A Modest Proposal for the Reform of Academe

…found searching archives for something else & now reblogging a 2010 repost from The Faster Times, attributing belatedly, apologizing profusely, linking thrice for good measure, bookmarking & adding the college section to reader. The section is not large but choice, especially for those taken with the quirky. Incidentally, "modest proposal" is a popular reform title, especially for higher ed. A series? Not all meet Swiftian standard: this one does. I will definitely do this more often…

College section blogger, medievalist ~ fencer Ken Mondschein (PhD Fordham + studies at BU, SUNY Buffalo, Harvard) writes...

Most every commentator on academe has mentioned the sorry state of higher education: A decades-long oversupply of Ph.Ds, an undersupply of jobs, and the use of cheap adjunct labor for everything from teaching intro writing classes to supervising theses to cleaning the president's office. Despite the fact that tenure-track jobs are rarer than hen's teeth, that venerated institution has come under attack, as well. Critics charge that tenure gives professors license to be unproductive layabouts or maniac wingnuts, but there's not a damn thing anyone can do about it unless said tenure-possessor burns down the administration building or runs naked through freshman orientation. 

But I am not here to kvetch: I am here to offer solutions. It seems to me that all of these symptoms of current malaise of higher education could be solved in one sweeping stroke, were we only to reintroduce dueling to the academy.

BYOP: Simpsons on Academic Poverty

Movie night: bring your own popcorn...

productivity & procrastination

Both come in sundry shapes and disguises. Obsessing over productivity may be a form of procrastination, so is writing about them but not as much as research surfing and thinking about writing about them. Making lists: productivity, procrastination, productive procrastination? I did finally get around to checking and resetting Twitterfeed to auto-post @NewFacMajority to our Facebook page. Hope it works ~ no telling when I'll get back to it again if it doesn't. Sometimes I contemplate the lineaments of a perpetual motion auto-posting system.

This from College Misery (snarky fun, procrastination but surely an antidote for something)

  

More fun than productivity tips, right? But here's from today's do list just to demonstrate my good intentions... and procrastinate

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Happy New Year: philosophy & other advice for #adjunct faculty

Break is almost over but today is still a holiday even if my New Year's Eve was quiet and sober. MLA09 was well covered by tweet, not just mine.  Summing up tweet (MLA 09 in under 140) and the entire #MLA09 archive, a cast of thousands: download from site or subscribe to feed.

I've been diligently collating more materials than I can possibly use ~ but will somehow try. In the meantime, here's a little something to help you be more philosophical about what's facing us in 2010. Enjoy...





More to enjoy. I discovered a blogging soul mate at I Used to Be Disgusted But Now I Try to Be Amused, self-described as "a low-level academic who likes to vent his spleen a little too much." Inspired, insightful snark, and we like the same books and movies. Granted, I'm not much on basketball but there's always beer.

• A Modest Proposal to Deal With the Rise in Unemployed History PhDs
  
• Administrative Buzzwords and Phrases, and What They Really Mean
• What a Glenn Beck Student Essay Would Look Like

Techie notes: I set up sync apps to auto-post links to blog posts to both @NewFacMajority on Twitter and the New Faculty Majority Coalition Facebook Page in case you prefer getting your updates and following us via either of those popular social media.  

'Twas the Week before Christmas

Twas the week before Christmas, and schools through the land

Were relieved that the end of term was at hand.

Teachers used whiteboards to screen seasonal flicks

While heads CRB-checked all passing St Nicks.

Headteachers were furious they soon would be getting

A "disproportionate" system for barring and vetting.

To their wondering ears, someone heeded their calls:

A u-turn, of sorts, was announced by Ed Balls.

Checks on once-a-month visitors will now be retracted. Balls claimed it was schools that had "overreacted".

So how many parents will face vetting vexations?

Up to nine million, from the Mail's calculations.

The academies' scores were dismissed as big fables For they used BTECs and DiDAs to climb the league tables.

The think-tank that found this stressed they weren't snobs,

But didn't think the courses would help kids get jobs.

An MPs' committee backed the home educators (Which may stop their moans that "Everyone hates us").

Their numbers are "growing" - but can that be true?

As they refuse to be registered we haven't a clue.

New nativity plays made traditionalists weep, As Jesus "has been replaced by an angel or sheep".

So said a vicar from Cheltenham, who seemed not to know

That, in The Grumpy Sheep, Jesus still stars in the show.

A Coventry primary showed even more mettle Producing a hooliganised version of Hansel and Gretel.

A yobbish Gretel tells Hansel, in a scene of great tension:

"I'll break your neck if you tell her that I pinched her pension".

The play's bleak humour helped it do plenty of business,

But one parent moaned that it "killed the spirit of Christmas".

"Which spirit was that?" tired teachers might think.

Merry Christmas to all - you may need a stiff drink.

By Michael Shaw. Published in TES, Cymru edition18 December, 2009