Dispossession by attrition is a permanent condition

[sovay]

FUCKING BERNIE MADOFF.

I suppose I should be glad an art museum is more readily sacrificed than a classics department? (I suspect it's easier to sell off paintings than professors.) Presidential reassurance notwithstanding, I find it hard to believe it's merely a sign of the times: "The global financial crisis and deepening national economic recession require Brandeis to formulate and execute decisive plans that will position the university to emerge stronger for the benefit of our students . . ." Oh, damn it, damn it. I should have gone to their surrealist exhibition in November. Art is meant to be cherished, not flung to the winds. Where do I protest? Maybe I can paint it on a wall.

Comments

[wakanomori.livejournal.com]

be glad an art museum is more readily sacrificed than a classics department?

Of course this is a rotten dichotomy, but yes: in an urban area faculty can always take or send students out to see such jewels elsewhere. Then again, I'm hardly disinterested, I s'pose. This passage sounds familiar:

. . . such as reducing the size of the faculty by 10 percent, increasing undergraduate enrollment by 12 percent to boost tuition revenue, and overhauling the undergraduate curriculum by eliminating individual academic programs in favor of larger, interdisciplinary divisions.

At which point (and this is where my campus is headed too) I wonder who we think we're kidding. A recent message like that from my admin came followed by the solemn pronouncement that "we would never want to short-change the students." Humbuggery.

But we don't need to be gloomy. Convenient or not for the bean-counting mind, there's a need for higher ed. that can't be turned into a profit-making (or even money focussed) venture. (And thinking that I've just started work on my first online course, which *will* be about generating money . . .)

[sovay]

Of course this is a rotten dichotomy, but yes: in an urban area faculty can always take or send students out to see such jewels elsewhere.

Even so: it's one thing to send statues back to their country of origin, or return paintings to the families of those they were stolen from. It's another thing entirely to dissolve a museum—as eredien points out, especially one that was so recently renovated.

At which point (and this is where my campus is headed too) I wonder who we think we're kidding.

Where do you teach, by the way? I can't remember if I've asked.

Convenient or not for the bean-counting mind, there's a need for higher ed. that can't be turned into a profit-making (or even money focussed) venture.

God, I hope so!