an interesting tidbit

[Paul A. Klanderud]

A few thoughts from someone playing the devil's advocate:

Tenure: if we are to enlist the support of "the public" or politicians on
the behalf of higher education, then we should address their concerns over
the tenure system.  Let's face it, most people regard tenure as unjustified.
One could argue, Well, if tenure wasn't such an inflexible system, then the
Queens administration wouldn't have been compelled to take such drastic
measures; they could have trimmed instead of axed. Whether we like it or
not, most people wonder, Why aren't professors subject to the same sort of
employment factors the rest of us are? Instead of rehashing the usual
arguments, we should be asking, why is it that items such as "academic
freedom" et al don't carry any weight?  Perhaps "the public" feels that some
of academia's directions have gotten so far afield that they'd be happy to
see some of that freedom curtailed...

How many of us have taken the time to listen to and expose ourselves to the
sentiments of "real people" outside academia who DON'T share our concerns
(i.e., much of "the public") and who feel that today's curricula in no way
reflect their values? In other words, to those people who, upon hearing of
higher education's woes, essentially feel, No big loss? I wouldn't want my
kids studying that stuff anyway?

I won't touch the issue of how education has become a business viewed in
terms of profitability. A colleague of mine put it well: he said he had no
objection to education being viewed as a business, provided that people
understood that our "product" is knowledge -- judge us by how well we
produce THAT commodity. But we should all know by now that this argument
doesn't carry much weight.


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Paul A. Klanderud
N8106 1130th Street
River Falls, Wisconsin 54022
tel: (715) 425-9507
e-mail: paulkla at mail.pressenter.com