Grad student angst and related matters

[Ernest Scatton]

George Fowler hits the nail on the head, reminding us of Olga Yokoyama's
remark regarding "useful". "useful" means, I think, being able to offer
courses of interest to students outside of program, but also being
able to connect with colleagues in other departments. At our
institution, and I bet many others, there is tremendous pressure for
these sorts of connections: there is no longer the money to support
faculties teaching small numbers of students in isolated programs...
like Russian, increasingly. Someone with a "hybrid" degree, who
knows Russian, Russian (and/or Slavic lings), but can also interact
with general linguistics, sociologists, psychologists, has a great
deal more attraction that the opposite. The same is true for lit
specialists who can participate in general education programs and
who interact with lit specialists, historians, etc. The need is
for potential links that strengthen the place of departmentt and
program in institution, as opposed to isolating it. There willl
always be  top-tier, leading programs (the title IVcenters), but
most of us don't work in them and neither will most of their graduates.
I share David Birnbaum's views, but I'm not as sanguine as he that
the pendulum is likely to swing significantly the other way. I have yet
to see a program that has been brought down restored.
Ernie Scatton