Another elephant in the room. This one is a dark, bull elephant lurking in the darkest and deepest corner that I really don't want to talk about, and I know will get me in hot water, but legislators are talking about it, the media is talking about it, students are talking about it, parents are talking about it, congress is talking about it, taxpayers are talking about. I'm not sure a lot of us academics seriously are.
Over the past few years VSU's budget has seen draconian budget cut after draconian cut after draconian cut, and I mean draconian as I have never seen in my 45 years. We haven't had a salary increase in about five years while if nothing else the cost of our medical insurance and retirement contribution have risen. Eighteen months ago, we dedicated a lecture hall with two 350 seat capacity rooms in the name of economic efficiency, not educational soundness and effectiveness. Last year VSU opened a new psychology building. Last month it dedicated a sizable addition to an already mammoth science building. Now, a few days ago, I was reading a lengthy piece in the WASHINGTON POST titled, "U. S. Pushes For More Scientists, But Jobs Aren't There." The recession has now hit the darling sciences. In government, industry, and academia, science graduates are learning the meaning of "furlough," "freeze," "downsize," "laid off," "unemployment," "underemployed," "not hiring," unpaid or poorly paid "internship." Too many are being thrown into the "if you told me I'd being do this, I wouldn't have believed it" boat. Hard sciences, welcome to the "hard times" club that we in the arts, humanities, and some social sciences have been members for some time. Finally. But, it is a sobering thought. Now, with the job availability getting lower and lower in more and more areas in the darling hard sciences, as well as in once-favored k-12 education, the meaning of "higher" in higher education is changing. It's referring more and more to higher and higher costs resulting in higher and higher student debt load, higher and higher unemployment and underemployment, and lower and lower salary levels--if graduates find a job in their field. What are they going to do? What are we going to do? So often we academics talk of how are we going to attract and keep faculty. I've got a more basic question. How are our campuses going to drum up business, that is, recruit and keep students? After all, without students there is no institution of higher education. So, what is the pitch going to be? Let's set the record straight. Altruistic goals have never been the focus of what the overwhelming majority of present-day students want any more than when I went to college in the late '50s. When I went to college way back nearly 55 years ago (gulp), I did so for one reason: to be the fulfillment of the American dream, an Horatio Alger of upward mobility. It was expected of me by my near-immigrant family; my family expected that I would go to college to get my M.D. even though my father's business had gone belly up and had taken both the family income and my sizable college fund with it. I didn't work three jobs, struggle and stumble my way through college, help with household expenses, borrow some from my rich relatives, get into debt with some student loans, to acquire a "love of life-long learning" or even a desire to acquire it. I didn't hear about such a thing in my classes as I listened to lectures, took notes, tried to figure out what was important enough to be on a test, and crammed the night before so that I could get a good grade. Today, most students still just want to get the grades in order to be credentialed. It's grade-getting, not learning, that's on the minds and in the actions of the over-whelming number of students. Lip service and high sounding mission statements to the contrary, let's be honest, most of us cave into that want. We really don't instill that idyllic love of learning in students, and most don't leave with it. No, today, there is little if any altruism to going to college any more than there was in my days. In that way, things have not changed. Like me, most students still come with and leave with that "love of life-long earning!" Or, as the students say, to get a better job and earn more money. And, so many of us faculty, administrations, and recruiters competing for entrants with other institutions and for majors with each other, both directly and indirectly pander to, cater to, promote, and thereby reinforce that singular view and desire. Our faculty and recruiters are little more than academic barkers at a job fair, shouting an inviting and alluring, "Come here, major in this, get hired there, and earn a hefty that." We have campus job fairs; we offer students occupation tests; professors tell students what jobs they can get with their degrees. But, what if the jobs and the salaries aren't there? And, what good would it do if we changed our tune? Not much, I am afraid. Altruism isn't an alluring Siren. No, in the best of time we barely mentioned that the "higher" in higher education is not just about the level of income or social strata, but should also be about "learning to live the good life," that is, if they themselves believe that--of which I have serious doubts. And, whether we believe or not that is our responsibility, we know it won't be an effective advertisement. So, many of us trumpet in printed and spoken word, as well as in action, "earning a good living" and keep mum about "living the good life." It's an image many academics cultivate. "Major" and "profession" are credentials for jobs, for credentialing nothing more and nothing less. Departments via with each other to get their fangs into students as soon as possible, influencing students to take a major before they step foot on campus whether or not they firmly know what they want their future to be, invading and undermining the liberal arts foundation of the Core Curriculum with such courses as "Chemistry for Nurses" or "English for Business," proposing to water down or reduce the non-major arts, humanities, and social sciences oriented Core course, talking of totaling eliminating the Core courses and winding up in a fight with departments who are heavily dependent on them for their funding numbers, and/or having an attitude of "let's get it over with so students can get on to the important major courses and fill those seats." I've heard and read far too often how "useless," "unimportant," "non-professional" those non-major Core courses are. In some minds, too many minds for my taste, they've begrudgingly been reduced to mere "service" courses But, what if down the road the jobs aren't there? Do we have a moral obligation to so inform students who are at various stages in their college experience? And, if we do, what are the consequences, financial and personnel, for faculty, staff, departments, colleges, and the University? And, if we don't, if we keep it as a deep dark secret? What does that say of us? In gray times, there had been talk on my campus of eliminating or merging departments, which happen to have been in the arts and humanities, which were "expensive" because they had too few majors to sustain their budgets and positions. What do we do in these darkest of budgetary and employment times? In the name of self-presrvation, do we sit in silence, batten down the hatches, and ride out the storm, and hope that it will pass; that during the years students are on our campus and then off to get higher degrees, while they are in the pipeline so to speak, things will open up and the jobs will be there? But, what if they aren't there for the students presently coming out of the pipeline. What is the right thing to do, the ethical thing to do, the moral thing to do, now? What responsibility to we have vis-a-vis parents and students? I think all this is crucial because most parents, students, politicians, taxpayers, and a bunch of faculty still see the course of higher education as little more than a yellow brick road to some professional Oz, as a white collar vo-tech credentialing agency, as a repellant to protect their future white collar from being stained with blue, as a shield of privilege against being kept from or thrown into underprivileged streets or ditches, as an insurance policy against being a loser, as the difference between the exalted professional desk and the demeaning menial assembly line or shovel, as a guarantee for working with your mind rather than with your hands. It's a one-dimensional image no one has really moved to altered. And, now we're boxed in. But, the word is out as families have to take out loans, as sons and daughters can't find the jobs upon graduation, as sons and daughters move back home into their pre-college room, as loan debt payments fall due or can't be met. Some naysayers are calling higher education scam, offering something it can not provide. And, the scary thing is that a lot of people are listening. So, what do you do as the federal funds for student loans become less readily available? What do you do when funding research grants diminish? What do you do when students' parents lose their jobs, their credit, and no longer have the ability to pay for the cost of going to college? Here in Georgia, what do you do when the availability of the Hope Scholarship becomes restrictively selective and the cost of going to college falls on more shoulders? What do you do when we increase the size of classes and students increasing feel we care more about taking their money than about them? What do you do when the private foundations are no longer loosely shelling out research monies? What do you do when state funding slows? What do you do when the public sector at all levels is not hiring government workers, welfare personnel, scientists, teachers, professors, police officers? What do you do when universities are cutting back on their hiring? What do you do when the business sector is not hiring at a pace to absorb the number of graduates? What do you do when donors give less? What do you do when endowments are down? What do you do when the number of majors begins to decline? What do you do when you have to shift faculty positions to meet changing demands? How do you predict the future? How do you make adjustments when tenure inflexibly locks in many positions? How do you get parents and students to fork up the big bucks for an education that seemingly to them is losing the value as they perceive it? What do you do? Am I being melodramatic? Maybe, but read that POST article and a host of others, listen to the legislative budget committees, listen to the parents and students. Don't think I'm not dour and taking deep breaths when I share these less than jovial thoughts. But, if we don't meaningfully talk about it, come up with answers and explanations, acceptable answers and explanations, others will. And, they will come up with answers for us. They already are. Damn, Solomon, where are you when we need you? Make it a good day -Louis- Louis Schmier http://www.therandomthoughts.edublogs.org<http://www.therandomthoughts.edublogs.org/> Department of History http://www.therandomthoughts.com<http://www.therandomthoughts.com/> Valdosta State University Valdosta, Georgia 31698 /\ /\ /\ /\ /\ (O) 229-333-5947 /^\\/ \/ \ /\/\__ / \ / \ (C) 229-630-0821 / \/ \_ \/ / \/ /\/ / \ /\ \ //\/\/ /\ \__/__/_/\_\/ \_/__\ \ /\"If you want to climb mountains,\ /\ _ / \ don't practice on mole hills" - / \_ --- You are currently subscribed to tips as: [email protected]. 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