Yep. I think the millennials who are willing to pay dues and work hard will rise. Not sure what will happen to the others or how that will impact everyone else. It seems to me am iron rule of life that if you want to be really good at anything complex or challenging you have to be willing to start at the bottom and learn the basics.
"It is only with the heart that one can see rightly; what is essential is invisible to the eye."
--Antoine de Saint-Exupery
"Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold."
--Yeats
“True, we [lawyers] build no bridges. We raise no towers. We construct no engines. We paint no pictures - unless as amateurs for our own principal amusement. There is little of all that we do which the eye of man can see. But we smooth out difficulties; we relieve stress; we correct mistakes; we take up other men's burdens and by our efforts we make possible the peaceful life of men in a peaceful state.”
--John W. Davis, founder of Davis Polk & Wardwell
Yup you do.
And that often correlates to pay. Which also tends to keep that generation from being interested. I think much of this is the instant nature they've been raised with. They want what they want now. The idea of waiting is somewhat foreign. Email, cell phones and text messages etc have changed what the younger generation expects and sees as 'normal'
One thing I do to fight this in my children is to give them chores, even pointless ones like picking up pine cones in the yard (we have about 40 pine trees, so it can be a wheelbarrow load after a storm). As punishment for doing bad stuff, I make them move a stack of 50 bricks from one side of the yard to the other (and then back again, a la Cool Hand Luke---"What are your bricks doing in my yard?"). I will also make them get jobs when they're teenagers unless they are otherwise engaged in something character building.
But, my kids already say "sir" and "ma'am" after "yes" and "no" so we're off to a good start with them. I think one of the reasons why I liked the movie Mud so much was that I felt like the dialogue and interactions were absolutely spot on for the culture it sought to recreate.
"This culture doesn't sell modesty. It sells "I am more modest than you" modesty." -- Two Utes
I agree with this.
My students today can track down information in the blink of an eye. However, they often struggle to know what to do with that information.
Having realized this, I am constantly trying to modify the way I teach to capitalize on their skills and to improve their deficiencies.
For instance, for the last two weeks of this past semester I tracked down an old (30 years) exercise book that is out of print and assigned some pages from it. Since the book is old and obscure, the answers are not available on the internet. It was a nice reality-check for the students to assess what they've really learned over the semester, and what they've just learned to look up online.
There's a lot of promise in this generation, but they'll have to work for it (like every other generation). Information is not knowledge.
Help yourself:
Professionalism and Respect:
Among other things, one of the principal goals of a university education is to prepare students for professional careers. As part of this transition to professional life, personal demeanor and conduct will play an important role in creating a suitable atmosphere for teaching and learning.
All members of this class – instructors and students alike – should use courteous and respectful language in all communications, written and oral, as befits professional interaction. This is especially necessary in this digital age where communication is virtually instantaneous. Informality in e-mail messages (content and format), slangy abbreviations, “SMS” language/“textese,” and disregard for fundamental grammar are inappropriate in a professional context.
In addition, please refrain from disrespectful activities while in class, since they can distract both the instructor and other students. These activities include, but are not limited to, chronic tardiness, eating, sleeping, sending/reading text messages, reading the newspaper, doing crossword puzzles, etc. Engaging in such activities will negatively impact the student’s participation grade. Obviously, abusive or harassing language and behavior will not be tolerated.
σοφῷ ἀνδρὶ Ἑλλὰς πάντα.
-- Flavius Philostratus, Life of Apollonius 1.35.2.
"It is only with the heart that one can see rightly; what is essential is invisible to the eye."
--Antoine de Saint-Exupery
"Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold."
--Yeats
“True, we [lawyers] build no bridges. We raise no towers. We construct no engines. We paint no pictures - unless as amateurs for our own principal amusement. There is little of all that we do which the eye of man can see. But we smooth out difficulties; we relieve stress; we correct mistakes; we take up other men's burdens and by our efforts we make possible the peaceful life of men in a peaceful state.”
--John W. Davis, founder of Davis Polk & Wardwell
How the incentives for universities these days lead them to give financial aid to those who can otherwise afford it, while not giving it to those who can't.
As these data suggest, colleges are not just looking for the best and brightest students. They are also working hard to bring wealthy students to their campuses in order to maximize their revenue. The schools generally try to achieve this goal by offering generous institutional aid awards to these otherwise “full-pay” students — that is, students whose families can afford to pay advertised tuition rates. After all, it’s more profitable for schools to provide four scholarships of $5,000 each to induce affluent students who will be able to pay the balance than it is to provide a single $20,000 grant to one low-income student.Full studyThe competition for the wealthy is so strong that 10 percent of college admissions directors at four-year colleges (and nearly 20 percent of those at private liberal arts colleges) reported that they give affluent students a significant leg up in the admissions process — meaning that they are admitting full-pay students with lower grades and test scores than other applicants. These colleges are, in other words, providing affirmative action for the wealthy, despite all of the extraordinary advantages that these students have over their less-fortunate peers.
Georgia Tech will be offering an online master's degree in computer science:
http://www.cringely.com/2013/07/10/g...puter-science/
Georgia Tech is a major research university. In big research universities research and publishing count for everything and teaching counts for close to nothing, which is why there are so many bad teachers with endowed professorships. . . . Research grad students are slave labor while professional grad students are cash cows for their institutions and matter mostly for the money they can pay. Computer science is a research field but this new degree at Georgia Tech is specifically branded as being a professional degree. While that sounds extra-important what it really means is the students won’t matter at all to the University, which sees them strictly as cash flow — up to $18 million per year according to the business plan.
"It is only with the heart that one can see rightly; what is essential is invisible to the eye."
--Antoine de Saint-Exupery
"Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold."
--Yeats
“True, we [lawyers] build no bridges. We raise no towers. We construct no engines. We paint no pictures - unless as amateurs for our own principal amusement. There is little of all that we do which the eye of man can see. But we smooth out difficulties; we relieve stress; we correct mistakes; we take up other men's burdens and by our efforts we make possible the peaceful life of men in a peaceful state.”
--John W. Davis, founder of Davis Polk & Wardwell
Every generation brings behavioral & attitude peculiarities that defy their elders. We all did.
This generation is running headlong into a general shift in the employment landscape since about 2000, and some (hopefully) short term imbalances between productivity and employment. (Corporations and the wealthy are awash in money, productivity is very high, but aggregate demand is not rising enough to generate enough jobs, especially "good" jobs, which is in turn contributing to the overall sluggish demand).
A couple of MIT professors, McAfee and Brynjolfsson have tracked the impact of technology on employment, with some sobering explanations for some of the current displacement, and potentially highly disruptive trends for the future. http://www.technologyreview.com/feat...stroying-jobs/
The stagnant labor market either dampens the Millenials' sense of entitlement, or it will help fuel upheaval, among Millenials and a lot of folks who've been displaced and not fully recovered in the last 10 years.
Last edited by Ma'ake; 07-13-2013 at 12:08 PM.
Who Ruined the Humanities?
Of course it's important to read the great poets and novelists. But not in a university classroom, where literature has been turned into a bland, soulless competition for grades and status.
http://m.us.wsj.com/articles/SB10001...95803296798048
"It is only with the heart that one can see rightly; what is essential is invisible to the eye."
--Antoine de Saint-Exupery
"Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold."
--Yeats
“True, we [lawyers] build no bridges. We raise no towers. We construct no engines. We paint no pictures - unless as amateurs for our own principal amusement. There is little of all that we do which the eye of man can see. But we smooth out difficulties; we relieve stress; we correct mistakes; we take up other men's burdens and by our efforts we make possible the peaceful life of men in a peaceful state.”
--John W. Davis, founder of Davis Polk & Wardwell
The MOOCs are coming!!!
http://www.economist.com/blogs/econo...omist-explains
According to RUMOR, small colleges are investigating registering their own students for MOOCS, then hiring graders to assign & score quizzes based on the content. They pay a nominal fee to the folks who are doing the MOOC (and/or their institution), but essentially the small colleges get to rent the courses of a Stanford or MIT professor and pay a TA $10/hr. to run the class's logistics. The underlying assumption that knowledge & teaching can be boiled down into little single-serving packets, and that once an online course is in place all a school has to do is hire a cafeteria worker to sling the slop onto the students' plates is a pretty naive way of looking at education.
Don't get me wrong. The MOOC phenomenon is cool for some reasons. The access to MOOC information can vastly enrich a teaching experience, and obviously online teaching & learning have revolutionized access to higher education.
But the predictions of the inevitable demise of the university system are a bit premature.
σοφῷ ἀνδρὶ Ἑλλὰς πάντα.
-- Flavius Philostratus, Life of Apollonius 1.35.2.
"Be a philosopher. A man can compromise to gain a point. It has become apparent that a man can, within limits, follow his inclinations within the arms of the Church if he does so discreetly." - The Walking Drum
"And here’s what life comes down to—not how many years you live, but how many of those years are filled with bullshit that doesn’t amount to anything to satisfy the requirements of some dickhead you’ll never get the pleasure of punching in the face." – Adam Carolla
You make a fine point, my friend.
The research is ongoing, but it seems like online education can be just as effective as face-to-face teaching if the students are motivated, capable, etc.
If the students are marginal, or don't put in the work, or whatever, they do worse in online courses than in a classroom setting.
To me, this suggests that putting more graduate courses online might be a useful tool for certain programs. Unfortunately, it seems like most schools prefer to put the lower-division classes online, thus putting the beginning students in a potentially tougher spot.
At my school, I had a meeting last week with the Director of Continuing Education who wants to adapt one of my upper-division face-to-face classes to offer it online (I developed the class as an Interdisciplinarity seminar, and the folks who paid me to develop it turned it over to him). I gladly handed him the syllabus, readings, powerpoint slides, handouts, exams, etc. and told him to go for it. His goal was to develop a class that essentially a trained monkey could run by unlocking the modules on the correct days. I think he was stunned by the amount of knowledge and preparation that go into an upper-division course, from both instructors & students. He is now looking for another class to put online.
σοφῷ ἀνδρὶ Ἑλλὰς πάντα.
-- Flavius Philostratus, Life of Apollonius 1.35.2.
I'm not worried about the end of higher ed. Andrew Wiggin was a professor on Trondheim, and that's like 3,000 years from now.
"This culture doesn't sell modesty. It sells "I am more modest than you" modesty." -- Two Utes
Recent research suggests that reading literary fiction makes you more empathetic, which speaks volumes about my switch from die-hard conservative to left-leaning moderate since I studied literature for 12 years, and have been teaching it for 15.
http://news.sciencemag.org/brain-beh...ead-good-books
"This culture doesn't sell modesty. It sells "I am more modest than you" modesty." -- Two Utes
Well, the connection I see, in my own life, is that I tie empathy in with understanding the viewpoint of someone else enough for it to modify my own opinions if I find value in what their experience is. I'm sure I mentioned this ad nauseum for most of you on CUF, but it changed me. I saw how the government reacted to the suffering of those people, how the media addressed the suffering, how the people at church described the suffering, and something inside of me changed. I knew many of those people, including scores of folks in the Superdome, and they were not what everyone was describing, and I began to not buy what the mainstream/party line was selling. I really truly began to question everything and to listen to and read about the perspectives of others after that storm; it left a scar on me that will never heal. Without all of the literature I read, I'm not sure that I would've arrived where I am now because it opened my eyes to the experiences of other people that I will never have as a Southern white male American. That's not to say that I agree with all of the stuff I read: Rigoberta Menchú annoys me. But, I think I understand where she was coming from.
Does that help clarify what I meant? I don't mean to say that there aren't empathetic conservatives; I do mean to say that my personal conversion away from conservatism was borne on the backs of a flood of empathy in my heart and mind.
"This culture doesn't sell modesty. It sells "I am more modest than you" modesty." -- Two Utes
Yes, it does. Where reasonable people disagree is on the role of government in reducing human suffering. That issue has been at the center of the debate ever since the New Deal. In that debate I'm a Jack Kemp Republican.
"It is only with the heart that one can see rightly; what is essential is invisible to the eye."
--Antoine de Saint-Exupery
"Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold."
--Yeats
“True, we [lawyers] build no bridges. We raise no towers. We construct no engines. We paint no pictures - unless as amateurs for our own principal amusement. There is little of all that we do which the eye of man can see. But we smooth out difficulties; we relieve stress; we correct mistakes; we take up other men's burdens and by our efforts we make possible the peaceful life of men in a peaceful state.”
--John W. Davis, founder of Davis Polk & Wardwell
"This culture doesn't sell modesty. It sells "I am more modest than you" modesty." -- Two Utes
"This culture doesn't sell modesty. It sells "I am more modest than you" modesty." -- Two Utes
"This culture doesn't sell modesty. It sells "I am more modest than you" modesty." -- Two Utes
"This culture doesn't sell modesty. It sells "I am more modest than you" modesty." -- Two Utes
Some of the events I've come up with this semester.
"This culture doesn't sell modesty. It sells "I am more modest than you" modesty." -- Two Utes
I suspect you are a fun professor to have, Don Mac, and probably quite beloved. I love the Fund Razor idea.
"It is only with the heart that one can see rightly; what is essential is invisible to the eye."
--Antoine de Saint-Exupery
"Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold."
--Yeats
“True, we [lawyers] build no bridges. We raise no towers. We construct no engines. We paint no pictures - unless as amateurs for our own principal amusement. There is little of all that we do which the eye of man can see. But we smooth out difficulties; we relieve stress; we correct mistakes; we take up other men's burdens and by our efforts we make possible the peaceful life of men in a peaceful state.”
--John W. Davis, founder of Davis Polk & Wardwell
Did you go to the building in the garden district? If so we went there for about a month and a half when I was working down there.
There was one member who was like ray (the fire fly) in the princess and the frog. In fact I'm pretty sure he was the voice.
Sent from my SGH-T999 using Tapatalk 2
Last edited by Mormon Red Death; 10-19-2013 at 09:03 AM.
"Be a philosopher. A man can compromise to gain a point. It has become apparent that a man can, within limits, follow his inclinations within the arms of the Church if he does so discreetly." - The Walking Drum
"And here’s what life comes down to—not how many years you live, but how many of those years are filled with bullshit that doesn’t amount to anything to satisfy the requirements of some dickhead you’ll never get the pleasure of punching in the face." – Adam Carolla
Charles Young, St. Charles, the best damn usher the Church has ever or will ever have. He joined while we lived there, and the branch presidency decided that usher was the perfect calling for him. I'll never forget the look in his eyes when I extended the call to him, "You want meeeeee to be the usher?" Joy, complete and pure, was his.
"This culture doesn't sell modesty. It sells "I am more modest than you" modesty." -- Two Utes
speaking as a U Business School Grad (Finance) this is some nice recognition.
http://www.ksl.com/?sid=27589924&nid=148&title=u-mba-program-jumps-into-national-top-40-report-says&fm=home_page&s_cid=queue-3
Last edited by Scorcho; 11-11-2013 at 01:40 PM.
Here's my latest project: The No Shave November Fund Razor. This year an anonymous donor has pledged to match all donations to the scholarship (up to $500) with a corresponding donation to Typhoon Haiyan relief efforts. If we raise $1000, and the Heisenberg wins, then all participants at the "Sir" level, as opposed to the lesser "Mister" level, will shave their faces and heads into The Heisenberg. Anyone wishing to vote online may do so via this website: https://www.coker.edu/gifts
"This culture doesn't sell modesty. It sells "I am more modest than you" modesty." -- Two Utes
It's a simple rule. No translation programs. Open book final. No translation programs. Yet, they still do it.
"This culture doesn't sell modesty. It sells "I am more modest than you" modesty." -- Two Utes