New York Times: End the University As We Know It

[michigan girl]

GRADUATE education is the Detroit of higher learning. Most graduate programs in American universities produce a product for which there is no market (candidates for teaching positions that do not exist) and develop skills for which there is diminishing demand (research in subfields within subfields and publication in journals read by no one other than a few like-minded colleagues), all at a rapidly rising cost (sometimes well over $100,000 in student loans).

Widespread hiring freezes and layoffs have brought these problems into sharp relief now. But our graduate system has been in crisis for decades, and the seeds of this crisis go as far back as the formation of modern universities. Kant, in his 1798 work

[Dreams]

[Yellow#5]

I just wish that instead of obsessing over how worthless their discipline is, the professors who openly do so should spend some time focussing on how it IS relevant, and organizing their lessons, their syllabus, their departments etc., around highlighting that, instead of what losers they think they are.

I hear this kind of talk far too much, and I haven't even started grad school yet. Any private firm that marketed themselves in a similar way would not do well.

As far as I'm concerned, it's a marketing failure. In a world where marketing has successfully convinced us that we need different kinds of cremes for our eyes, face, neck, hands, body and feet, why cannot the "smartest" professors of literature convince the public that drama, literature and poetry is enriching?

[HelloFeminists]

As far as I'm concerned, it's a marketing failure. In a world where marketing has successfully convinced us that we need different kinds of cremes for our eyes, face, neck, hands, body and feet, why cannot the "smartest" professors of literature convince the public that drama, literature and poetry is enriching?

Because professors aren't trained to manipulate people's emotions and distort reality / make people feel bad about themselves for a profit, thankfully

[Stories]

This op-ed is clearly aimed towards the arts and humanities since he complains about folks who get training in a field there's no professional field for. Not such an issue in sciences since half (or a little more) end up working industry.

It makes me wonder, since he's chairman at Columbia's religion department, how many doctoral students they have that come in unfunded. That was a point he raised that students incur debt of over $100k (which only happens if you're unfunded).

I think this op-ed could have been a bit more directed since generalizing these statements to all fields of study is clearly wrong.

[MaximKat]

This op-ed is clearly aimed towards the arts and humanities since he complains about folks who get training in a field there's no professional field for. Not such an issue in sciences since half (or a little more) end up working industry.

I think this op-ed could have been a bit more directed since generalizing these statements to all fields of study is clearly wrong.

That's exactly what I was thinking

[teaganc]

This op-ed is clearly aimed towards the arts and humanities since he complains about folks who get training in a field there's no professional field for. Not such an issue in sciences since half (or a little more) end up working industry.

The complaints seem like they are directed towards the arts and humanities, but essentially all of the solutions seem to be directed towards involving the sciences, which aren't the ones with the problems he describes, and eliminating the arts and humanities, which are. Creating a problem-solving based system (like the idiotic "Water" as a doctoral concentration) eliminates the need for all arts and humanities, as generally these programs do not solve problems (except maybe the ones they create). What am I going to do, study the literature of water? I mean, sure, I could, but it wouldn't help solve water-based problems.

Furthermore, if "Water" is dissolved as a concentration in 7 years, it is presumably because it has been solved. If it's been solved, what will all the "Water" majors do? They won't be able to find jobs in academia OR industry; there aren't "water" problems any more, and they aren't specialized enough to start focusing on other issues. Presumably, enacting the "water" solutions involve a lot more manual labor/manufacturing/farming/chemical processing etc. etc. than big, overarching thinking about "water."

[Yellow#5]

by HelloFeminists

[Stories]

The complaints seem like they are directed towards the arts and humanities, but essentially all of the solutions seem to be directed towards involving the sciences, which aren't the ones with the problems he describes, and eliminating the arts and humanities, which are. Creating a problem-solving based system (like the idiotic "Water" as a doctoral concentration) eliminates the need for all arts and humanities, as generally these programs do not solve problems (except maybe the ones they create). What am I going to do, study the literature of water? I mean, sure, I could, but it wouldn't help solve water-based problems.

Furthermore, if "Water" is dissolved as a concentration in 7 years, it is presumably because it has been solved. If it's been solved, what will all the "Water" majors do? They won't be able to find jobs in academia OR industry; there aren't "water" problems any more, and they aren't specialized enough to start focusing on other issues. Presumably, enacting the "water" solutions involve a lot more manual labor/manufacturing/farming/chemical processing etc. etc. than big, overarching thinking about "water."

To be fair, when you're looking at an issue like water, there is never going to be an end of issues with it.

I really think this article is trying to focus our future academic pursuits on true life applications of whatever courses of study we assume. It would appear that there's a decreasing utility of a philosopher in the field of religion since the audience it reaches is limited and cannot be utilized to solve many of societal issues.

He proposed a topic such as water so that many disciplines work in an interconnected way to resolve any issues surrounding it. The topic could very well become "War" or "Cancer", in which case he'd want resources in fields which might not even think about either topic to connect to solving the issues in those two fields.