Curmudgeonly Fish

A university is a complex entity that does not yield up its mysteries to casual observation. ... Typically reporters understand nothing of the tenure and promotion process, but they are certain it is unfair and operates at the expense of students. They understand even less of the budget, but they are certain that money is being squandered or misspent on nonessential frills. They have no acquaintance at all with the latest theories in any field, but they know they are faddish and a waste of taxpayers' money. They have no sense at all of what it takes to prepare and teach a course, but they are confident that they could teach at least six in any semester.

I'm sure Fish is right in places, but he's certainly not fighting the good fight if he wants to pretend that the tenure and promotion process is fair, or that it never hurts students. Nor is it accurate to claim that a great deal of money in public university budgets is not "squandered or misspent," nonessential frills or no. Higher education in the U.S. is absolutely compromised, so journalists are also at least partially right when they depict it that way. I'm starting to wonder, though, if higher education in this country -- especially in the form of public universities -- is almost necessarily compromising. Currently, people like Fish are asked to serve two masters:

1. Higher education is supposed to be concerned with something called knowledge -- with its production and explanation and distribution. This is often somewhat abstract by definition, and really requires what often seem to be obscure theories (which are not "faddish" so much as "new" and therefore more interesting and potentially productive than what's come before*), as well as a certain remove from practical considerations of direct application -- either in marketplace or elsewhere.
2. Increasingly, higher education at public universities is also supposed be concerned with the practical application of "knowledge' as well as with producing good workers for the marketplace. This second, more "practical" concern comes as universities are asked to pay for and justify their very existence in to a degree that would have been unheard of even 20 years ago.

Because higher education is being asked to serve these two, largely contradictory, masters, it's a big target for reporters and critics of all persuasions. For example, it's easy to say that tenure, which is designed to encourage faculty to focus on the first concern, sometimes does "hurt" students because a concern for abstract "knowledge" and an expansion of the mind contradicts many students' (and parents' and legislators') goals of a practical education that will pay for itself. However, while Fish and his kind condescendingly deride journalists for doing a poor job, the value our culture places on the kind of education Fish believes in is steadily falling, and I'm afraid his condescension will do little to change that.

*(On the question of "faddish" theories, we shouldn't forget that things like evolution were once deemed crack-headed and loony, as were "theories" about things like the human circulatory system or the idea that the earth revolves around the sun. Lots of theories are proposed, tested, and thrown away, revised, or accepted, but the process requires that initial flurry of activity and "buzz" which can make a theory look like a "fad" just because everyone happens to be talking about it for a while.)  7:07:56 PM      comment

Domestic Discord

The repoliticized welfare debate, put in play by the White House, ignores the purpose of welfare policy, which should be to help the poorest families earn enough to lift more children above the poverty line. The further tragedy is that it diverts attention from the broader issue: the millions of Americans whose earnings from work, while not technically placing them in poverty, leave them struggling daily to make ends meet.

4:20:39 PM      comment

Radio Payola

2:10:46 PM      comment

Bush and the Dark Side

(Leshner is the creator of Radio Poster and he says a new version should be out shortly. I can't wait!)  2:05:24 PM      comment

Bush and 'Values'

"There's a heck of a lot more that unites us than divides us. We share the same values; we trade $2 trillion a year," he added. "I feel very comfortable coming to Europe; I feel very comfortable coming to France. I've got a lot of friends here."

So there you go. As long as we have trillions of dollars of "trade" with someone, we share the same values. Recent U.S. policy on environmental, human rights, and foreign policy issues could not be more different from prevailing sentiments in Europe, but as long as that "trade" remains strong, we've got "more that unites us than divides us." Sure. Whatever.

Later in the article "a senior administration official aboard Air Force One" calls the media "the chattering classes," but later specifies he/she meant people who write op-eds. Dan Rather was right when he said the media has failed in its coverage of this administration, which is incredible since the people who end up looking the worst are the media themselves, and especially the White House Press Corps that let Bush get away with crap like this. To his credit, NBC News White House correspondent David Gregory was the one that prompted Bush's vitriol; we need more people like Gregory willing to ask pointed questions and to force Bush to reveal himself for the "trade" nut that he is.  12:11:56 PM      comment