What does tenure mean, anyway?

Amazing what you can find on the Web. From a link in yesterday's post, Inside Higher Ed has an article from 2009 regarding accountability in higher ed. Specifically, it links to a piece by a Wall Street Journal person that talks about "academic freedom" and tenure. Naomi Riley documents the history of "academic freedom" and discusses how it was started as part of the larger progressive movement, back in olden days.

From what I read there, she struggles with the definition of "academic freedom". From what I've seen in my 20 years in higher ed, I can tell you what "academic freedom" means: the opportunity to have standards for quality in your classroom. By and large, that has been the effect that I've seen with tenured professors, at least in business schools. The opportunity to work on large, risky projects (pointed out by a colleague of mine) without the "publish or perish" overhang is another benefit (sounds like a real options/capital structure discussion, doesn't it?). Both of those are necessary parts of having a successful curriculum, in just about any field. For all of the BAD things that tenure gives us, and there are plenty, it may be necessary as an institution to keep grade inflation in check, and to make sure that there are actual learning outcomes down the road.

From the main text of the article, out of a presentation on higher ed finance, there's this quote:

"Regional accreditors should continue to be in the business of peer review, but the federal government needs to be the objective protector of taxpayers' dollars,"

Yet another reason for "academic freedom." Be afraid, be very afraid.

What degrees should mean

As we struggle with the NEXT 40 years of college education in this country, a think-tank group has produced a useful framework for education based on the scope of an associates, bachelors and masters degree. You should take a moment to look at it and think about how it fits what YOU learned for each of those degrees (thus far).

Check it out: (from the original link)

The associate degree holder:	Describes the scope and principal features of the field of study, citing core theories and practices, and offers a similar explication of a related field. Illustrates the field’s current terminology. Generates substantially error-free products, exhibits, or performances in the field.
The bachelor's degree holder:	Defines and explains the boundaries, divisions, styles and practices of the field. Defines and properly uses the principal terms in the field, both historical and contemporaneous. Demonstrates fluency in the use of tools, technologies and methods in the field. Evaluates, clarifies and frames a complex question or challenge using perspectives and scholarship from the student’s major field and at least one other. Constructs a project related to a familiar but complex problem in the field of study by assembling, arranging and reformulating ideas, concepts, designs or techniques. Constructs a summative project, paper or practice-based performance that draws on current research, scholarship and/or techniques in the field.
The master's degree holder:	Elucidates the major theories, research methods and approaches to inquiry, and/or schools of practice in the field; articulates relevant sources; and illustrates their relationship to allied fields. Assesses the contributions of major figures and organizations in the field; describes its major methodologies and practices; and implements at least two such methodologies and practices through projects, papers, exhibits or performances. Articulates major challenges involved in practicing the field, elucidates its leading edges, and delineates its current limits with respect to theory, knowledge and practice. Initiates, assembles, arranges and reformulates ideas, concepts, designs and techniques in carrying out a project directed at a challenge in the field beyond conventional boundaries.

Lumina officials and the authors say they went out of their way to fill the degree profile with "concrete, illustrative student learning outcome statements" that use "active verbs that tell all parties -- students, faculty, employers, policymakers and the general public -- what students actually should do to demonstrate their mastery."

Sounds cool, huh? Skeptics, it notes, were initially put off by the idea that the Feds would be involved and planning to shove this down everyone's throat at the first opportunity. (Who says that they aren't? After all bureaucrats aren't bureaucrats if they aren't "doing something," right?)

The actual report is available here at the Lumina homepage.

Historically, there's always been a debate about whether liberal arts or professional degrees (business, etc.) were the best approach, and in the classroom the debate was between knowledge (and critical thinking) versus skills (training).

Believe it or not, professors actually have to THINK about this stuff!

Advocating for the destruction of society isn't really a threat to anyone, right?

I'm posting here the NYT criticism of Glenn Beck, not as an example of good journalism, but as an example of good propaganda and yellow journalism. Note the repeated use of stuff such as "some suggest" and the like. Also, note that they do not reveal the credentials of the Center for Constitutional Rights - these folks (gasp) receive funding from George Soros.

No way, you say.

Yes, way.

Just for the record, Dr. Piven has routinely written & spoken about social programs (or the lack thereof) justifying mob violence against society. I'll cite more here when I have time, but I've posted on it before, below.

Really good WSJ article here showing her for what she is.

And, finally, the idea that GB (or most of the commentators out there) are advocating violence is nuts. They usually leave The Revolution to the radical college professor types.

I'm inclined to believe that anyone who needs to raise my taxes is advocating violence. I'd guess that the SUGGESTION of taking more of my money, for anything, is hateful rhetoric that is suggesting violence since it's calling for taking more of what I've earned.

Studios, hardware go to 3D despite troubles

People often ask me if the market can be wrong. Of course it can. I'd argue in this case, though, that the decision-making of those who are pushing us toward more and more 3D entertainment doesn't represent the market, at least in the short term. It represents an industry with a little market (channel) power trying to reassert itself and looking for the next first-mover advantage.

It's reported today that more and more manufacturers and media producers are plunging ahead into 3D. Maybe it's just me (and like, almost everyone I know) but I spend time finding ways to avoid 3D movies.

Avatar gave me a 2-day headache, and Tron Legacy (at $12.50 a chair matinee) wasn't much better. No way did I take the daughter to see Toy Story 3D - that would be too much! Avatar reminded me of looking at a shadowbox, where some things are in the foreground and some are in the background, but the whole thing isn't more than 2 inches deep.

The 3D phenom is the last gasp of Hollywood "big production" mentality. After all, small filmmakers can't do 3D, nor do they have the pull to get their productions on the limited 3D screens. Hey, just like the old days with 70mm and Dolby sound and the like. Artificial scarcity. After all, aren't they just telling us that 3D is better? I don't remember ASKING FOR headaches and much higher ticket prices. And I certainly don't plan on buying a 3D TV. Ever.

It's kind of like Windows Vista giving us all the wonderful things that slowed it down and made it unreliable and incompatible when we'd asked for two or three of those features. Windows 7 seems to be cut from the same cloth. Micro$oft has just enough market power to put things on there that we'll never use and up their list of features. Meanwhile, we have to buy a new PC every two years to stay compatible.

I can't help but think they are barking up the wrong tree. We'll see.

Update:
I recently got a chance to see "Sanctum," and although it wasn't the cheeriest movie I can recall, the 3D was well-done and not intrusive. Also, for being a movie about caves, I thought it was pretty brightly lit. So there IS hope for the 3D phenomenon after all.

It's all about getting people together

Article in The Nation about how we can get all of the unemployed together and what can be done to make sure that politicians hear about the plight of the jobless (subscription may be required). This from Frances Fox Piven, social scientist extraordinaire, who wrote in 1966 that bankrupting the social safety net was the only way to get the revolution started (no subscription required). Also in The Nation.

To quote:
"So where are the angry crowds, the demonstrations, sit-ins and unruly mobs? After all, the injustice is apparent. Working people are losing their homes and their pensions while robber-baron CEOs report renewed profits and windfall bonuses. Shouldn't the unemployed be on the march? Why aren't they demanding enhanced safety net protections and big initiatives to generate jobs?"

Unfortunately, Dr. Piven also uses the oft-mentioned rhetoric of violence here, noting that protests should have "targets." Wow.

I'm not sure that using the politics of exploitation is any more responsible when manipulating the unemployed and/or homeless than it is when using a gun-toting lunatic. I would venture that Dr. Piven knows better.

Another thing today: UN Article 21 has been receiving some press - check it out here. Kinda neat considering all those countries on the UN Human Rights Council.

No justice, no peace

I don't know who first brought this into recent politics, but I remember clearly that Rep. Maxine Waters said this in reference to the Rodney King verdict. Riots ensued. Talk about the vitriol!

None of this is helpful for the current economy, but it sure makes good politics.

I saw written on a bumper sticker a few years ago

"Know Justice, Know Peace"

I like that one better.

Remember, folks, that reciprocity is the most basic human right. We all have the right to expect others to treat us the way that they expect to be treated and the way that they treat people that THEY care about.

Doesn't that sound like the Golden Rule?* Yeah, maybe it does.

Along with "Don't say anything if you can't say anything nice," those two ideas go a long way to getting everyone along to go along. Or as Mr. Rodney King opined "Can't we all just get along?"






*[Note: Contrary to what my colleague Dr. Steve Cotten says, the Golden Rule is NOT "He who has the gold makes the rules." It's supposed to be "Do unto others as you would, and then split," which was one of my grandfather's favorite jokes. Little Baby Jesus (TM) says that the Golden Rule is "Do unto others as you would have them do unto you." Nothing about splitting or anything.]

Why of course we need more laws!

Time magazine today wonders why someone who was removed from college for mental reasons was allowed to buy a gun. Me too.

The piece is called "After Tucson." How about "After Va. Tech?" Didn't we have this debate a few years ago.

ON a related note, a Newser piece is asking for gun laws like they had in the Old West. That's very progressive! Next folks will be asking to move the infant mortality rate back to where it was then.

Note to civilization:

Crazy people and drug gangs don't care about gun laws. Who's having a tough time with that? Pass all the laws you want to, and it won't make any difference.

Similarly, the death penalty isn't a disincentive to anyone because it doesn't attach any outcomes to the crime. Appeals take so long that it doesn't end up related in anyone's mind by the time someone is executed. Duh?

Same with regulation banning behavior in corporate management. Unless they're violating someone's trust, they can do what they want to. Or the shareholders can vote them out or SUE them, etc. Regulations don't stop crooks or morons, or the insane. Obviously.

Rep. Clyburn on Free Speech

SC Representative Jim Clyburn is a hero of the civil rights movement, and a man who is, literally, a legend in SC and US politics. So it saddens me that he has decided to use Saturday's attack by a mentally-challenged man to further a political agenda, especially an agenda that should be antithetical to anyone in favor of true civil rights.

To quote from Forrest Gump (and Rep. Clyburn):
'Free speech is as free speech does,' he said. 'You cannot yell ‘fire' in a crowded theater and call it free speech and some of what I hear, and is being called free speech, is worse than that.'

Some of the stuff being said these days is controversial, but nowhere NEAR as controversial as things that were said, for the time, during the civil rights fight of the 1950s and 1960s. Mr. Clyburn forgets that Rev. King and others were threatened and called traitors for what they said - back then the rhetoric was fine. The Fairness Doctrine was in place when both Kennedys and Dr. King were killed over their ideals & words. It didn't stop madmen from expressing their madness!

I'm disturbed that the Tucson atrocity occurred, and I think the piece of crap that did it should be executed for his crime. However, the commentators and politicians who are using this for their own purposes right now are beyond contempt, and just another example of the problem - people thinking that they are above decency.

How is this relevant to SCHOOL stuff? Well, his classmates at the community college knew that the "alleged" shooter was scary, and he was eventually thrown out after 3 complaints from the teacher. Emails have been published that detail some of their fears

Update -

Byron York of the Washington Examiner has an interesting take on how we were urged to avoid 'jumping to conclusions' after the Fort Hood shooting last year, but conclusion-jumping was the order of the day this time around.

Anyone who needs to use this event for political purposes is morally bankrupt to begin with. Such behavior is despicable. Unfortunately, it's piling up on one side of the aisle here.

Happy New Year

A new era began today. After today, everything will be different and nothing will be the same. Said differently: After today, everything will be the Republicans' fault.

Wait, maybe things won't be so different after all.

I hate to be negative toward the Democrats (because I think that all politicians are basically self-servers) but the mainstream media has decided that it's now time to crank up the anti-conservative propaganda again. And they wonder why readership is falling? Newspapers are virtually gone, what's next?

You gotta admit that the American Left is starting to look European in their socialist bent.

On another note: The Blaze reported today that the head stagehand at Carnegie Hall makes something like $400k per year. That sounds about par for the course. And the Feds are investigating the "Snow Flu" that infected thousands of union members during the big storm over the holidays.