I don't know if this is known outside of academic circles, but most universities are desperate for enrollments these days. Over the past 10ish years, unis changed tactics from attracting students with perks (some of them admittedly dumb) to slashing everything in sight--support staff, new faculty, majors, equipment, software, facilities, retirement plans, landscaping, even PR and marketing. Radical top-down decisions like "Who cares about foreign languages?" made whole divisions disappear. 1/
That is, universities used to be (well or badly) competing for students by offering something unique, promising extra career support or honors courses, competing in rare Div I sports, building a climbing wall, hosting ice cream or puppy therapy on the quad. But when the pivot to evisceration happened, it turned out there's nothing you can identify that is foundational enough to a liberal arts education that it can't be ruined and trashed tomorrow to save tens of thousands of $$. 2/
Meanwhile, all that axing has required unis to pay out absolutely shocking amounts, millions upon millions of $$, to forcibly retired admins who might have stood in the way of strangling the humanities or the lab sciences in the bathtub. (We all think it's just our discipline until the remaining handful of faculty get together and find out not even math or chemistry has a pot to piss in.) Students are paying more and more in tuition (and debt) for a product that is stunningly substandard. 3/
But at least the students can hang on to the community and vision of the university, its commitment to diversity and social justice, the boldly framed photos of students from all religions and races, giggling on the quad over books that no one is around to assign anymore? And that's where this protest season is different from the one in 2014 when Michael Brown's murderer was not indicted. Universities no longer promise free discourse, or community, or justice. They don't care if you go there. 4/
One thing I miss about growing up in Kansas is that every network TV station had a top-tier meteorologist. They were local celebrites. Even kids knew their names, their dogs' names. They came to schools to give talks on weather science. When I left for college and found out that weather reports in other parts of the country are just *read* by randos? Thinking about them likely choking back excitement during this terrible tornado season in the Plains.
Trauma is information. Someone who has experienced violence knows more about violence than someone who has always been safe. Someone who has a disability knows more about disability than someone who has always been able. I think about this whenever big criminal trials are in the news, that they weed out jurors who have been assaulted, violated, attacked, discriminated against, because they can't be "objective" about violence. I don't trust anyone who thinks inexperience is objectivity.
I can't believe we live in this world, this acidic, dissolving world, and the journalists covering it are still doing Maureen-Dowd dippety-doppety snark and Styles-level brand decryption of the rise of fascism. MSNBC asked one of their reporters about the Trump trial and he got on camera to translate everything into Taylor Swift album and song titles, with this little grin like he'd won a bet or lost a dare. Get your shit together, people. Your job is not actually "going viral" but reporting.
Please tell Camilla happy 5th birthday today! She was born in an abandoned VW bug in Virginia, and rescued as a baby by a friend of mine. I knew the moment I saw her picture that she was our cat. We'd just watched Mulholland Drive, so I told @mxtiffanyleigh "This is the girl." (We named her after Camilla Rhodes, "the girl" in MD.) Aside from a scary bladder stone incident, she has brought nothing but love, laughter, and sweet silky snuggles into our lives. #CatsOfMastodon
@tokyo_0 I'm home! It was only a 2.5-hour delay; it just felt longer because no one had planned for longer. And I was absolutely exhausted from my conference. But I made a friend while I waited!
Oh my God, I am exhausted and my stupid one-hour flight back home, for which I've been on this plane for an hour on the ground, is about to deboard so we can all wait to be sent a different plane and maybe that one will take me home.
Last summer, this happened and it took 9 hours of waiting before the airline admitted there was no other plane coming and I missed a whole conference in Santa Fe.
AirCanada used to be great and they deeply suck now. At the airport, they won't let you go through security if your bag doesn't fit in their extra-small carry-on sizer, so you have to check your carry-on for $40, because your normal carry-on-size luggage doesn't actually fit on the plane.
Lecturer at Yeshiva College in #18thC & #19thC #Literature. #Bentham & #queer #aesthetics (wrote Uncommon Sense, UVaP 2022), national #debt and #slavery, #Bronx #cats #boardgames #film Chair of Columbia Seminar in 18thC European Culture, Treasurer of the #Johnsonians, #philosophy reviews editor of JECS.#Admin of c18.masto.host, an instance for anyone with an interest or scholarship in any aspect of the global eighteenth century. All disciplines welcome!http://carrieshanafelt.com