Via Quiddity, academics fret about attractive professors garnering better student evaluations. Well, beauty is power in any endeavor these days…so I’d be surprised if academia were any different. Still, after three hours of lecture a week over the course of a term, I’d think many students’ evaluations would bypass professorial sex appeal in favor of the more central question: Was the class interesting?
Tag: Ivory Tower
Fan Mail.
In the e-mail inbox yesterday morning: “PhD or no PhD. You are nothing but a scum liberal with an agenda to push.” Thoughtful, eh? Scum progressive, people. I mean, did you even read the site? Ah well, I also found a nice TA review over at CULPA yesterday, though, so karmically it all evened out.
Supastar!
The Boston Globe examines the rise of the academic star system, the ensuing university rat race, and how they both affect those scholars who actually do the teaching. Sadly, as you might expect, it means even less money to go around for the bulk of PhDs.
Reality Check.
“Like actors, however, humanities graduate students have to realize that – except for a few jackpot cases – there is no market for their product. When you choose a career path with no market, you have to love it enough to do it for free.” Breaching the Web passes along a rude awakening for the academy-minded. Statistics like these are always a bit disappointing…still, I think a PhD can be helpful in other career tracks besides academia, and particularly in a field like History or English that lends itself to a lot of overlap with the “real” world. The numbers are grim, but most fellow graduate students I encounter seem to know the score.
1896 it ain’t.
Resembling nothing so much as the guy who takes out a $10000 credit card advance and suddenly feels flush, the GOP contemplates an era of political dominance. (In fact, the administration is feeling so sure of itself these days that they’re bringing old Iran-Contra hacks like Elliot Abrams out of the woodwork.) Sorry, y’all, but the “young college Hipublican” vote only goes so far…most of these kids will drop you faster than a Linear Algebra class once their parents’ portfolios finish taking the Dubya tumble. As for the purported hepcats in this pic, I guess it all depends on your definition of “hip.” I can’t say I’m too plugged into the youth zeitgeist these days, but I do live and work at a university…and somehow I doubt these five Bushies are the leading lights of campus. They just look like five angry and self-satisfied white people to me, and there’s plenty of those to go around.