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The Slow Death of the University

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Re: The Slow Death of the University

#51

Post by jseliger »

mathattack wrote: post #29
jseliger wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wonder if this death of criticism is misty eyed nastolgia for a future that either never, or rarely existed. Not entirely. Take a look at Louis Menand's The Marketplace of Ideas: Reform and Resistance in the American University ( http://jakeseliger.com/2010/01/21/problems-in-the-academy-lo... ). Universities grew enormously from 1945 – 1975. During that time, too, a disproportionately large number of students major…

Shouldn't the overproduction of Phds drive down university costs? I hear you on the bogosity factor. I wonder why this persists. Perhaps because by the time someone realizes it's all BS, their career it too invested in exposing it?

Shouldn't the overproduction of Phds drive down university costs?

Most cost increases appear to come from technology, ancillary services (gyms are popular punching bags in this regard) and administrative staff (everything from diversity deans to grant writers).

I hear you on the bogosity factor. I wonder why this persists. Perhaps because by the time someone realizes it's all BS, their career it too invested in exposing it?

I think this is precisely the issue: the system selects for people who become very, very invested in the system.

Another important change involves the elimination of mandatory retirement: http://www.slate.com/articles/life/silver_lining/2011/04/ple.... Until the early 1990s, tenure care with an expiration date around age 65. Someone who got tenure would be on the books for 25 – 35 years. Today tenure doesn't have an expiration date—someone can be on the books for 50 years or longer. That makes tenure much more onerous.

I'd like to see universities shift from a tenure-based system to a long-term-contract-based system. This has downsides but its downsides seem better than the current tenure-based downsides.

Re: The Slow Death of the University

#52

Post by clusterfoo »

Retric wrote: post #33
sliverstorm wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They certainly aren't the only ones capable of critical thinking, but they are supposedly the ones who received a 4-year education in critical thinking , while other people were spending time learning about physics or what have you.

Yet, they largely have a reputation as incapable of critical thought. When an archeology professor is talking about critical thought they mean an argument capable of convincing people. Technical people may view this as sloppy thinking as a transistor does not care what you think, but it’s a very valuable skill. It's not just useful for convincing other, but also to notice when you’re being manipulated. PS: With this…

> It's not just useful for convincing other, but also to notice when you’re being manipulated.

In my experience (having started uni in the humanities), this way of thinking (which is how most people think) actually makes you more susceptible to manipulation, not less, because you're basically trained to think that a convincing argument and a valid argument are the same thing.

Which really is how most people perceive reality: from political debates to the workplace, most people remember how well you "handled yourself" in a disagreement, how charismatic, how well you "stood your ground", etc. Not how sound your logic was. And this is how most of the world operates.

Programmers spend all of our day pointing out flaws in each others' work, we simply do not allow each other to be wrong and correct each other at every turn... this takes time to get used to when you're starting out (or come from a non-tech background), and would drive most people crazy and bruise their fragile egos (If this behavior has ever accidentally bled into your non-tech social life, you know this does drive most people crazy). But we do it because the damn thing has to work at the end of the day.

"Cargo cult programmers" are given a bad name, where in other professions you can make a career off of hopping onto the cargo cult of the day and parroting (or being) a charismatic talking head.

It's a "Sell me this pen" world, vs "Take this pen apart, tell me everything that's wrong with it, and build me a better pen".

It's not that there's no value in the humanities, but without technical training we end up with... well... the world as it is. There's a reason the tech community has been at the forefront of innovation for the past century, moving at light-speed while the rest of the "warm and fuzzy" world (from educational, to medicinal, to political institutions) is trying to catch up, like they're all still in the friggen 19th century communicating via carrier pigeons. And I don't mean only technical innovation: the tech community has been at the forefront of social innovation as well. Ideas like open data, open source, horizontal institutions, fast iteration and experimentation at the institutional level... nobody else does it. All other professions have their little cliques formed, where god forbid anyone question the Big Talking Head at the top or try to shake up things too much, or share too much information with anyone outside the in-group.

Re: The Slow Death of the University

#53

Post by aristus »

therealdrag0 wrote: post #17
aklemm wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Working" by Studs Terkel comes to mind. http://www.amazon.com/Working-People-Talk-About-What/dp/1565... So many people have this question early in their careers, it really seems like something is wrong. Perhaps we need a serious/mandatory/formal job-shadowing program for teens and college students.

That looks perfect. I wish there was an audio version.

Studs was a radio interviewer. The book is taken from thousands of hours of material.

https://www.popuparchive.com/collections/938

Re: The Slow Death of the University

#54

Post by bobcostas55 »

mathattack wrote: post #12

I wonder if this death of criticism is misty eyed nastolgia for a future that either never, or rarely existed. Let's not forget that our so-called great universities: - For a long time excluded women, Jews and many minorities. - Were the providence of only the technocratic elite. - Did very little research before the 20th century. And now that the costs escalate out of control, is it any wonder that they have to go m…

>- For a long time excluded women, Jews and many minorities.

And now, instead, they exclude Asians. Progress!

Re: The Slow Death of the University

#55

Post by blhack »

protomyth wrote: post #46

"It would also seek to restore the honorable lineage of the university as one of the few arenas in modern society (another is the arts) in which prevailing ideologies can be submitted to some rigorous scrutiny." Then the battle is lost, because universities, at least in the USA, are the home of "free speech areas" and not letting people speak who a group disagrees with. When people are talking about "safe areas" to p…

Here is an excellent speech on this by one of the best people to speak on this topic (Steven Pinker): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HcdFI6Sda0k

FIRE is an EXCELLENT group.

Re: The Slow Death of the University

#56

Post by marcosdumay »

ForHackernews wrote: post #49
marcosdumay wrote: post #23

What's it with humanities people that make them believe that only them, of all people, are able to do critical thinking? Anyway, the author is part of the problem. Just at the beginning of the article he states that humanities are only good for rich students to pass their time. Until the professors themselves stop thinking this way, no government will prioritize them. (And no, I don't agree that humanities are useles…

At the risk of being overly confrontational, the things that make humanities people believe that they are capable of critical thinking (in contrast to STEM types) are comments like yours. > Just at the beginning of the article he states that humanities are only good for rich students to pass their time Where in the article does the author state or imply this? The section beginning "When I first came to Oxford 30 year…

> If anything, he seems to be suggesting the opposite, that the humanities should be returned to their traditional place in the public square, questioning and criticizing the prevailing ideologies of the day

Yes, he want to be nostalgically talking with like-minded people in an open space. That's my fault, I've misread it. A bit of self criticism from his part would certainly lead to the conclusion that such kind of study does never lead to any actionable result.

Anyway, there's no problem inherent in that. The only problems he faces is that he wants to do those things on the taxpayer money, and wants to sell it to students as some incredibly useful skill. People are stopping to accept that.

Re: The Slow Death of the University

#57

Post by eternauta3k »

nostrademons wrote: post #13
Shyis wrote: post #3

This is only mildly related to the article, but does anyone else have difficulty imagining what others' jobs are? For example, I'm just young enough to remember a time when I thought a programmer was someone who hid in a closet to slam at a keyboard for nine hours a day, but that notion was only corrected by entering the workforce. What about my other misconceptions? There's no way to learn about all of them firsthan…

Lawyers are probably a big one. Most people think they spend all day in the courtroom, but many lawyers never set foot in a courtroom. Instead, their days are spent meeting with clients and preparing documents: their job is to translate the plain-English requirements of what the clients want to agree upon into legalese that has specific meaning in court.

So law is in a way programming?

Re: The Slow Death of the University

#58

Post by bilbo0s »

marcosdumay wrote: post #23

What's it with humanities people that make them believe that only them, of all people, are able to do critical thinking? Anyway, the author is part of the problem. Just at the beginning of the article he states that humanities are only good for rich students to pass their time. Until the professors themselves stop thinking this way, no government will prioritize them. (And no, I don't agree that humanities are useles…

"...What's it with humanities people that make them believe that only them, of all people, are able to do critical thinking?..."

The same thing that is with everyone else. If you look around our societies today it seems almost a matter of course that the first argument deployed in any debate is a dismissal of the opposing view holder's ability to think critically. Not to put too fine a point on it... but you can see that argument employed a lot here on HN. It's not really a matter of STEM people being dismissive of others' critical thinking skills - or even Humanities people being dismissive of others' critical thinking skills - as much as it is a matter of ALL people being dismissive of others.

It's, kind of, the nature of discourse in our society these days.

Re: The Slow Death of the University

#59

Post by tsotha »

stephengillie wrote: post #41
JoeAltmaier wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm thinking that 'instructor-time' is a myth. A class of 20, say 3 lectures of an hour a week - that's just 9 minutes per student if they spent ALL the time interacting. But they don't; more like a minute per student tops. No, instructor-time is moot. Maybe instructor training is important; maybe a quality syllabus helps; a good book is key. But the instructor/lecturer can lecture 10 or 100 equally well.

You're leaving out most of what the instructor does: -Prepare lessons -Answer student questions (during and) after class -Grade homework -Prepare, proctor, and grade examinations And instructors rarely spend their entire instructional period interacting with students; usually, they have a lecture they deliver for the majority, and a small time at the end for questions - about the material, class errata, unrelated que…

It depends on the instructor and the way the university is set up. I had classes as an undergrad which the professor had literally been teaching for decades - these guys hadn't spent time on a lesson plan since before the Beatles broke up. And they had grad students to grade papers and tests, plus teaching assistants the students were expected to see first before bothering the professor.

The test questions were just mixtures of questions from previous years.

So three hours of class, plus two (mandated) office hours. I'm assuming there was some time spent coordinating the grad students, but still... that doesn't seem like much work.

Re: The Slow Death of the University

#60

Post by tsotha »

Kalium wrote: post #38
marcosdumay wrote: post #23

What's it with humanities people that make them believe that only them, of all people, are able to do critical thinking? Anyway, the author is part of the problem. Just at the beginning of the article he states that humanities are only good for rich students to pass their time. Until the professors themselves stop thinking this way, no government will prioritize them. (And no, I don't agree that humanities are useles…

> What's it with humanities people that make them believe that only them, of all people, are able to do critical thinking? I suspect it might be ego, after a fashion. Having observed that those educated in other fields have more marketable skills, a need to claim one's own education has produced a uniquely valuable skill arises.

Yeah, this is my impression. People in the humanities spend a lot of time fielding snide comments and "do you want fries with that" jokes. Even though their critical thinking skills aren't any better than other college grads, this is at least something that sounds like a plausible benefit to having spent 4+ years at a university.

Part of the problem is the marketable skill that the humanities used to impart, that of the ability to write well, just isn't in as much demand any more.

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