Meta tags:

Headings (most frequently used words):

2019, june, july, thursday, sunday, community, college, tuesday, wednesday, friday, fragments, confessions, of, dean, 11, 07, 02, monday, 01, 30, 27, 26, 25, 23, 20, 19, about, me, blog, archive, mad, we, hardly, knew, ye, the, business, model, problem, neglected, variable, cold, front, revisiting, favorite, an, alternate, proposal, on, free, and, loan, forgiveness, graduation, from, different, perspective, yes, but, humanities, at, colleges, that, first, life, preserver,

Text of the page (most frequently used words):
the (503), that (179), and (165), for (92), but (75), was (56), they (55), with (45), have (43), some (40), from (40), this (38), share (35), can (35), are (35), about (31), #college (31), don (31), you (31), one (30), would (29), public (28), like (27), much (26), more (26), colleges (26), time (25), get (25), who (24), than (24), has (24), year (24), june (23), may (23), people (23), what (23), which (23), income (23), there (22), july (21), not (21), when (21), even (20), those (20), over (20), out (18), their (18), just (17), well (17), humanities (17), she (16), know (16), most (16), good (16), were (16), them (16), private (16), august (15), september (15), october (15), november (15), december (15), january (15), february (15), march (15), april (15), students (15), will (15), level (15), community (15), courses (15), state (15), dean (14), other (14), had (14), all (13), isn (13), student (13), few (13), any (13), its (13), part (13), still (13), education (13), way (13), business (12), model (12), 2019 (12), dad (12), least (12), same (12), better (12), first (12), reports (12), four (12), mad (11), pinterest (11), facebook (11), blogthis (11), email (11), posted (11), actually (11), idea (11), something (11), years (11), should (11), say (11), off (11), point (11), folks (11), take (11), two (11), every (11), why (10), week (10), into (10), hard (10), her (10), back (10), his (10), now (10), because (10), forgiveness (10), free (10), alaska (10), really (9), enough (9), could (9), aid (9), always (9), been (9), given (9), without (9), got (9), pretty (9), enrollments (9), then (9), here (9), also (9), graduation (9), problem (8), school (8), does (8), only (8), work (8), sort (8), make (8), being (8), doesn (8), different (8), through (8), see (8), pay (8), very (8), sector (8), last (8), loan (8), higher (8), tax (8), money (8), never (8), reading (8), both (7), job (7), looking (7), academic (7), help (7), already (7), own (7), local (7), while (7), though (7), single (7), fall (7), where (7), day (7), cost (7), ways (7), political (7), far (7), many (7), learning (7), old (7), boy (6), look (6), trying (6), basic (6), next (6), itself (6), obvious (6), financial (6), common (6), issues (6), almost (6), doing (6), self (6), around (6), took (6), try (6), best (6), show (6), studies (6), bit (6), course (6), social (6), question (6), each (6), won (6), world (6), programs (6), attack (6), full (6), required (6), decline (6), getting (6), need (6), remember (6), high (6), everybody (6), young (6), tuition (6), university (6), protection (6), useful (6), thought (6), early (6), larger (6), month (6), girl (5), life (5), working (5), struggling (5), readers (5), offer (5), profit (5), run (5), outreach (5), instance (5), class (5), sense (5), hit (5), came (5), think (5), graduates (5), intended (5), major (5), gone (5), done (5), workforce (5), these (5), either (5), example (5), our (5), others (5), real (5), thing (5), how (5), might (5), tell (5), extent (5), overall (5), ago (5), news (5), serious (5), enrollment (5), him (5), age (5), three (5), ceremony (5), before (5), ceremonies (5), down (5), days (5), harder (5), educated (5), support (5), families (5), didn (5), country (5), new (5), went (5), case (5), police (5), made (5), wasn (5), possible (5), women (5), read (5), entire (5), tenure (5), checks (5), book (5), instruction (5), variable (4), context (4), services (4), helped (4), wrong (4), assumption (4), letter (4), end (4), semester (4), set (4), hope (4), whether (4), credit (4), seem (4), reducing (4), matter (4), notes (4), false (4), easy (4), feel (4), anyone (4), faculty (4), become (4), classes (4), degree (4), drop (4), arts (4), too (4), outside (4), although (4), missed (4), mostly (4), math (4), yes (4), away (4), able (4), someone (4), your (4), right (4), coming (4), similar (4), caps (4), goes (4), comes (4), welcome (4), population (4), claim (4), imagine (4), among (4), put (4), funding (4), tend (4), assume (4), current (4), benefit (4), typically (4), use (4), mind (4), incredibly (4), everything (4), effects (4), place (4), learn (4), cultural (4), aren (4), makes (4), months (4), kids (4), names (4), government (4), less (4), shared (4), economy (4), volatility (4), hours (4), subsidy (4), capital (4), snark (4), jokes (4), magazine (4), knew (3), friday (3), fragments (3), home (3), hire (3), preserver (3), save (3), seen (3), practical (3), again (3), within (3), option (3), economic (3), hand (3), later (3), did (3), straight (3), face (3), difference (3), initial (3), center (3), several (3), address (3), rather (3), often (3), added (3), russian (3), under (3), control (3), middle (3), wednesday (3), glad (3), ccrc (3), attention (3), gets (3), national (3), discourse (3), crisis (3), provide (3), baseline (3), forward (3), finally (3), weight (3), aimed (3), report (3), majors (3), transfer (3), require (3), history (3), discipline (3), requirement (3), target (3), environment (3), such (3), call (3), guided (3), pathways (3), come (3), wants (3), general (3), english (3), comp (3), expect (3), sciences (3), important (3), liberal (3), couple (3), having (3), version (3), taken (3), thursday (3), program (3), tuesday (3), moment (3), future (3), stage (3), seems (3), fun (3), pass (3), after (3), monday (3), since (3), entirely (3), party (3), president (3), parts (3), else (3), sunday (3), along (3), improving (3), productivity (3), value (3), car (3), difficult (3), debt (3), industry (3), suddenly (3), talk (3), weird (3), argument (3), vulnerable (3), recognition (3), demand (3), cap (3), costs (3), thinking (3), holds (3), household (3), low (3), paying (3), jersey (3), 000 (3), mean (3), fact (3), policy (3), subject (3), themselves (3), administration (3), management (3), things (3), guy (3), heaven (3), obviously (3), late (3), setting (3), skills (3), quickly (3), used (3), piece (3), grateful (3), dead (3), weekend (3), night (3), haven (3), extra (3), happy (3), large (3), oil (3), governor (3), cut (3), size (3), issue (3), jobs (3), savings (3), employer (3), refund (3), interest (3), respondents (3), variability (3), truth (3), understand (3), long (3), spirit (3), media (3), simple (2), 2012 (2), 226 (2), neglected (2), hardly (2), blog (2), includes (2), wife (2), elementary (2), posts (2), assuming (2), effective (2), mine (2), reasons (2), ethical (2), guess (2), positive (2), kind (2), include (2), information (2), tutoring (2), scale (2), offering (2), instead (2), discovered (2), send (2), fire (2), turn (2), tenuous (2), performance (2), decided (2), quite (2), sure (2), simply (2), experience (2), badly (2), shouldn (2), freshman (2), campus (2), none (2), slam (2), anything (2), name (2), clearly (2), grades (2), predictors (2), language (2), drumbeat (2), stem (2), science (2), resistance (2), align (2), civ (2), diversity (2), want (2), rich (2), mirror (2), carried (2), goal (2), clear (2), choices (2), provided (2), saying (2), reduce (2), options (2), nobody (2), psychology (2), accordingly (2), numbers (2), decade (2), adjuncts (2), reasonably (2), strong (2), between (2), requirements (2), electives (2), six (2), literature (2), significant (2), tells (2), consider (2), okay (2), narrative (2), fair (2), terms (2), unique (2), saw (2), myself (2), conference (2), mcconnell (2), recognized (2), dominated (2), left (2), feeling (2), short (2), gpa (2), prove (2), admit (2), surprised (2), looks (2), completion (2), vertical (2), note (2), emotional (2), shape (2), write (2), mortarboard (2), wait (2), hundreds (2), moments (2), weeks (2), twitter (2), seemed (2), family (2), band (2), play (2), little (2), celebrating (2), birthday (2), expected (2), veteran (2), shoes (2), outdoor (2), field (2), direct (2), mud (2), audience (2), graduating (2), role (2), decisions (2), running (2), platform (2), per (2), fast (2), handle (2), nothing (2), grads (2), going (2), incentives (2), sectors (2), quality (2), especially (2), true (2), snhu (2), america (2), educational (2), citizenry (2), effete (2), elite (2), invited (2), neither (2), nor (2), loans (2), strikes (2), smallpox (2), liked (2), generation (2), societies (2), declining (2), purposes (2), otherwise (2), wind (2), lot (2), huge (2), dropouts (2), returning (2), towards (2), involve (2), feature (2), bug (2), leaves (2), finds (2), price (2), power (2), standards (2), anchored (2), reality (2), alternate (2), proposal (2), states (2), legislature (2), cry (2), voters (2), applied (2), assumptions (2), suggests (2), rarely (2), ever (2), security (2), property (2), reason (2), progressive (2), whom (2), supporters (2), develop (2), separate (2), knows (2), ripple (2), patience (2), learned (2), temptation (2), wanted (2), unintended (2), arguments (2), choice (2), hadn (2), correct (2), blind (2), spots (2), let (2), figure (2), opposed (2), charged (2), reminded (2), respond (2), sets (2), flies (2), usually (2), purely (2), expressed (2), men (2), kidding (2), believe (2), wouldn (2), happened (2), changes (2), stuff (2), favorite (2), father (2), keeping (2), played (2), orientation (2), pun (2), man (2), stood (2), woman (2), kept (2), including (2), hour (2), led (2), guessing (2), structure (2), section (2), areas (2), count (2), politics (2), land (2), awful (2), happens (2), table (2), agendas (2), governance (2), means (2), academics (2), opinions (2), form (2), notice (2), exigency (2), refunds (2), decades (2), live (2), productive (2), industries (2), behind (2), knowing (2), sales (2), generational (2), cutting (2), making (2), annual (2), win (2), claiming (2), federal (2), focus (2), dependent (2), spending (2), times (2), equivalent (2), front (2), wondering (2), sometimes (2), order (2), generate (2), payout (2), forced (2), dollars (2), big (2), paycheck (2), predictable (2), heard (2), institutional (2), return (2), asked (2), relatively (2), stable (2), needed (2), lowest (2), levels (2), fixing (2), expenses (2), absolute (2), story (2), another (2), nearly (2), summer (2), emt (2), host (2), agreements (2), lag (2), culture (2), teaching (2), subsidize (2), units (2), driven (2), lose (2), provision (2), endowment (2), buffer (2), decision (2), eliminate (2), philanthropy (2), basis (2), captured (2), certain (2), sustaining (2), subsidies (2), pick (2), fix (2), term (2), sanity (2), humane (2), mom (2), himself (2), adolescent (2), boys (2), usual (2), gang (2), idiots (2), changed (2), network (2), evening (2), monoculture (2), taking (2), plenty (2), watched (2), rochester (2), daily (2), newspapers (2), television (2), half (2), material (2), powers (2), complicated (2), demands (2), met (2), likelier (2), picked (2), trumpets (2), junior (2), confessions (2), theme, powered, blogger, 2004, 227, 2005, 297, 2006, 260, 2007, 247, 2008, 242, 2009, 236, 2010, 238, 2011, 230, 222, 2013, 2014, 225, 2015, 216, 2016, 2017, 223, 2018, 115, archive, view, complete, profile, cast, recurring, characters, preschool, queen, surveys, subscribe, atom, older, cadre, hopeful, wise, worldly, nifty, ideas, writing, coaches, concierge, service, harvard, reject, outsourcing, headhunters, commission, truant, officer, across, defend, stopping, minimal, message, method, likeliest, achieve, outcome, vision, lends, steps, contact, disability, veterans, offices, ideally, human, staff, relevance, envisioning, sounding, alarm, presumes, tossing, base, overwhelmed, indifferent, identified, cough, effect, fuel, doubt, advice, belonging, continued, underwhelm, eventually, path, warning, inflicted, insult, measurable, injury, skipped, halfway, sweated, bullets, intimidating, informing, surrounded, affluent, prep, nowhere, lost, sands, study, longtime, curriculum, largely, ignored, excellent, putting, lie, classist, snobbery, likes, cloak, rigor, blinkered, drafts, perfect, round, sheer, constant, external, drumbeats, sound, nails, coffin, fails, ask, partners, freestanding, allow, meet, foreign, accept, calculus, northeast, presumption, rests, schools, disparagingly, patchwork, adaptation, heterogeneous, fluid, ignore, miss, movement, depending, prescriptive, routes, degrees, practice, translates, number, following, ten, professor, streamlined, oblivion, professional, courtesy, arguably, misplaced, department, irritate, sociology, poli, sci, specifying, preferred, elective, streamlining, sell, throughout, commonplace, leave, replaced, remaining, members, departments, coordinating, falls, progressively, fewer, eager, grad, rays, connection, ranks, increasingly, acknowledge, passing, pursue, composition, engineering, credits, engliish, lumping, mandated, inscrutable, unless, connect, dots, unclear, reflecting, background, thank, due, variables, besieged, resonate, strongly, founded, data, appear, conceived, answers, illustrate, success, apparent, notices, presented, aac, kate, organization, specify, underrepresented, norm, colleagues, said, convey, sagged, increased, admirably, subsequent, visual, performing, largest, gainers, research, issued, proportion, percentage, hla, misnomer, natural, whatever, predictor, upon, decorated, uva, colors, stamped, feels, feet, eye, dmed, holy, crap, kid, eighteen, discovering, surviving, grandparents, playing, great, pomp, circumstance, grownups, mark, passage, markers, accelerate, google, photos, act, sending, today, juxtaposition, 3rd, 18th, poses, minutes, recover, noticing, messages, mortarboards, graduated, nervous, noticed, open, submit, approval, morning, starts, wee, draconian, decoration, seasoned, watch, parade, remarkable, range, shins, graduations, wreak, havoc, rain, muddy, observation, ambitiously, heels, mix, wheelchairs, parent, capacity, nhs, taste, happily, sit, stands, football, twenty, official, devry, brookdale, arena, once, indoors, outdoors, gyms, reception, halls, theaters, tents, hockey, rink, speaking, holyoke, attacked, swarm, bees, suspense, proceedings, rewarding, vague, undercurrent, stress, perspective, combining, challenges, compelling, compete, capped, dropped, incentivized, finish, thereby, shrinking, prime, crucial, force, providers, smaller, investing, nice, necessary, nephew, works, dealership, minnesota, buyers, underwrite, lawyers, doctors, engineers, finding, finance, cars, unearned, windfall, impact, automobile, buy, nursing, hospitals, valuable, argue, forgiving, unfair, paid, theirs, treated, respectfully, applying, vaccines, giving, shot, called, progress, healthy, eat, climate, saddled, unlikely, freeing, exempt, earned, hitting, bills, apply, completing, forgiven, spent, written, wiping, debts, certainly, increasing, operating, vouchers, flagship, attend, waiver, charge, hook, premium, words, voucher, plan, uncovered, competitive, constitutional, muster, privileges, sectarian, punishes, pell, grant, questions, limited, hereby, float, candidate, pillars, presidential, candidates, floated, versions, leaving, aside, democrats, inattention, senate, plans, surprisingly, expensive, proposed, raising, shy, median, universal, promise, ineligible, breeds, cynicism, tends, destroy, invariably, erode, rest, move, inflation, extend, wealthiest, deny, grounds, financially, easily, wealthy, protect, addressing, disparate, rates, violence, race, continues, libraries, food, inspection, roads, partial, list, destructive, yet, trap, marker, poison, pill, beat, propose, interested, parties, marketed, vocational, guys, considering, recommend, highly, habits, acknowledged, patriarchy, personal, sweetness, light, groupthink, prose, style, gayatri, spivak, sap, tenacious, reader, proof, weren, preparation, dealing, seriously, skill, throw, hands, screw, helpful, blindsided, understood, struck, dumb, mothers, registered, differently, communities, angle, repeatedly, flustered, statements, parsed, clueless, meaning, white, suburbs, malice, glaring, theoretical, refinement, discussions, conducted, appropriate, distance, raw, demonization, defensiveness, spiral, afterwards, realized, honed, accepting, yelled, office, personally, moving, receiving, extended, vitriolic, outburst, unhelpful, betraying, confidences, based, crashing, plural, navigate, complex, emotionally, depersonalize, categories, stereotypes, held, indulgent, enterprises, elicit, snickers, tremendous, moreover, roles, grow, stonewall, riots, honor, below, male, counterparts, chuck, pearson, cringe, revisiting, sneaks, quoth, belated, gift, baseball, game, minor, league, team, lakewood, blue, claws, affiliate, phillies, score, unbeknownst, until, arrived, stadium, songs, system, players, mascot, wore, tie, dye, noted, exactly, process, focusing, takeaway, 450, volume, officers, alternated, walked, alternating, baritone, alto, voices, monotonous, speeches, impressed, pledge, allegiance, biased, sounded, crazy, hot, stopped, raining, surely, must, lessons, elsewhere, anybody, developmental, mimicking, alp, appending, sections, strategies, embedding, assignments, internal, particular, veto, stick, slightly, bad, compromise, miracle, jolt, complacency, institutions, fill, vacuum, purse, democracy, writ, hide, forever, insulate, mode, popular, dunk, cuts, framing, leap, faith, responds, provinces, responses, ready, shift, extractive, slowly, loses, touch, advances, farther, economically, norway, understands, uses, sustain, basically, temporary, apparently, hasn, figured, receives, therefore, forbid, core, effectively, links, geographic, isolation, unconscionable, bellwether, overtaxed, lacking, mailing, calculation, handout, worse, sad, afford, mail, resident, austerity, outlier, anchorage, cincinnati, city, town, petroleum, heavy, extraction, teacher, certification, redistributes, profits, enormously, thinks, libertarian, swaths, barely, developed, accessible, plane, physically, percent, shock, declared, furloughs, declare, budgeting, martial, law, abrogated, cuttable, picture, chilling, cold, ultimately, nudges, mental, allowed, organized, perfectly, capable, arithmetic, compel, give, solve, leans, app, solutions, reminder, realities, facing, economists, withholding, taxes, inefficient, amounts, extending, deflate, somewhat, anyway, follows, special, bank, atm, card, specifically, prey, spend, reflection, restraint, odyssey, vanish, rat, hole, perceptible, accomplish, reverse, blow, reassurance, shorts, disbursed, lumps, contributing, divided, biweekly, chunks, offers, possibly, title, r2t4, biz, mid, survey, anxiety, cross, tabulated, anxious, beginning, fafsa, surrounding, tested, sliding, benefits, change, calibrate, weirdly, flush, drives, hits, unionized, factory, fade, salaries, overtime, fluctuated, top, solid, cases, abrupt, windfalls, fraud, penalties, situations, trapped, fairly, damage, portraits, occupations, waiting, tables, trucks, diaries, jonathan, morduch, rachel, schneider, flawed, fascinating, account, project, tracked, hailed, findings, everywhere, brief, found, authors, noise, shortfall, cause, deadweight, utilities, shut, restored, unaffordable, repairs, lead, arrivals, eventual, losses, unto, circles, former, latter, contribute, signed, company, training, hoops, trampoline, park, gives, maybe, blogging, break, holiday, refer, replace, simpler, taxation, accomplishing, punish, apportion, blame, admitting, efficient, absolutely, dogma, forbidden, task, room, sorts, promising, experiments, keep, conversations, denominate, regular, probably, tired, references, baumol, disease, rehearse, boils, mathematical, impossibility, denoted, conversation, proving, competency, market, pervasive, habit, loss, failure, precisely, highest, payoff, earnings, absent, suboptimal, saving, pennies, partnerships, tantalizing, prospect, access, brings, endowments, initially, donations, provides, mechanism, ensuring, remains, purview, middleman, autonomy, carefully, considered, replacements, suggested, indentured, servant, gains, provider, niches, track, record, skepticism, non, supplement, revenue, closer, precarious, existence, becomes, recent, mortality, rate, vermont, massachusetts, result, confront, declines, fixed, relying, revenues, exposed, drops, nature, beast, element, built, takes, vary, millages, appropriations, supposed, twice, interwebs, lines, stop, messing, unsustainable, bryan, alexander, thoughtful, responded, alarming, demographic, projections, survive, farewell, lifeline, telling, continue, thrive, encourage, devoured, eleven, son, subscription, laughed, breathless, parody, justin, bieber, smiled, beloved, lack, word, punched, respected, trust, genre, writers, during, glory, aforementioned, patterns, crude, cruel, anti, bigotry, pro, favor, fairness, dave, berg, drawings, gratuitously, sexualized, tended, exception, moral, compass, ghastlygun, tinies, siding, helpless, victims, against, tradition, reread, racially, diverse, monopoly, rightly, space, landscape, beyond, literally, anchors, legacy, shows, fragmented, blessing, satirical, internet, hath

Text of the page (random words):
re power to them this should pass constitutional muster since it neither privileges sectarian colleges nor punishes them it simply holds them to the same standards as everybody else in that sense it s like the pell grant but anchored to reality only apply it to graduates this is in recognition that incentives matter the real student loan crisis isn t among graduates it s among dropouts offer dropouts with debt the option of returning for free completing and having the debt forgiven that way money spent on written off by wiping out debts isn t just gone it s put towards improving the educational level of the country this will almost certainly involve increasing operating funding to public colleges to handle the new demand that s a feature not a bug exempt loan forgiveness from earned income for tax purposes otherwise you wind up hitting a lot of vulnerable people with huge tax bills at vulnerable moments some argue that forgiving loans now would be unfair to people like myself who ve already paid theirs off it strikes me as weird that the argument is treated respectfully imagine applying it to vaccines no fair that you didn t get smallpox in my day we got smallpox and liked it giving the next generation a better shot than the last one had is called progress and it s a good thing healthy societies pay it forward declining societies eat their young i want the next generation to do better than mine did given the climate issues with which they re saddled that s unlikely freeing them from student loans strikes me as the least we can do given a smaller working age population investing in its productivity has gone from nice to necessary my wife s nephew works at a car dealership in minnesota he reports that the buyers who are the most difficult to underwrite are lawyers doctors and engineers their student debt is so high that finding ways to help them finance cars is harder than it should be anyone who wants to claim that loan forgiveness is an unearned windfall for the effete elite are invited to imagine the impact on the automobile industry if educated young folks were suddenly able to buy they re also invited to talk to our nursing grads at the local hospitals they re hard working valuable and middle class they are neither effete nor elite they work hard support their families and do good in the world we should get out of their way combining loan forgiveness for grads of public colleges with free public college going forward gets the incentives right it challenges the private and for profit sectors compelling them to compete on quality that s especially true if forgiveness is capped at the level of public colleges if say snhu s college for america or something similar comes along and does a good job i say welcome folks who ve dropped out would be incentivized to go back and finish thereby improving the educational level of the citizenry and the productivity of the workforce with a shrinking prime age workforce that s crucial and it would force higher cost providers to prove their value those who can are welcome those who can t well that s where we have to be very serious posted by dean dad at 5 48 pm email this blogthis share to x share to facebook share to pinterest sunday june 23 2019 graduation from a different perspective over the last twenty years i ve been to over 30 college graduation ceremonies always in some sort of official role devry had three ceremonies per year so in those years the numbers added up fast brookdale does two ceremonies back to back on the same day since the arena can t handle everybody at once i ve done them indoors and outdoors in gyms and reception halls and theaters and tents and a hockey rink with speaking parts and without one year at holyoke the platform party was attacked by a swarm of bees if nothing else it added some suspense to the proceedings the ceremonies are always rewarding but there s always a vague undercurrent of stress too what if something goes wrong on monday for the first time since the 90 s i get to be in the audience at a graduation the boy is graduating high school and i m there entirely and only in my role as a parent decisions about running the ceremony are entirely up to other people tb is actually in the platform party in his capacity as nhs president so he ll get a taste of that i ll happily sit in the stands it will be my first graduation on a football field as any seasoned veteran of graduation ceremonies can tell you it s fun to watch the parade of shoes as the graduates pass you ll see a remarkable range of choices just from the shins down outdoor graduations can wreak havoc on shoes though one year the outdoor graduation came after several days of rain the field was still muddy from direct observation i ll just say that mud and ambitiously high heels are not a good mix mud doesn t work well with wheelchairs either i don t remember noticing messages on mortarboards when i graduated high school though i was nervous enough that whether i would have noticed is an open question now at least at tb s school the students have to submit their caps for approval on the morning of the ceremony getting them back just before it starts that seems a wee bit draconian to me but there it is mortarboard decoration has become almost expected a couple of weeks ago someone i knew in college dmed me on twitter holy crap your kid is eighteen that seemed about right tb is discovering now what i discovered at his age graduation isn t really about the student it s really about the family we have all three surviving grandparents coming and the girl is playing in the band great i get to play pomp and circumstance over and over and over again it s a way that the grownups mark the passage of time we need those markers because time seems to accelerate just a little bit more each year even google photos got into the act sending me a 15 years ago today juxtaposition of tb celebrating his 3rd birthday with him celebrating his 18th the poses are similar it took me a few minutes to recover from that one he has decorated his mortarboard in the uva colors he really can t wait to go to him this is just a moment of getting his hand stamped so he can get on with it i m glad he feels that way he s all about the future and he should be but i m also glad he ll be up on stage hundreds of feet away where he won t be able to see those moments when there s something in my eye program note i will be in no emotional shape to write anything for tuesday so the blog will be back on wednesday posted by dean dad at 5 44 pm email this blogthis share to x share to facebook share to pinterest thursday june 20 2019 yes but humanities at community colleges the community college research center ccrc just issued two reports on the state of the humanities at community colleges in the us one looks at the proportion of students who major in humanities and also at the percentage of overall courses taken that fall under what the reports call hla humanities and liberal arts a serious misnomer given that the liberal arts also include the social sciences math and the natural sciences but whatever the other looks at humanities course enrollment and performance as a predictor of degree completion vertical transfer and completion upon vertical transfer the short version is that they mostly convey good news while enrollments in the humanities have sagged at four year colleges they ve actually increased at community colleges gpa s in community college humanities courses prove admirably strong predictors of overall gpa at subsequent four year colleges the reports single out the visual and performing arts as the largest gainers over the last decade or so which i ll admit surprised me having said that though the reports left me feeling like the point had been missed to be fair they appear to have been conceived as answers to a different question they set out to illustrate with some success that the apparent crisis in the humanities at least in terms of enrollments is unique to the four year sector humanities enrollments at community colleges are doing well overall even though almost nobody outside of community colleges notices i saw a bit of that myself a couple of years ago when i co presented at the aac u conference with kate mcconnell although the organization and the conference don t specify a sector community colleges were badly underrepresented and most of the discourse there took the four year sector as the norm mcconnell and her colleagues recognized that to their credit but the national discourse around the humanities is still very much dominated by a narrative of decline so okay but why do the humanities feel besieged here too if all is actually well why does the narrative of decline resonate so strongly here if it isn t founded in the data reflecting my own background in the social sciences an important part of the liberal arts thank you very much i think it s due to which variables you consider for example the reports acknowledge in passing but don t pursue the difference between general education requirements and electives enrollments in english don t tell us much about humanities to the extent that those english classes are the required composition classes at my own college for instance engineering and business majors have to take six credits of engliish comp it s a state requirement lumping in mandated courses with say literature electives doesn t tell us much for instance one report notes that english is the one humanities discipline with a significant decline over the last few years that would seem inscrutable unless you connect the dots to degree requirements if every degree student has to take comp and overall college enrollments drop then we d expect comp enrollments to drop what that tells us about literature is unclear at best the reports don t address faculty numbers either over the last decade throughout the sector it has become commonplace for full time faculty who leave to be replaced by adjuncts so even when enrollments are reasonably strong remaining members of departments feel under attack as the work of coordinating all of those adjuncts falls to progressively fewer people an eager grad student in the humanities might see the reports as rays of hope but the connection between enrollments and the ranks of full time faculty is increasingly tenuous even the guided pathways movement depending on how it s carried out can feel like an attack part of the goal of guided pathways is to provide simple clear prescriptive routes to degrees in practice that often translates to reducing the number of choices provided for students instead of saying take any one of the following ten courses it might reduce the options to two or even one if you re a professor of one of the courses that was streamlined into oblivion that can feel very much like an attack on my own campus part of the resistance to guided pathways has come from a sort of professional courtesy arguably misplaced but still in which nobody in say the business department wants to irritate anyone in sociology or poli sci by specifying psychology as the preferred social science elective accordingly streamlining is a hard sell that isn t just a matter of local resistance either one report notes that humanities majors at community colleges often don t align well with majors at four year colleges but it fails to ask the next obvious question do four year colleges align with each other for example some of our transfer partners require us history and won t take world civ while others require world civ and won t take us history some require freestanding diversity courses while others allow one course to meet a discipline and a diversity requirement at the same time some have a foreign language requirement and some don t some business programs will accept calculus for business while others want the real thing in a target rich environment such as the northeast the presumption that we can just mirror the four year sector rests on a false assumption the four year schools don t mirror each other what the reports disparagingly call a patchwork is at least in part an adaptation to a heterogeneous and fluid environment ignore the environment and that s easy to miss finally of course there s the sheer weight of the constant external drumbeat of workforce and stem stem and workforce whether those drumbeats are well intended or not they sound to the humanities and some social science folks like nails in a coffin to the ccrc s credit these reports seem to be aimed at reducing that drumbeat a bit i hope they work none of this is intended to slam the reports if anything i m glad to see the ccrc turn its attention to a major part of the curriculum that has gone largely ignored up to this point even if it gets the name wrong the reports show clearly that for instance good grades in community college courses are excellent predictors of good grades in four year college courses putting the lie to the classist snobbery that likes to cloak itself in the language of rigor they show that the national discourse around the crisis in the humanities is blinkered which it is and they provide some good baseline information for the next set of studies that will i hope pay a bit more attention to context first drafts don t have to be perfect they have to be done i very much look forward to the next round posted by dean dad at 6 00 pm email this blogthis share to x share to facebook share to pinterest wednesday june 19 2019 that first life preserver what does a good first outreach to a struggling student look like i have a pretty good idea of what it shouldn t look like in my own freshman year of college i was surrounded by affluent prep school graduates on a pretty campus in the middle of nowhere for reasons lost to the sands of time i decided it would be a good idea to try to study russian as longtime readers know it did not go well about halfway through the semester as i sweated bullets trying to get both the college experience and that class under control i got an intimidating looking letter from the college informing me that i was doing badly in russian ya think the letter added fuel to the fire of self doubt without offering any practical advice about what to do to turn it around my already tenuous sense of belonging there took a hit and my performance in russian continued to underwhelm eventually the class came to an end and i decided that it was time to try a different path so the most i can say for the warning letter is that it inflicted insult but no measurable injury at best i m quite sure i would have been at least as well off if not better off had they simply skipped it i discovered this week that the letter we send to students who have been identified as struggling in a given class isn t much different cough years later it s the same idea and i d guess that it has much the same effect so we re looking at re envisioning the initial outreach instead of sounding an alarm which presumes ...