<
https://www.compactmag.com/article/the-crisis-of-the-university-started-long-before-trump/>
"The University of Chicago is in crisis. Under extraordinary financial strain,
it has diminished its faculty-student ratio and hired hundreds of “lecturers”:
teachers whom it pays little and whom it does not expect to do research. It has
deliberately driven down the percentage of undergraduate tuition that it
devotes to actually teaching undergraduates. This summer it proposed to “merge”
(read: “close”) departments; send some students online—or perhaps put them on
buses—to study at other institutions; and teach some languages via ChatGPT. It
is freezing budgets, closing academic units, slashing doctoral education, and
contemplating the use of restricted endowment payouts to support functions not
covered in the gift agreements.
The effects of these changes—and a further expansion of the undergraduate
population already in the works, with no expansion of faculty—will be dire.
Fewer subjects will be taught; classes will be larger; students will have less
contact with faculty; more teaching will be done by people with no formal
contact with research.
It is tempting to ascribe this betrayal of implied contract—with students,
parents, and donors—to the pressure that the Trump administration is placing on
higher education. If this were in fact what is happening, the university’s
actions would be lamentable but necessary.
But that would be false. The effect of the administration’s moves on university
operations—in Chicago’s case—is likely to be small. The true problem is the
debased ideals of the university’s leadership and the extraordinary debt it has
taken on in pursuit of them. The university’s trustees and leaders view it
preeminently as a tax-free technology incubator, and its debt load is so great
that it is abandoning ideals it once held dear in order to sustain that goal.
We are simply choosing not to be a university."
Via Christoph S.
Cheers,
*** Xanni ***
--
mailto:xanni@xanadu.net Andrew Pam
http://xanadu.com.au/ Chief Scientist, Xanadu
https://glasswings.com.au/ Partner, Glass Wings
https://sericyb.com.au/ Manager, Serious Cybernetics
