{"id":4530,"date":"2011-06-06T08:38:02","date_gmt":"2011-06-06T13:38:02","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/?p=4530"},"modified":"2011-06-06T08:38:30","modified_gmt":"2011-06-06T13:38:30","slug":"the-state-of-higher-ed","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/2011\/06\/06\/the-state-of-higher-ed\/","title":{"rendered":"The state of higher ed"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Chronicle of Higher Ed<\/em> has a good article by Tom Lutz <\/a> on the state of declining education in this country.<\/p>\n

While the University of California system is being hit particularly hard, the trends are the same at public institutions everywhere, including here at the University of Vermont (class sizes increasing, faculty positions not being replaced, positions being cut<\/a>, etc.).<\/p>\n

Lutz writes:<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Those faculty who do leave for better jobs, or retire, or die in harness, are not being replaced. Staff who leave are not being replaced\u2014the positions of those who are left are simply “reorganized.” Students at Riverside are having increasing trouble getting the classes they need to graduate, and many of the classes they get will be crowded beyond responsible limits. Departments are being forced to abandon optimal class-size limits for classes two, three, and five times as large.<\/p>\n

The library has virtually stopped buying books. We are on a race to become a mediocre university at best, and if the $500-million of proposed cuts in the university system turns into a billion dollars, as they are now discussing in Sacramento, we will be over. The billion-dollar cut translates into thousands of classes across the system. It means creative-writing workshops with 50 students, or, if we insist on maintaining reasonable workshop size, eight or 10 years to graduation for our majors. [. . .]<\/p>\n

Why is this happening? Political demagoguery and corruption. Thirty-five years ago, the University of California received 6.6 percent of the state budget and prisons 3 percent. Now the university gets 2.2 percent and the prison-industrial complex gets 7.4 percent. The Legislature is taking the money that should be used to educate the best of its citizens and using it to enrich the people who make a profit from imprisoning the poorest. The percentage of the cost of higher education provided by the state has been cut in half, cut in half again, and is on the verge of getting cut in half a third time.<\/p>\n

[. . .]<\/p>\n

This is the end of quality. And why? Because a few very wealthy people are protecting their wealth from taxes, taxes considered reasonable not only everywhere else in the developed world, but also considered reasonable in America until 20 years ago.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

I hope the students finally get angry. I hope they get active. I hope hundreds of thousands of them call and write their legislators, get out in the streets, take back their university. […]<\/p>\n

(Emphasis added.)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Chronicle of Higher Ed has a good article by Tom Lutz on the state of declining education in this country. While the University of California system is being hit particularly hard, the trends are the same at public institutions everywhere, including here at the University of Vermont (class sizes increasing, faculty positions not being […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":99,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"advanced_seo_description":"","jetpack_seo_html_title":"","jetpack_seo_noindex":false,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[203],"tags":[123664,23317],"class_list":["post-4530","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-academe","tag-academe","tag-higher-ed"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p4IC4a-1b4","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":7935,"url":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/2014\/12\/11\/hiring\/","url_meta":{"origin":4530,"position":0},"title":"Hiring…","author":"Adrian J Ivakhiv","date":"December 11, 2014","format":false,"excerpt":"Note: This is an updated version of a\u00a0previously\u00a0posted notice. Our Environmental Studies program has announced a\u00a0cluster hire -- a search for three new tenure-track professors, at multiple levels from Assistant Professor to Program\u00a0Director, under the overall umbrella of \"Sustainability Studies and Global Environmental Equity.\" Details on the cluster hire can\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Academe"","block_context":{"text":"Academe","link":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/category\/academe\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":9204,"url":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/2017\/05\/02\/valuing-public-scholarship\/","url_meta":{"origin":4530,"position":1},"title":"Valuing public scholarship","author":"Adrian J Ivakhiv","date":"May 2, 2017","format":false,"excerpt":"The American Anthropological Association's publication yesterday of guidelines on public scholarship marks a significant advance in the recognition of public scholarship within academe. Anthropology may have good reasons to be in the forefront with this, but it is not the only field in which public scholarship and community engagement are\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Academe"","block_context":{"text":"Academe","link":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/category\/academe\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":5717,"url":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/2012\/03\/27\/just-slackin\/","url_meta":{"origin":4530,"position":2},"title":"Just slackin’","author":"Adrian J Ivakhiv","date":"March 27, 2012","format":false,"excerpt":"The level of stupidity on display in David Levy's Washington Post article Do college professors work hard enough? is astounding. While Levy portrays himself as a life-long educator and academic and a \"former chancellor of the New School University,\" his article only reflects the growing disconnect between those who educate\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Academe"","block_context":{"text":"Academe","link":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/category\/academe\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":5973,"url":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/2012\/05\/24\/panpsychism-in-the-news\/","url_meta":{"origin":4530,"position":3},"title":"Panpsychism in the news?","author":"Adrian J Ivakhiv","date":"May 24, 2012","format":false,"excerpt":"No, not really... But the Chronicle of Higher Ed has an interesting piece on leading panpsychist philosopher David Skrbina called The Unabomber's Pen Pal. It turns out that Skrbina has been corresponding with Ted Kaczynski as part of his study of the philosophy of technology. Clearly, the way for a\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Academe"","block_context":{"text":"Academe","link":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/category\/academe\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/img.youtube.com\/vi\/8nz2Q5q4LWU\/0.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":9582,"url":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/2018\/03\/22\/the-academic-life-thoughts-for-the-beginning-of-spring\/","url_meta":{"origin":4530,"position":4},"title":"The academic life (thoughts for the beginning of spring)","author":"Adrian J Ivakhiv","date":"March 22, 2018","format":false,"excerpt":"Or, Things I love, like, dislike, and hate about it... I love that I can research, write, talk, think, and teach about things that I'm passionate about, or at least care very much about. And because that passion derives from a sense that the world needs certain kinds of engagement\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Academe"","block_context":{"text":"Academe","link":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/category\/academe\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/img.youtube.com\/vi\/f7tuOHbim2M\/0.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":1072,"url":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/2009\/05\/15\/interdisciplinarity-academic-restructuring\/","url_meta":{"origin":4530,"position":5},"title":"interdisciplinarity & academic restructuring","author":"Adrian J Ivakhiv","date":"May 15, 2009","format":false,"excerpt":"Philosopher of religion and Derridean \"atheologian\" Mark Taylor's recent NY Times op-ed End the University as We Know It has generated a lot of discussion in academic circles and blogs. Reading the article reminded me of a situation my institution, the University of Vermont, went through recently, after being approached\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Academe"","block_context":{"text":"Academe","link":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/category\/academe\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4530","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/99"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4530"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4530\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4535,"href":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4530\/revisions\/4535"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4530"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4530"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4530"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}