stressed

The most interesting statement in the story about spiking levels of stress in college freshmen yesterday was in the last sentence: 

And while men who challenged their professor’s ideas in class had a decline in stress, for women it was associated with a decline in well-being.

I've never really noticed this particular gender-gap, but I always encourage everyone to challenge everyone else's ideas, in my classes. Especially mine. And then to accept the challenge, think about it, respond and occasionally accede to it. That's the whole point of gathering for philosophy class, and I find it a marvelous de-stresser.

By the way: most of my students say they're working harder than their peers in that study who claimed to be reading less than 40 pages of text per week, for all their classes combined. But many agree: High School really was more stressful.

mindset

This is the time of year when our late Dean, John McDaniel, would send around the latest Beloit College "Mindset List" to remind us all just how dated our own references have become, relative to our incoming students' stock of living memories. 


Had to look it up myself this year. A few items I'll bet the Dean would've noticed:

2. Email is just too slow, and they seldom if ever use snail mail.

4. Al Gore has always been animated.

9. Had it remained operational, the villainous computer HAL could be their college classmate this fall, but they have a better chance of running into Miley Cyrus’s folks on Parents’ Weekend.

13. Parents and teachers feared that Beavis and Butt-head might be the voice of a lost generation.

14. Doctor Kevorkian has never been licensed to practice medicine.

15. Colorful lapel ribbons have always been worn to indicate support for a cause.

16. Korean cars have always been a staple on American highways.

20. DNA fingerprinting and maps of the human genome have always existed.

21. Woody Allen, whose heart has wanted what it wanted, has always been with Soon-Yi Previn.

27. Computers have never lacked a CD-ROM disk drive.

28. They’ve never recognized that pointing to their wrists was a request for the time of day.

29. Reggie Jackson has always been enshrined in Cooperstown.

31. The first home computer they probably touched was an Apple II or Mac II; they are now in a museum.

32. Czechoslovakia has never existed.

35. Once they got through security, going to the airport has always resembled going to the mall.

38. Bud Selig has always been the Commissioner of Major League Baseball.

46. Nirvana is on the classic oldies station.

65. They first met Michelangelo when he was just a computer virus.

66. Galileo is forgiven and welcomed back into the Roman Catholic Church.

67. Ruth Bader Ginsburg has always sat on the Supreme Court.

bricks in the wall

In The Next Fifty Years, computer scientist Roger Schank shares his vision of a time when there will be no need, apparently, for tenured humanities professors. I'm sure he's wrong about that.

But bring on the talking walls, why not? Just remember: being informative is not at all the same as being wise.

It's urgent for us to wonder right now, though, as the drumbeat for "distance education" and virtual classrooms-- cheaper in so many ways-- grows ever louder: in a half-century, will our institutions of higher learning still recognize or defend that distinction?

reprieve

A brief update for those who've offered moral and material support for our little philosophy department: guardedly good news, as our over-seers now acknowledge that mistakes were made in the review/reform process that has stirred so much angst on our campus since last Spring. Faculty input regarding any contemplated reorganization, restructuring, departmental merger or degree program elimination is now to be formally solicited. The executioner's axe is suspended for now. This is surely a positive development, though of course the Fat Lady may still be standing in the wings. But we've released a collective sigh of pent-up trepidation. We're relieved. But don't look entirely away.

One new disquieting note that I hope is just a misunderstanding: apparently the word has gone forth, or so it has been perceived by affected parties, that our university department of news and public affairs should dampen publicity of programs and events deemed controversial by some university benefactors. Women's and Islamic studies were cited as examples. If true, this is every bit as much a violation of academic freedom as the muzzling of teachers in the classroom. That won't do.

We're #57!

Just back from the Fall Faculty Meeting, the annual gathering at the beginning of the academic year when we're all herded for a pep talk from the Pres and an introduction to new colleagues. It was hard to credit his assertion this morning that this is a "wonderful" time for our school, when in the same breath we're insistently reminded that $19 mil is gone from our budget "forever."(That from a University President introduced by the interim provost as "optimistic" - !)

But yes, it was very nice to crack the Forbes Top 100 Public Colleges list. Supposedly we're #57, ahead of Alabama-Huntsville (to pick a random example, A.) at #85, and the University of Missouri-Columbia (to pick another) at #92. That ranking, if it means anything more than a commitment to the "business model" approach so many are so smitten with these days, so inimical to the goals of classic liberal education, presupposes a tenable and respected Philosophy Department, Mr. President. And thank you again for recognizing our students' excellent performance. We take no credit for that, of course.

A nice moment came when the colleague recognized for lifetime achievement deflected all praise and instead expressed humble gratitude for generations of outstanding students whose mere "coach" he claimed to be.

Again, we all need to recall - as another colleague, from Music, pointed out - that they're why we're here. We get a constant stream of admininstrative rhetoric about being student-centered, even as the students' most fundamental resource, the faculty, is repeatedly bitten and hacked by a thousand cuts. But showing up and doing our best work in the classroom makes that a reality, no matter how disruptively the Regents and their minions go about "reorganizing" Higher Ed in our state.

Retreat edu-tainment

The academic year formally commenced today with our Senate retreat. It was everything one might have expected, and less.

Worth the price of admission: a colleague from another department, our new Best Friend, challenged President M. to acknowledge the traditional centrality of Philosophy as an anchor of liberal learning across the academic spectrum, "queen of the sciences," bellwether of critical thinking etc. The president declined, and shortly thereafter departed.

Then came the "team-building" exercise, a staggeringly irrelevant invitation to engage in "non-evaluative" brainstorming of our various unfiltered imaginings of possible futures for our institution and for Higher Ed generally. This involved closed-eye visualizations of a desert, a cube, a ladder, a horse, and a flower, all purported to symbolize something profound and personal and revelatory. I am not making this up.

In the wake of this surreal squandering of a lovely morning on planet Earth we won't ever (he deplored) get back, our champion took his leave. He promised his department's continued support, and predicted his letter of censure from the boss who's earned a reputation for brooking no criticism, constructive or not.

But still, despite the sufferance of this academic theater of the absurd, we're buoyed to remind ourselves that classes - our refuge from a world seemingly gone mad - are blessedly about to begin.

Facing elimination

The President of my school, the largest public institution of higher learning in my state, has released his tensely-awaited, now roundly-deplored report. It betrays no recognition of the value of philosophy:

The recommendation for the elimination of the Department of Philosophy will be supported if a viable plan for significantly increasing the number of majors has not been approved by the Interim Provost and President by September 30, 2009. Should we not approve a plan for this area, the Interim Provost, in consultation with the deans, academic personnel and representatives from the Faculty Senate, will develop a plan to phase out the major over a three- to four-year period. Should a decision be made to eliminate the Department of Philosophy, the Interim Provost, in consultation with the appropriate deans, academic personnel and Faculty Senate representatives, will explore the various options for merging the Department with the most appropriate and compatible existing academic department at the University.

We're not slackers in my department, the numbers show that we more than pull our weight for the university. The distinguished philosopher John J. McDermott called us one of the best small departments of philosophy in the nation.

The president has not explained how our elimination (or "merger") will contribute materially and significantly to redressing the university's present budget shortfall.

So: how do we generate more philosophy majors? Suggestions welcome.

"Universities in Trouble"

Andrew Delbanco is an astute observer of the contemporary scene. Here, describing a talk he gave recently at an urban community college, he nails the present crisis in higher education:

Those who asked questions—ranging from a West Indian immigrant to a native New Englander—were astute and attuned to Lincoln's struggle to reconcile his personal animus against slavery with his constraining sense of executive responsibility, to his changing views on the question of racial equality, and, above all, to his effort to defend and extend the idea of equal opportunity as the essential American promise. When I read aloud Lincoln's words that "the leading object of government is, to elevate the condition of men—to lift artificial weights from all shoulders—to clear the paths of laudable pursuit for all—to afford all, an unfettered start, and a fair chance, in the race of life," there was much nodding—not of the type that signifies the onset of sleep, but the type that expresses assent.

I came away that day—the college is facing severe budget cuts—with a painful sense of disjunction between rising hope and declining opportunity. I was reminded that we have in this country a highly stratified system of education in which "merit" is the ubiquitous slogan but disparity of opportunity is often the reality. Even with our best efforts, this fact is not likely to change fundamentally anytime soon. Indeed, the financial crisis has made it harder to change. But as we consider the future of the nation, which surely depends more than ever on an educated citizenry, it will be of great importance to keep in mind a point too little acted on during the boom years but now undeniable and urgent. John Adams put it succinctly some 225 years ago: "The whole people must take upon themselves the education of the whole people, and must be willing to bear the expense of it."