Well, the correct answer is "research", but "secure grant funding" is acceptable (and in some sense, the bottom line answer). Most people think that teaching is what the position is about, but it couldn't be further from the truth.

While I'm a hard scientist by training, I think you also need social sciences and humanities in the curriculum. I still believe in the "well rounded" liberal arts education being important. I see it every day in my work...brilliant engineers and scientists who really don't understand the other fields. But the interesting work is done at the edge of disiplines these days, and the ones who succeed are those that have an understanding of the other areas.

And science without aesthetic is usually not great science. May be good science, but not great science.

I agree. I have argued in the past that the community colleges are the key to the future of education in this country. Providing a training ground for critical support/infrastructure areas, many gaps can be filled.

K-12 needs revamp too, but that's another rant...

This is one of the things I think is wrong with higher education - all of the 'fluff' classes bloat the overall cost. It's like going to the car dealer and you need basic transportation, but you're required by law to get 24" spinners, a 4000W stereo and nake-lady mudflaps - you won't be allowed off the lot without them.

Yes, I'm sure that understanding the psychology of 14th century potted plants makes you a more rounded individual, but while we're wasting our time contemplating the feelings of feudal foliage, the Chinese and Indians are eating our lunch.

I guess this is the point where we step back and re-evaluate the purpose of higher education. Are we trying to train the next generation American scientists, teachers, businessmen? Or is it a jobs program for people who decided to get a degree in underwater basketweaving and are otherwise unemployable?

The other thing I would recommend is to eliminate college sports. If you want to play ball, go off and play ball. Don't waste everyone's time with the charade of getting an education.

Right now the only advantage the US holds in the world is "innovation." Most of the truly creative and innovative people out there have rather diverse backgrounds and interests. Many would argue that a key to this type of thinking is in fact having some training in disparate fields. A class in Tibetan Buddhism might have more application in computer science than might appear on the surface. One thing I *have* seen over the years is that narrowly trained people are the first to get left behind when the field turns. And these days, we need people who are agile and have the capacity to be lifelong learners, not just narrowly trained drones.

But by requiring everyone to take holistic basketweaving isn't going to necessarily make them any more innovative or creative. Creative people are going to be innovative irrespective of their transcript.

"Fluff classes?" Maybe you're referring to, in a four-year college, the general education classes that undergrads usually take. No, you can't eliminate those simply because part of the four years spent in university is to gain a wide range of knowledge from liberal arts to science. And anyway, it's just as easy for a music student to consider mechanical engineering as "fluff" as an engineering student to consider a class in Chinese Art "fluff."

Eliminate sports, particularly to a private school, and you eliminate a large amount of alumni support and other investments into the school.

Because of your disdain for college sports which you have in the past displayed on this forum, I figure you probably didn't know that some schools who appeared in the better known bowl games in early January, also received a share in some $10-$15 million dollars. Where else will these schools receive money like that unless they have (for example) some very wealthy alumni?

So let's get rid of art and music all together. English and literature courses too. And those pesky philosophy psychology courses. Just teach science and math...that way we can compete.

That your solution?

So maybe "eliminate" isn't the best way to go about it, but why not create some way so that people who just want the "meat" can get it without having to eat the brussell's sprouts?

Nah...we all need to know how to read. It's mathematics that I think is a waste of time. Hell, need a sum figured out, hire an accountant.

Sheesh! :rolleyes:

While I think academia used to be the hotbed of innovation in the past, I suspect the majority of advances being made today are developed in industrial settings. My department does a lot of funding work with many different universities, and frankly I'd say that every dollar that I've seen spent so far has been completely wasted. Instead of solving complex problems, academics tend to focus on smaller, simpler ones that miss the secondary and tertiary emergent effects that arise in complicated ones ("...assume a spherical cow...").

I have no problem with adding a course on the "psychology of 14th century potted plants" to a hard science curriculum for the sake of additional perspective ("aesthetics"), but having whole degree programs based on it--that's a different story altogether.

I used to complain that I had to take two "Freshman Writing Seminars" as part of my liberal arts requirement for my engineering degree. Now I read my colleagues' writing and I wonder if they ever learned English.

You don't find it odd that a school would depend heavily on sports for it's income?

because brussel sprouts are good for you. narrow training and narrow education make for narrow minds.

No. Why should I or anyone find it odd?

I guess my perspective is skewed because I didn't actually get a degree. Hell, my 'higher education' is no more than a smattering of community college classes, because that was all I could afford.

I just have to wonder when I see someone who spends (or their parents spent) a serious grip of cash to get a degree in history or literature and they're working at Starbucks or as an au pair (yes, these two cases are real people that I know). I guess I'm overly pragmatic in this regard. If I was to spend $50k on my 911, I'd lean towards making it faster/stronger/more reliable, as opposed to pine-scented air in the tires and politically-correct cupholders.

You aren't incorrect. The market has very little demand (at least now) for certain degrees. If I were a high school counselor faced with college-bound kids, I'd suggest that if they did want to get a degree in English or History, and teach afterward, that they go to a community college - why be in a situation where the costs outweigh the benefits, and here one is, making ten bucks an hour with a huge loan hanging over their head.

Besides which, during my dealings in academia, I've seen far more brilliant minds in city/community colleges and Cal States than at UCLA, Berkeley or USC.

There was an article in the Post last week about a high school in MD where not a single student scored high enough on an AP test to get college credit. And so you know those kids, who go on to college, will have a semster or two burned up by learning remedial English and math that they should have totally mastered in high school. And there's next to no chance of such kids making it out of college in four yrs.

I knew a guy in Germany who had just graduated form Hahvahd. I asked him what his thesis had been on and - get this, I am not kidding - he said "the use of passive verbs in 16th century Swedish Bible translations". Now, I'm sure there must be a market for that somewhere. But....well, no, I am not sure at all. What a f*cking waste of time and huge money!

To those kids who major in philosphy, when's the last time you saw a job ad looking for a philosopher?

pure math majors used to be viewed as unemployable and a waste. Then Wall Street figured out that chaos and fractals had application in market trading. Psychology was viewed as being only useful if you wanted to go into the field. Then business figured out that social interactions are key to functionality in the workplace. Anthropology was viewed as time wasted on looking at past cultures. Then business figured out that understanding culture was important in product development and sales.

A colleague of mine is one of the hottest commodities among the tech movers and shakers...she has projects with Intel, MS, and Nokia. She's a cultural anthropologist. And the tech companies are desperate for her work. The applications are often not obvious...

The article in interesting in that she use the example of one professor she doesn't like as an example of all professors. This is sort of non argument. Tuition is going up she claims 40%. She doesn't bother to cite any source of this claim. she also doesn't bother to claim what the average professor makes, just one in particular. As usual she is full of it. There is no information value here. If she really wanted to make a point (which she is incapable of doing and her intended audiance doesn't demand), She would do the following:
1. The inflation adjusted cost of universities is rising at a rate of X% providing a few examples or even a table.
2. show the allocation of expenses at various universites is going to the professors and that they are experiencing salary increases in the double digits each year.
3. Indicate that they are all useless liberals so it makes more sense to pay oil execs seven figures compared to the $120K example she cites.

The fact is she does none of these things. First because she is lazy and doesn't like to do any research. Second because if she did any fact finding would be be surprised to find that salaries in the $100K range are pretty rare in most universities, and in most fields they have no trouble find enough people to do the work for much less. She has absolutely no clue here. This isn't just sloppy its contradicted by any reasonable investigation of the data. Of course, her intended audiance will race off spreading this around as if it is certain truth.
Pathetic really. She didn't even make an effort to spin real numbers, she just didn't bother. In effect, she claims its true because she says that it is, and can find an example of an overpaid underqualified loser to hold up as an example. I am sure you can find a handful of such examples in every field and every intitution and on all points of the political compass.

You would think she could do better than this.

Why does she need to do any better than this?

Her audience is fint and similar, and fint thinks its great work.

Okay Thom, this is absolutely classic. This is the single funniest thing you've ever written, as far as I am concerned.

I'm glad I got a four-year degree. I'm especially glad I took some philosophy classes. While I didn't learn much in the classes themselves; I did learn from the professors of acadaemia's utter disdain for Christians, conservatives, and business.