The below study by the Goldwater Institute was passed on by a friend, and since I work at a university (part-time), it is of interest to me. It concerns the bloated bureaucracy of US universities and explores the reasons.
http://www.goldwaterinstitute.org/article/4941
Now I am just a humble part-time teacher at the University of California at Irvine, but it sure looks to me that the Goldwater Institute is on to something. University of California campuses are stuffed with chancellors, vice chancellors, deans, asst. deans, and so on. At UCI, we have a vice chancellor retiring this month and nobody knows who is going to replace him-if anybody.
Here's an anecdote; Several years ago, a department at a UC campus blew a couple of hundred grand on some useless software program. To make up the money lost, they had to lay off ten full-time instructors. (Two of them never came back.)
That reminds me; Remember that important job that Michelle Obama had at the University of Chicago Hospital way back when hubby was a rising politician in Illinois?
Remember that huge raise she got when hubby became a US Senator? In 2005, she went from Executive Director of Community Affairs to Vice President of Community and External Affairs (a promotion). Her salary went from $121,910 to $316,962 (which was reduced as she converted to part-time in 2007 due to her husband's presidential aspirations).
(Source: Fact Check).
http://www.factcheck.org/2009/05/michelle-obamas-salary/
"That's a big f----' deal!"
In January 2009, she resigned. And who was chosen as her replacement in this vital position when she left? Well, nobody. The office was reorganized upon her departure.
http://www.uchospitals.edu/news/2009/20090109-obama.html
But for all you UC Santa Cruz Community Studies majors, there is good news. The cost of all this is mostly covered by government subsidies.
If I ever win a big lottery jackpot Gary, I'm going to invite you to sit down with me and plan a really good college curriculum that both of us can salute.
ReplyDeleteThere's a bankrupt former sandbox of the revolution in the midwest we could buy cheap.
It's all very simple. The 3 Rs, straight history, languages, sciences, engineeing.
ReplyDeleteAnd beer in the sandbox.
No literature? Or does that count in the first R?
ReplyDeleteComparative religions? Philosophy? Crud...you're missing some other stuff too, like the Films of Keanu Reeves. (Joking about the last one.)
ReplyDeleteI don't go for teaching comparative religions. What I would want is "History of religions in human culture." Everyone who ever expounded a faith and drew a following is worth teaching -- without prejudice to whether he is God's annointed or the biggest fraud in history. What his followers did, the good, the bad, the ugly, is also fair game.
ReplyDeleteI am beginning to lean toward requiring some study of classics. A student could do a term paper deconstructing Socrates, but should know enough to do so intelligently.