Higher Education Proposal

[dgs49]

George Will's implicit proposal to save millions in Academe:

...abolishing on every American campus every administrative position whose title contains the words "diversity," "equity," "race," "ethnicity," "sustainability," "green," "gender," "inclusion," "identity," "interconnectivity," "globalization," "climate," "campus climate," "cross-cultural" or "multiculturalism."

Is there any good reason why this should not be done?

Of course, he has only gone half-way, eh? Every MAJOR containing those words and phrases should also be dumped, along with the course content.

In "lower education," the number of non-teaching employees has increased at three times the rate of teachers over the past 50 years. Is there any good reason for this?

Is it any wonder that the U.S. spends more money and gets less measurable educational success than just about any country in the world?

Just wondering.

[Andrew D]

Let me get this straight.

If a student has evidence that he or she is being treated unequally because of her or his race, he or she should have no recourse.

If a student has evidence that he or she is being treated unequally because of her or his sex, he or she should have no recourse.

If a student has evidence that he or she is being treated unequally because he or she is gay, he or she should have no recourse.

Have I got that right?

[Big RR]

Not to mention that those wishing to study (among other things) green solutions, something being seriously looked at by governments and private industry alike, should be denied the opportunity to study; those looking to study global issues (possibly looking to serve in the diplomatic corps of the US, or maybe work for multinational corporations) should likewise be denied; why?

[oldr_n_wsr]

I do have a problem with these words "interconnectivity," and "globalization," as the both have much meaning in electrical engineering and business. Other "feel good" words may be discussed (and also these words as they pertain to "feel good" definitions). not that there is anything worng with "feeling good"

[dgs49]

There is a virtual cornucopia of agencies at various levels of government to whom any picked-on student can turn, not to mention the various court systems. These do-nothing administrators contribute NOTHING to education, and would not even exist were it not for governments (mainly the United States Federal Government) throwing hundreds of billions of dollars directly and indirectly into "higher education," on the theory that half the population is capable of functioning in a leadership capacity. In reality, only about 10% of the population is "college material," and worthy of this investment. Another 25% could beneficially be provided technical education, and the rest of us can be trained on the job.

[oldr_n_wsr]

That really needs to be addressed at the high school level. Too bad high schools now rate their success rate by how many students go to college. The trade classes (auto shop, woodshop, drafting, etc) have disappeared from high school replaced with one "tech class" which just brushes over the trades. We still need carpenters, plumbers, mechanics, etc and not every student in school is college material. I would venture to guess given the grad rates posted in Newsday this week, only about 30% are college material. Trades should be where the schools focus are as more than half are not college material, but that is not where the glamor is. "75% of our graduates went on to college" is the banner. Never that only 25% of that 75% ever graduated and probably much less got a real job in their chosen degree. just guessing here but from my own kids and their friends experiences that I have seen, I am not that far off

It's all a scam to keep the school/teacher/university system going and us to pay for it.

[Gob]

I have to agree with Dave a little here. There are whole swathes now of these people, normally failed teachers/nurses/social workers, who are employed, (rather, shunted sideways,) to make mountains out of molehills. There is a whole industry of compliance, support, and equality people, who, as it is inherrent in their job, try to create a reason for their existence.

[Grim Reaper]

There is a virtual cornucopia of agencies at various levels of government to whom any picked-on student can turn, not to mention the various court systems.

Yes, a virtual cornucopia of agencies, that currently don't handle all the cases that would suddenly land on their doorstep if the college facilities were eliminated. So you'd either increase funding, making for bigger government agencies, or you'd leave funding alone and have inefficient turnaround on cases.

Doesn't sound too good for any college student that gets harassed.

[rubato]

The difficulty of writing a regular column has been too much for George Will. Here he just writes down a list of the hot-button words which the mouth-breathing right have been conditioned to react to and says he want to 'ban' these things from academia.

He knows his readership will all go whuff whuff whuff and never bother to ask themselves if there is any chance this will actually save any money or if censoring academia isn't just a little like the communist North Korean approach?

yrs,
rubato

[Sean]

This is an article which would be right at home in the Daily Mail. It is designed to cause a knee jerk reaction (and has succeeded it would seem) by implying that each of the listed buzzwords means a different person. This is certainly not the case at the university I work at where a team of about 10 staff deals with student equality issues (amongst other things) for 45,000 students across 6 campuses. Hardly a swathe by any stretch if the imagination. Now I'm certainly not about to speak for other universIties but I very much doubt that Griffith is unique in this regard. The author then decides that climate and environmentalist jobs should be lumped in with student support services... Maybe he's too ignorant to realise that these are generally research rather than administrative positions. Research like that done at Griffith which recently developed vaccines for all strains of malaria and rheumatic fever. Perhaps he also feels that this type of research should end.

All in all, an uninformed piece of bullshit 'journalism' designed solely to get a reaction from the Daily Mailites. Mind you, I only have the snippet that Dave posted to go on... A link to the entire article to put these words in context would be nice...

[rubato]

No no no. Most of George Wills' output is that bad or worse in the past 25 years. He writes for that small fraction of conservatism who are marginally literate, a low mark, and he hits it reliably.

yrs,
rubato