The Chronicle of Higher Education - Latest Comments

Re: Mamas, Don’t Let Your Babies Grow Up to Be Teachers

blackoncampus2 — Wed, 16 May 2012 15:38:32 -0000

I think this is a very important point. In our nation, only certain occupations are considered "service." Part of this is because our country has a lot more practice at understanding the highly visible sacrifices of our soldiers. A bigger part of the problem, however, is that we in the teaching profession have done a terrible job at communicating the true nature of our work. We have been insufficient at conveying both the rewards and the sacrifices of our work, as well as the long hours (including summers, weekends, and evenings).

Re: Insecurity in Academia

marktropolis — Wed, 16 May 2012 15:36:07 -0000

And according to Mindingthecampus (where Bauerlein get's printed) the Sebelius petition already has 25,000 signers. Is that "disproportionate?" She is, after all, the secretary of HHS. What's great is that mindingthecampus in their promo of the petition (
http://www.mindingthecampus.co... ) frame themselves as symathizers to both the killers of George Tiller, and the verbal assault on Sandra Fluke. Nice.

Interesting that an organization that presents itself as "fostering a new climate of opinion that favors civil and honest engagement of all sides" but they want to keep Sebelius from speaking. Irony much?

Re: Why Is There Something Rather Than Nothing?

Ken_Pidcock — Wed, 16 May 2012 15:35:39 -0000

Isn't it better to enjoy our ignorance and thus our ability to discover and or construct bits of things here and there?

Maybe not so much enjoy our ignorance as accept limits on what we can know. The question that Michael Ruse poses is not one I expect to see answered. (If Lawrence Krauss has an answer, I'll modify that to "is not one for which I expect to understand the answer.") Likewise the hard problem of consciousness. People who claim to have a handle on that one are, I'm afraid, deluding themselves.

Re: Insecurity in Academia

marktropolis — Wed, 16 May 2012 15:31:47 -0000

1. And you're point is...
2. That's why I made a differentiation between mobs and conspiracies.
3. I'm not really too concerned about the right raising hell. And we're not talking about someone getting fired for a different opinion - if that was the case, Bauerlein, Vedder and Wood would never have been hired - we're talking about someone who used her platform for spouting venom. Something CHE doesn't want a part of.
4. In don't understand the point you're trying to make.
5. Was it censorship when Fox got rid of Glenn Beck?

Re: Why Is There Something Rather Than Nothing?

pianiste — Wed, 16 May 2012 15:31:15 -0000

Well, of course not. That's the point. One can't "refute" a supernatural explanation for anything. Worse, most of those who say that science can't explain everything and, therefore, a supernatural explanation for at least something must be required, then leap more than a tall building in a single bound to get directly to "faith" in the specific supernatural beliefs in a particular religion.

Re: For Schools of Theology, It's Time to Bend Tradition

Paula Hepola Anderson — Wed, 16 May 2012 15:29:38 -0000

Exactly, the student at seminary is a student of theology, not an apprentice of the business, internships can help with the practicalities while seminary should be scholastics so that the dumbing down of our spiritual culture does not continue to decline to the point of pep talks.

Re: Students' Sense of Entitlement Drives Away a Faculty Member

kenrickthompson — Wed, 16 May 2012 15:29:37 -0000

I surely do not disagree with your sentiments or your strategies. Very humbly, let me say that I believe you have a great deal more patience than I do. This may be a function of the contrast between your generation and mine (I am 66 years of age.....a "leading-edge Baby Boomer"), or merely a result of my age -- I confess that my energy level has decreased over the past decade. Your comments are well taken and I admire your ongoing enthusiasm in dealing with the current crop of undergraduate students today. Yet another variable may be the particular variety of students with whom you are dealing. For example, when I was a full-time faculty member at Northern Michigan University (1974-1997), we used to joke about how the automobiles in the student parking lots were far more expensive than those that belonged to the faculty. NMU is located in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan and has a reputation for being a low-crime, "low-deviance" area - there were no rapes on-campus, etc., etc. Consequently, the institution was high-on-the-list for privileged, well-to-do parents, in deciding to send their children there, in lieu of other locations elsewhere in the state. On more than one occasion, I made the public statement that, in my judgment, many of our students thought their s _ _ t didn't stink. I clashed with these little $%@#&'s, and thoroughly enjoyed putting them in their places, simply because I had the authority and the motivation to do so. If I wavered in my pedagogical purpose, then so be it.......these students "tasked" me......and I had them by the proverbial (certain) parts of the anatomy.

In any event, I am now retired......I am free of obligatory work-activities......I am enjoying the good life in the repasse of a successful career. I was fortunate to become involved with college publishing during the "glory era" of high enrollments and prodigious textbook sales. I made a lot of money. I intend to enjoy the spoils of my labors over the past 30 years. People like you now take up the gauntlet and continue the march. I wish you the very best in that endeavor. May you keep your zealous energy for the process of learning. Good luck.

Re: Is Death Bad for You?

luigi — Wed, 16 May 2012 15:29:30 -0000

As someone who came within a minute or two of dying, I am not afraid of death, though I would like to enjoy life a little longer. The professor's academic discourse is the sort of clever argumentation that gives academics a bad name.

Re: Advocate of College-Readiness Standards Is Chosen as Next President of College Board

lynnkerie — Wed, 16 May 2012 15:27:50 -0000

Thank Goodness!! I was just discussing how many of our community college entry level classes need to be developmental in order to teach the math and English basics... and I DO mean BASICS! And we need multiple (I'm talking dozens) of sections of these developmental classes since the need is so prevalent.

It would be refreshing to start getting recent high school grads that can actually enter college level classes upon their high school graduation.

Hopefully, the GED training that is being done will stay comparable.

Re: ‘Change Mustn’t Be a Burden’

James W. H. Howard — Wed, 16 May 2012 15:21:24 -0000

I agree that the declamation of rules is too easy and unnecessarily restrictive.

As a writer and a teacher of writing, I've found it useful to take note of what pronouns we use in our writing. Some examples are obvious, like not using second person in writing.

Gender is also important, because our pronouns present particular assumptions about gender even when such assumptions are not appropriate to a context. The sentence "Ze nursed hir baby" is silly unless the person being discussed is biologically female but does not identify as a woman, or unless the author is clearly trying not to make any assumptions about gender assignation at all. Because gender identifications are an opt-out rather than opt-in system, most writers and readers would normalize the gender to "she" and "her" unless they were aware of objections.

So the use of gender pronouns, like many other usage choices, comes down to context, audience expectation, and authorial intention. Forcing the use of one kind of pronoun teaches nothing but obedience to a rule that, like all rules, isn't always appropriate. If that means that students commit what seem to be unnecessary aberrations, I will point out the implications of their usage rather than painting it in red ink.

Re: Rising and Falling on Football

misscreant — Wed, 16 May 2012 15:20:02 -0000

I would gladly attend a BCSA support group, but only if I could be assured of the vulgarity and yahooism.

Re: Is Death Bad for You?

Dave Moore — Wed, 16 May 2012 15:19:13 -0000

Hi Shelly,

Here are a few points on your piece, "Is Death Bad For You?"

Death of the body is one thing. Death of the spirit, or soul, does not exist. We are eternal. (This I can prove so if you're at all interested drop me a note: TheeDaveMoore@ThinkersAndSinkers.com)

If someone shoots another person, while they are responsible for the shooting a person dying from the shoots dies from their injuries not from the person actually committing the act of shooting them. Why the person succumbs to the shooting is sometimes affected by the person who is shot. (The will to live plays a component role in the outcome.)

Existentially death is not bad for anyone. Where an individual continues their experience after the death of the body may be viewed as how death might be bad. And while this considered, death is viewed from the finite perspective of the individual making that determination, which reflects their perspective of themselves and their current disposition.

If one would consider that any and all experiences lead to a final disposition of bliss, the hardship, suffering, deprivation and even death are acceptable events which will be entered, experienced, and transcended in an inevitable return to completely awareness and ultimate bliss. (This might sound yogic but there was a reason they came up with it.) This is the logical path of events when the greatest scope of possibilities is understood.

Living in physical form in the physical universe is not the only potential for existence. It is understandable that a infinite mind would not see beyond the physical but once the physical universe is understood to not be a "thing" "somewhere" greater parameters appear.

Inherent in the whole "existence" requirement is the concept of time/space. With understanding of the physical universe one realizes time/space is a distortion of consciousness. (And just so you know consciousness is the only thing that exist.) So to ponder the concept of death, existence, good & bad and the like from a perspective that is fettered by the physical universe is to do so from a distorted perspective. That is not to say this cannot be overcome, because it can.

As to your point of the "not to exist," or "yet to exist," Larry, everyone who ever will exist or has existed concurrently exist in the non-physical conscious realm beyond time/space. (How's that?)

Before-this-life is different than after-this-life simply because of the experience of this life. Where we continue our experience after this life is a result largely from the thoughts, actions, and experience of this life. Hard for some to fathom but we come from "somewhere" (that isn't somewhere, as we know somewhere to be), before this life and we go "somewhere" (that isn't somewhere, as we know somewhere to be) after this life. The difficulty arises from our finite perspective and the distortion of time/space.

Both loss and schmoss reflect our perception of potential which is predicated on a limited perspective stemming from the physical universe. (As a side bar, time/space is an illusion and does not "really" exist in the singular consciousness that is all things.) There is no possible loss, or schmoss, of potential in not being here before birth or after the death of the body because we are elsewhere doing whatever it is we were doing there. While in the physical universe or in differing or non-physical experiences, potential is in the "moment," if you will.

The conflating of the body and the spirit is misleading. Once one can discern the difference headway will be made. Once we transcend the whole time/space distortion the past and the future cannot impact us as they do not currently exist. Not withstanding wood shop accidents where we are not yet able to summon severed digits we can still live beyond lost body parts in the distortion of time/space as we partake of this experience from our spiritual perspective. We are finite in this experience yet through greater awareness we are aware of our connection to the Infinite.

We have little or no experience of our pre-birth existence so we cannot have a substantial emotional attachment to our pre-birth experience. Because we have an incredibly emotional attachment to our current incarnation there is greater possibilities for feeling the loss of potential in the end of this experience, whether our own or that of another. (That is unless we have a greater awareness of our connection to the Infinite.)

Caring about the future is the fearful grip of survival instincts that have no spiritual quality to them whatsoever. Living beyond the fearful grip of our instincts is the short term goal of humanity and considering how lofty that might sound to some you can see the upside potential for humanity is indeed amazing.

All the best,
Dave Moore
http://www.ThinkersAndSinkers....

Re: For Schools of Theology, It's Time to Bend Tradition

Paula Hepola Anderson — Wed, 16 May 2012 15:18:24 -0000

One of the challenges to our churches and society is the fact that congregations and their pastors are not meeting the needs of the spiritual development of parishoners, but this is only possible if pastors are spiritually mature themselves. So congregations focus on budgets and marketing, meeting consumer needs in terms of entertainment and services like day care, rather than struggling with life and death and their meanings. When I studied for the ministry and people who were not even of the tradition studied beside me, I wondered how they could even pass along the spiritual basics, say nothing about grappling with paradox and mysteries, when they themselves had no understanding.

Re: Insecurity in Academia

markbauerlein — Wed, 16 May 2012 15:16:43 -0000

I don't think Riley would agree with you about having a "crapload of power and authority." You overestimate the situation of op-ed journalists. And she was exasperated, not so much by what she considers the state of Black Studies as by the puff piece in the Chronicle.

Re: The Future of the Ph.D.

Ajuan Mance — Wed, 16 May 2012 15:15:44 -0000

I have so many thoughts on this issues raised in this article, but I will limit myself to these three points:

1) There are too many Ph.D. programs in the humanities producing too many Ph.D. holders. I cringe every time I receive a communication from a university announcing a new Ph.D. program .
As long as institutions can get away with saddling students with heavy loan debt or with paying its adjunct faculty poverty-level ways, they will. The moment U.S. colleges and universities can no longer find sufficient numbers of graduate students and adjunct faculty to teach their students is the moment that more tenure-track positions will suddenly reappear.As a tenured professor who mentors many undergraduate students who wish to go on to Ph.D. study in English, I have had to become knowledgeable about non-academic employment options for students who seek careers that are intellectually challenging. I have also joined with many of my colleagues in portraying a realistic picture of the job opportunities available for Ph.D. in my field. While I stop short of openly discouraging doctoral study, I do work to disabuse students of the believe that doctoral study will lead to their employment as a tenure-track professor. I point them, instead, to the people I know who have used doctoral study in the humanities as a jumping off point for careers in journalism, academic administration, politics, and technology. All of these people were working in these fields, often on a volunteer (extracurricular) basis during graduate school. Their Ph.D.s, when combined with their work experience, allowed them to leap frog ahead of many with greater full-time work experience. This is part of the value of a Ph.D. in the humanities; it provides clear and unequivocal proof of a job candidate's writing and research skills, capacity for hard work, intellectual development, and capacity for original thought.

Re: Insecurity in Academia

markbauerlein — Wed, 16 May 2012 15:13:10 -0000

No "simpering," robert, and your rhetoric is over the top ("very ugly racist swamp underlying conservative rhetoric"). You are also free to check out my publications on Jim Crow and U.S. history.

To markt: of course, the students had the right to respond, as does everybody else. I just think that their response was, for several reasons, poor.

Re: Commenting, Moderation, and Provocation

pocvecem — Wed, 16 May 2012 15:11:51 -0000

I totally agree. What struck me about Bousquet's post was how much it reminds me of campus speech codes. (If you're not familiar with speech codes, you can read up on them at FIRE's website.) LFOD2's second paragraph shows where the similarities are. The calls for civility sound reasonable on the surface because none of us support racism. The problem is that "racism" and "hatred" have been redefined and the real meaning of the (or speech code) is to enforce a liberal orthodoxy. It's the same way "critical thinking" sounds like a skill all students should develop until you realize that "critical" has been redefined to mean "delivering a Leftist critique."

Re: Russia's University Mergers Pit the Old School Against the New

22216726 — Wed, 16 May 2012 15:09:43 -0000

Yes...the proposed merger concept makes sense...BUT, since all recent research indicates that the junior level, transfer student from the two year college outperforms the "native" student beginning at the four year institution as a freshman...I wonder what we are going to do with all these "extra" four year institutions when they are incorporated into the two year college sector where real teaching occurs and students achieve success regardless of whether they are taught by adjunct or full time faculty.

Re: Why Is There Something Rather Than Nothing?

katisumas — Wed, 16 May 2012 15:09:36 -0000

Thanks Michael Ruse for an interesting essay.

"Why is there something rather than nothing" is a question we human beings keep on asking starting with the moment we acquire language (and perhaps even earlier in different forms). I don't think we'll ever come up with an answer even though we assuage our fear with a gamut of absolutist statements....

Isn't it better to enjoy our ignorance and thus our ability to discover and or construct bits of things here and there?

Re: Is Death Bad for You?

blesstayo — Wed, 16 May 2012 15:00:42 -0000

I once remember being told that "when children are born we should cry, and when people die we should rejoice."

You just listen to the lyrics of country singers: "Lord, when I die I want to go to heaven; but I don't want to go tonight!!!"

Death is glorious if I have fulfilled my life's mission! Death is scary if I am still pursuing my lif'e's journey. Death is painful if I fail to achieve my life's dream.

Death! Death!! Death!!! Where is thy sting???

Re: Why Is There Something Rather Than Nothing?

philosophile — Wed, 16 May 2012 14:55:54 -0000

"Why" questions seem to be inherently teleological, requiring answers in terms of human (or supra-human) agency. Science has largely replaced them with "How" questions. "Why is there something rather than nothing?" gives way to "How did it happen that there is something rather than nothing?" That question seems a little more manageable.

My problem comes not from science but from the tendency of many scientists to trivialize phenomena and events that should simply stagger the imagination. The expression "Big Bang" is a good example. It was first used mockingly by the astronomer/cosmologist Fred Hoyle against the view of those who opposed his "steady state" theory of creation. But why not call the "Big Bang" what it really was: the instantaneous Creation of the Universe. And why not regard that creation more the way God speaking from the whirlwind tried to get Job to regard it? The only difference should be that for science the Whirlwind speaks for itself. We just need to listen, and scientists need to do a better job helping us listen.

Re: For Schools of Theology, It's Time to Bend Tradition

Nathaniel M. Campbell — Wed, 16 May 2012 14:55:47 -0000

"how many Catholic churches are as large as Lakewood? Which Christian sects show the most growth?"

If you look at Christianity outside the United States, and especially in the global south, you will find very many Catholic churches larger than Lakewood. Furthermore, there are about 1 billion Catholics in the world and only about 500-600 million of any other sort of Christian sects. The Roman Catholic Church remains the largest global body of Christianity and, in the global south (especially Africa these days) the fastest growing.

Re: Illinois Bill Would Ban Use of Search Firms in Hiring at Public Universities

IkeRoberts — Wed, 16 May 2012 14:55:23 -0000

Students remember what they see in college, and then apply that across the board when they get into positions of power. I suspect Chapin Rose isn't letting new information change what he learned in college: "Mr. Rose said he encountered [a headhunter covering a sham search] firsthand when he served as a student-trustee at the University of Illinois"

Re: U. of Texas Graduate Student Sentenced to 10 Years in Prison in Iran

katisumas — Wed, 16 May 2012 14:51:14 -0000

so sad.....

Re: Stanford’s Credential Problem

skrossa — Wed, 16 May 2012 14:51:02 -0000

Erm, Stanford isn't famous just for it's engineers. The School of Humanities and Sciences is not only the largest (nearly 80% of undergraduate degrees) of their seven schools, they also describe the undergraduate program as a whole as a "liberal arts education".