On November 7th, Arnold Kling, a former co-blogger on this site, wrote:
I can pinpoint the exact moment when higher education in America started to cause me sleepless nights. This happened in the spring of 2012 at my daughter’s graduation from Brandeis University. In the middle of an unforgettable speech, the main commencement speaker said, “I read this morning in the New York Times that the non-white population of America will be more than 50% by 2050.” .
For me, this would have been a simple observation that was neither good news nor bad news. But students welcomed it as if they had heard the news that their favorite sports team had won the championship or that their favorite political party had won the election. They cheered and screamed and cheered for several minutes. That was the loudest applause of her entire speech.
Understood. This is troublesome. I’m sure if you read all of Arnold’s posts (which I highly recommend you do), it will probably save you a lot of trouble.
Arnold concludes:
I believe that university is irredeemable.
But what if, for example, you’re someone who loves economics and loves the idea of teaching economics to young minds? If you say university is a place of no salvation, then maybe you’re a think tank economist or a consulting economist or something else. You will come to the conclusion that you should choose this profession.
Even if the majority of universities are beyond redemption, that does not mean that all universities are beyond redemption. And that doesn’t mean people who are beyond salvation can’t have a nice niche.
One of the things I’ve gained from using Facebook is that many young economics graduate students and assistant professors of economics have heard of me and wanted to be my friend. Unless I see any major negative points, which I rarely do, I’ll accept. As a result, I follow what they do in their careers: what they teach, how they teach, and how their students respond to their teaching. I read a lot of positive stories. To name three off the top of my head: Art Carden at Samford University (actually, he’s now a full professor, but time flies), Jonathan Murphy at Nicholls State University; I think of Michael Makovey from Northwood University. I can easily name 5-6 others.
So even if you’re pessimistic about the future of your university, like Arnold and I, it’s important to know how much you want to teach people. If it’s incredibly itchy, like it was for me, remember that all you have to do is find one good job and do it well. Please. There’s a niche there.
