Death Throes Of The University: UW-Stevens Point: Vocationland! And: Why Does A University Need A History Major, Anyway?
I mean, waddayagonnado with that? Open a history store?
The part where I take it back (the snark that is):
Actually, I think this is a topic for serious discussion. Every school needs a history department and history classes. I suppose maybe a school could get by without a history major... But I'm skeptical. People sometimes say: students who want a history major could transfer to another school in the system. But, speaking for myself, I'd never have thought of that. I was the first person in my family to go to college. I went to a fourth-tier-ish school with, as they say, two directions in the name. It was the only one we could afford. I never thought of transferring. I'm not even sure I knew one could. In fact, I wanted to be a journalism major...until I found out we didn't have one... Just a minor. Did I transfer? I did not. I just shrugged and found a different major.
The worst thing about that essay, though is the enthusiastic embrace of vocational stuff. I know...it's the only reason we have the extensive higher ed system we do have. But I'm not so sure it's been, overall, a good thing for universities. In order to expand, we've arguably become something that isn't worth having. We've kind of become vo-tech training centers melded with leftist reeducation camps...that teach a little history on the side. Or so it sometimes seems to me.
The part where I take it back (the snark that is):
Actually, I think this is a topic for serious discussion. Every school needs a history department and history classes. I suppose maybe a school could get by without a history major... But I'm skeptical. People sometimes say: students who want a history major could transfer to another school in the system. But, speaking for myself, I'd never have thought of that. I was the first person in my family to go to college. I went to a fourth-tier-ish school with, as they say, two directions in the name. It was the only one we could afford. I never thought of transferring. I'm not even sure I knew one could. In fact, I wanted to be a journalism major...until I found out we didn't have one... Just a minor. Did I transfer? I did not. I just shrugged and found a different major.
The worst thing about that essay, though is the enthusiastic embrace of vocational stuff. I know...it's the only reason we have the extensive higher ed system we do have. But I'm not so sure it's been, overall, a good thing for universities. In order to expand, we've arguably become something that isn't worth having. We've kind of become vo-tech training centers melded with leftist reeducation camps...that teach a little history on the side. Or so it sometimes seems to me.
posted by Winston Smith at
8:33 AM
4 Comments:
I'm thinking it's time to read Gibbon's Decline and Fall.
That's exactly the kind of pointy-headed, not-at-all-point-forward, retrograde thinking UWSP(tm) wants to thrott...uh...disincentivize, bub.
On a *completely unrelated* topic:
https://www.newyorker.com/science/elements/a-whistle-blower-alleges-corruption-in-rick-perrys-department-of-energy
Always nice to be able to do a solid for a buddy.
In its general outlines, this Perry story could have been taken right out of William Greider's *Who Will Tell The People?*
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