Wednesday, April 29, 2009

Blue Sky

New York Times Op-Ed Contributor Mark C. Taylor says that "if American higher education is to thrive in the 21st century, colleges and universities...must be rigorously regulated and completely restructured."

He is the chairman of the religion department at Columbia; so I guess he knows from whence he speaks.

Mr. Taylor writes:
"GRADUATE education is the Detroit of higher learning. Most graduate programs in American universities produce a product for which there is no market (candidates for teaching positions that do not exist) and develop skills for which there is diminishing demand (research in subfields within subfields and publication in journals read by no one other than a few like-minded colleagues), all at a rapidly rising cost (sometimes well over $100,000 in student loans)."
Also: The Odyssey - Robert Fagles
Sing to me of the man, Muse, the man of twists and turns 
driven time and again off course, once he had plundered 
the hallowed heights of Troy. 
Many cities of men he saw and learned their minds, 
many pains he suffered, heartsick on the open sea, 
fighting to save his life and bringing his comrades home. 
But he could not save them from disaster, hard as he strove 
the recklessness of their own ways destroyed them all, 
the blind fools, they devoured the cattle of the Sun 
and the Sungod blotted out the day of their return. 
Launch out on his story, Muse, daughter of Zeus, 
start from where you will sing for our time too.

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