The Last Professor

http://fish.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/01/18/the-last-professor/

by lnguyen • 18 years ago

14 6 18 years ago

fish.blogs.nytimes.com

puzzle-out• 18 years ago

This article: a paraphrase (of a book by the writer's former student), uncritical, little use of evidence, largely anecdotal = book plug.

time_management2• 18 years ago

It also pertains to a critical issue facing our society: the catastrophic loss of a culture, driven by the shortsighted bureaucrats and uncultured moneymen who have infested and gained control over academia. Any time an essay on this topic is featured in the major media, it draws attention to this problem, and that's a good thing.

lliiffee• 18 years ago

Another possibility: The humanities and other non-practical research aren't declining, but rather failing to expand along with the rest of college education. I would think that most University of Phoenix students wouldn't have gone to college a generation ago. Is the number of traditional humanities professors per-capita really smaller, per capita? I doubt it.

brentr2• 18 years ago

I will share my unpopular opinion. The concept of equality has destroyed the university. Not everyone is capable of digesting a humanist education; however, in the attempt to make sure "no child is left behind," the university has thrown its doors wide open. The result is that those who would best profit from a university, the capable minds, are left behind. Thus, I propose a new battle cry for the day, one meant to capture the true essence of the modern movement: "only capable minds left behind."

time_management2• 18 years ago

There's more to it. You're right that this is a part of the problem.

The collapse of academia, of which professors have been by and large victims, is a rather revolting phenomenon, but professors share some segment of the blame. At some point, many professors developed the attitude that research is their real work, and that teaching is commodity labor that can be passed off to semiskilled TAs, never mind that there's a vast discrepancy between the effectiveness of a good teacher vs. that of a mediocre one.

Physics professors can get away with this attitude, since physics research is extremely important; without it, there would be nothing to teach. And there are some brilliant researchers who are terrible teachers, and they're valued contributors to the academic mission. Literature professors can't get away with this. First of all, literature would still exist if there were no "researchers". Second, the entire purpose of their existence is the transmission of culture from one generation to the next, e.g. teaching.

The bureaucrats in charge of the universities have come to agree with (some) leading research professors that research is the real work of an academic, and the work by which one professor can be distinguished from another, and that teaching is secondary, replaceable grunt work. The humanities academics have been royally screwed by this attitude.

brentr2• 18 years ago

Research can be incorporated into learning, but not in the current university. If the modern-day university was smaller, then research and learning could be conducted side-by-side. The problem plaguing the system today is that there are too many students, mostly of incapable mind; there is only so much room in a research lab. I know this because I worked in one at the University of Florida. It could easily fit five to seven students in addition to the chief researcher. If we cast out those incapable of receiving a true education, we could fit the rest into a lab; research and teaching could coexist. It is an elitist viewpoint, but a valid viewpoint.

The Last Professor

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