All right! The election insanity is over. I am personally thrilled by the outcome, and I assume the same holds for much of the blog’s readership. However, this place has never been about politics and I am not a sophisticated political thinker anyway, so let me just say I hope we can all exhale now, and I hope for a good 2021.
(I personally like Kamala Harris. I also liked Elizabeth Warren and Hilary Clinton. It pains me that women are always much more palatable when they play second fiddle to men. But that battle will likely take more time to win than I have on this planet.)
Back to regularly scheduled academic programming.
I believe we need to teach our students as best we can. To give them all we’ve got.
But not all university teachers do their job well, or care to. For example, I have several colleagues who, while nice people, definitely phone their teaching in.
There are also students who really just want to tunnel through to the degree, with as little effort and as little actual learning as possible. I will never understand this attitude.
And now the college powers that be keep talking how we may never go back to the old “instructional modalities,” how we need to keep offering online classes so the students can complete their degrees on time, from wherever they are. I understand during COVID, but where were these concerns before? What sprouted this sudden need to remotely educate hordes? As usual, when someone is trying to shove something illogical down your throat, it’s because there is money involved. The real reason behind anything shifty is always money.
We have students who just want to get to their degrees. Like those two who signed up for my in-person class (even though there is an online section, too) and never (not once!) showed up for class. What exactly are they getting out of it? We should not be supporting any of this.
But now the administration wants to just funnel bodies through the program, as quickly as possible, as many of them as possible, because each warm shoddily educated body is full tuition, the fact they know nothing be damned; the fact that this will erode the reputation of our institution be damned.
I want us to remain selective and excellent. I don’t want us to become a ridiculous diploma mill, in the name of “increasing revenue.”
God, I hate what is happening to my college so much.
How are you doing today, blogosphere?
xykademiqz 