's university system is, and how much it is saving taxpayers.

3.  Ignore it when more and more students who may be interested in something more from a university education start going to out-of-state institutions.

4.  Fail to notice that these motivated students intellectual snobs tend to find jobs, fall in love, and buy houses in the places where they complete their higher education.

5.  Perhaps, slowly start to notice that residents of other states fail to pay taxes in Tennessee.  Oops!

6.  We need to cut expenditures somewhere, our tax revenues are down because so many of our young people are leaving the state.  Wonder what we can cut?

[mouseman]

A workplan for destroying a state's long-term economic prospects:

1.  Revolutionize the higher education system to be the most cost-effective in the country (measured by cost per credit hour delivered).  Considerable cost savings can be achieved by eliminating face-to-face contact between faculty instructors and students customers.

2.  Take pride in the innovation.  Make sure that the public knows how unique your state's university system is, and how much it is saving taxpayers.

3.  Ignore it when more and more students who may be interested in something more from a university education start going to out-of-state institutions.

4.  Fail to notice that these motivated students intellectual snobs tend to find jobs, fall in love, and buy houses in the places where they complete their higher education.

5.  Perhaps, slowly start to notice that residents of other states fail to pay taxes in Tennessee.  Oops!

6.  We need to cut expenditures somewhere, our tax revenues are down because so many of our young people are leaving the state.  Wonder what we can cut?

On the up side, nobody will complain when we make it illegal to teach evolution! 

[takapa]

I don't want to be down on Tennessee.  I know good people at UT Knoxville and they produce quality research and have great students.  But, this isn't new.  I was in Tennessee in 1989 or 1990 and read about then Governor Ned McWherter in the local paper.  He was at UT Knoxville for something and was swamped with questions by students and faculty about massive budget cuts to UT and subsequent massive tuition hikes.  A student told him that the tuition was getting so high that when considered in conjunction with the program cuts and such it was just a better deal to go out of state.  McWherter's response was "then you should go out of state".  The student asked him if he meant that and he said something to the effect that any Tennessee student or high school student who thought the way that young man did should go out of state to college.  The student then asked if he had to go out of state to college, why would he come back after graduation?  The response from the governor was something like "I don't care if you come back." 

That was 20 years ago.

[takapa]

BTW, I've often wondered what Gov. McWherter's daughter, thinks of this.  She's on faculty at the little teaching school UT Martin.  I don't know about her in particular, but UT Martin has a reputation as a place that seriously underpays its faculty. 

[aandsdean]

BTW, I've often wondered what Gov. McWherter's daughter, thinks of this.  She's on faculty at the little teaching school UT Martin.  I don't know about her in particular, but UT Martin has a reputation as a place that seriously underpays its faculty. 

All the publics in TN are like that, I think.  Several years ago I declined a dean interview at Austin Peay because the salary was somewhat less than I was making as a department chair at one of the small public university in Georgia.  No way was I going to do that.  Obviously this is not a new problem there.

My current state will happily take the people smart enough to flee TN.  It would make our culture more interesting.