Friends,
To be honest, I find college towns very depressing. Down the hill from Cornell
the rest of the place sucks. Of course, I'm so disgusted with higher ed that I
could not bear to live among so many academics, not to mention drunken students.
I've taught for a few weeks at UMASS and I found Amherst to be just too precious.
State College, PA (Penn State) has a great reputation as a place to live, but I'd
be suicidal in a week It is in the middle of nowhere. Plus in these towns where
do you get the mix of people you get in a real city? So many professors teach
about workers or race or the rest of the wrold but have only a passing
acquaintance with people of color or working people, including those who clean
their buildings and wiat on them in the dining hall. I've often thought that we
should do what was done in the Cultural Revolution and just close the colleges for
awhile. I've got a quote on my office door (I'm at home now and I cannnot
remember the author.) A man asks, "Do you think the colleges have done much for
the world?" Another man answers "Is it the wheel that makes the water run?" sort
of sums up my view of the higher learning and by extension college towns.
michael yates
Thomas Kruse wrote:
> I heard from a friend that Utne Reader has called Ithaca, NY the best place
> to live in the US. BUT: I remember also a Tompkins County Labor Council
> (Ithaca Area) video on the enormous chasm separating "town" and "gown".
> University towns can be groovy places; universities are often nasty employers.
>
> I also heard whn in Ithaca that it has the highest PhD per cap. of any
> census tract in the US (and, given the number of anguished grads, probably
> highest unemployed PhD rate too, tho' the latter is speculation).
>
> Tom
>
> At 21:53 23/04/98 -0500, you wrote:
> >The university town's fitness as a place to remain in or move to
> >is one of the biggest little secrets in American life.
> >I'm wondering if anyone has undertaken a systematic study of the
> >growth and change occurring thus in the country's Eugenes and Ann Arbors,
> >and whether some magazine or journal already addresses it.
> >
> >Any leads much appreciated.
> > valis
>
> Tom Kruse / Casilla 5812 / Cochabamba, Bolivia
> Tel/Fax: (591-42) 48242
> Email: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
