Category Archives: Blogosphere

“Stuff Eagles Say”

Posted on October 2, 2012 by | 1 Comment

Via the book of face comes this:

Kinda cute….

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Posted in Blogosphere, College Fun, Student Life

“NYU Professor: Are Student Loans Immoral?”

Posted on September 29, 2012 by | Leave a comment

Pretty quiet weekend around here, even in terms of “the sport:”  both U of M and EMU have bye weeks. So I’ll be enjoying the outdoors and/or getting caught up on work around the house, the day-job, some other writing projects, etc.  But I’ll leave you with this from The Daily Beast, ”NYU Professor:  Are Student Loans Immoral?” by Andrew Ross. The opening paragraphs:

Straight talk about the crushing burden of student debt is everywhere—except the one place it should be: on college campuses themselves. Students, professors, and college administrators seem to be in denial. For students who have never managed their own finances before—certainly the vast majority of undergraduates—the silence isn’t so surprising. After all, they’re not required to pay a penny on their loans until they graduate, so they coast along, often blind to the consequences of their ballooning debts. And our college presidents and senior administrators have good reason to duck any responsibility for the gathering crisis: all the evidence shows that they’ve gotten steadily richer from the proceeds of the higher-education bubble.

As for professors, I have known for several years that my paycheck depends on my students going deeply into debt, often for decades to come. But like my colleagues, I chose not to dwell on it, a decision that seemed justifiable given that faculty salaries have been stagnant as a whole for some time now. We are hardly to blame for skyrocketing college costs.

Two thoughts for now.  First, while I appreciate Ross’ argument, I’m not sure that his solution– getting students to commit to not paying back their student loans– is particularly workable or in itself especially “moral.” At a minimum, I think the rules for how student loans work need to be reformed sooner than later so that it is possible, for example, to either have at least some (if not all) of the debt excused in bankruptcy or to have some of that debt excused for working in certain sectors, getting certain degrees, etc., etc. But just not paying probably won’t work.

Second, I understand the reasons why public higher education expenses have increased so much is because the states have largely stopped supporting their universities. I think this is well-documented. But why have places like NYU, which have always been private and thus not supported by the state, gotten so much more expensive?

 

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Posted in Blogosphere, Budgets, In the media..., Student Life

“Romney’s America Doesn’t Need Public Colleges”

Posted on September 26, 2012 by | 1 Comment

From the Chronicle blogosphere comes “Romney’s America Doesn’t Need Public Colleges,” by Christopher Newfield.  To quote:

A Romney presidency would pose an obvious hardship for the country’s public colleges and universities. Romney and Ryan, austerity candidates, make no secret of their desire for further cuts in public spending (with no exemption for higher education). But Romney’s now-famous “47-percent comment” highlights the danger ahead for the private revenues that public-college leaders have counted on to replace shrinking public support.

Sure, it’s partisan, but it is also kinda true.

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Posted in Blogosphere, Budgets

“The Pure Michigan Statewide Singalong” video

Posted on September 9, 2012 by | Leave a comment

I found out by the Facebooks just now that the “Pure Michigan” sing-a-long video is up and running, and it does indeed feature Ypsilanti:

The Ypsi part is at the climatic 3:20 mark for about four seconds.  Well, one of fifty cities, what did you expect? I do think that the Ypsi portion has a pretty solid turn-out though.

There’s also a “making of the video” video, too:

Well done Pure Michigan peoples!

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Posted in Blogosphere, College Fun, Ypsilanti

“The PhD’s Job Crisis” infographic

Posted on August 21, 2012 by | Leave a comment

This is a little off-topic, but it is a really useful “info-graphic” worth sharing with anyone who is contemplating an academic career right now:

Now, I would take this with a grain of salt since I don’t know anything about the organization that has put this together and there are some ways in which I don’t think this explains the complexity of the academic job market.  That said, there is definitely a lot of this that strikes me as being pretty accurate.

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Posted in Academics, Blogosphere, Faculty Life, Student Life

“America’s 25 Most Crime-Rattled Colleges,” according to the Daily Beast

Posted on August 20, 2012 by | 2 Comments

I think you have to take this with a grain of salt because it’s The Daily Beast doing the calculating and not some sort of official number from the Department of Education or something, but it’s an interesting list:  “America’s 25 Most Crime-Rattled Colleges, From Yale to Duke.”  EMU is not on the list, nor are any other Michigan schools.  Oddly on the list are some places like the University of North Dakota and the University of Maine, and also on the list are a lot of prestigious schools in or near major metro areas, places like Duke, Yale, and Harvard.

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Posted in Blogosphere, In the media..., Security and Safety

Suze Orman Explains Why Student Loans are a Bad Deal

Posted on August 16, 2012 by | 1 Comment

This was recorded back in January, but I just came across this today:  Suze Orman explaining why student loans are kind of a bad deal for students and families– or at a minimum why those borrowing money to go to college had better know what they are getting themselves into.  I think she’s exaggerating a bit, but probably not by much.

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Posted in Blogosphere, Budgets

“How The American University was Killed, in Five Easy Steps”

Posted on August 14, 2012 by | 6 Comments

On the Facebooks, many of my “friends” have pointed to an interesting post on the blog The Homeless Adjunct, “How The American University was Killed, in Five Easy Steps.”  Now, I’m not big on conspiracy theories or diatribes, and this post definitely has a whiff of both of those.  That said, the analysis here is provocative and it rings largely true from my point of view.

Read the whole piece, but those five steps:

  • Defund public higher education
  • Deprofessionalize and impoverish the professors (e.g., hire a lot of adjuncts)
  • Move in a managerial/administrative class who take over governance of the university
  • Move in corporate culture and corporate money
  • Destroy the students

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Posted in Academics, Blogosphere, Faculty Life, Student Life

“Preserve Tenure” Petition for Wayne State

Posted on August 3, 2012 by | 3 Comments

Speaking of contract negotiations:  I received an email the other day for a petition being circulated the AAUP (I’m not sure if it’s the national or the Wayne State chapter) about the whole tenure issue at Wayne State.  Here’s the link.

I’d urge anyone/everyone to sign it– I did.  I still have to wonder though if this is something the WSU would really want to do, and/or if that is what they’re doing. As I posted about a couple weeks ago, the administration claims they aren’t doing away with tenure, just seeking more “accountability” and  ”flexibility.”

I also had an interesting conversation with someone the other day who seemed to know a bit more about the WSU issues than I do.  What I heard was that part of the problem the faculty have at Wayne State is a bunch of them (I had heard all of the College of Business) more or less got out of the faculty union, which has what’s caused this whole mess in the first place.  If that’s true, this is another example of why unions matter now more than ever.

 

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Posted in Blogosphere, Wayne State U

“Thousands dash through Ypsilanti’s first color run”

Posted on July 23, 2012 by | 2 Comments

Having just returned from a northern retreat, I missed the “color run” through town, a 5K in which people run (or I presume walk) just over 3 miles while other people throw colored corn starch at them.  Here’s an article in annarbor.com about it, and here are some pictures from the freep.

Now, all the people in the pictures look pleased, most of the comments on annarbor.com are enthusiastic, and since I wasn’t there, I don’t have a first hand point of reference.

But indulge me and color me cynical for a moment.

  • You’ll note that the web site has it as the “Ann Arbor/Ypsilanti” color run.  I’m not real big on “Ypsi pride” and I like Ann Arbor a lot– I spend a lot of time over there– but this sort of thing always drives me a little nuts.  Some national entity– and that’s clear, that “The Color Run, Inc.” is on a national tour, and this was not some home-grown start-up– comes to the area, has to hold the event in Ypsi instead of Ann Arbor, but it still stays as the “Ann Arbor” color run.  Really?  Is it the Ann Arbor/Ypsilanti Art Fairs?  Does anyone come in to check out the college town of Ann Arbor/Ypsilanti?
  • Judging from the pictures, I have aged out of the demographic of runners, but the idea of exercising on a hot and sweaty morning and having people throw dye-filled and staining corn starch at me sounds incredibly unpleasant.
  • Least someone think “that’s such an original idea,” no, it’s not at all.  This is an Americanization of the Hindu holiday Holi.  Mind you, it’s supposed to be fun holiday in Hinduism as well, but you have to admit that it is still a little strange for it to be turned into a 5K in America.  Here’s a link to an Al Jazeera English news report of the event this past March in India.
  • Mark Maynard has a good post about this which for me raises some concerns about the money.  Go read it, but the upshot is this:  Maynard’s sources say that Color Run, Inc. only is donating about $13,000 to local charities for this.  The 15,000-17,500 or so participants each paid at least $45 to 50 apiece for the honor, so a gross of somewhere between $700,000 to $800,000 for Color Run, Inc.  There’s overhead, of course– I assume they had to pay Ypsi something (though I’d be shocked if it was over $100K), they have to pay organizers and the like, they probably had to spend upwards of $100 on colored corn starch, etc.– but I would guess that Color Run, Inc. made a tidy little profit from this. Take this event 30 times over for the national tour and someone is making some serious bucks off of this.  Don’t get me wrong– I have nothing against people making money from things like this.  I just think that needs to be presented as part of the story and we shouldn’t assume that Color Run, Inc. is a bunch of not-for-profit free-love hippies.  They’ve got a pretty shrewd business model here.

But like I said, I wasn’t there.  Any other more rosy-colored takes on this?

 

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Posted in Blogosphere, In the media..., Ypsilanti