effective purchase
Purchase into what exactly? Validity or justification amidst non-humanistic disciplines? The very language necessitates a monetary measurement that does not necessarily reflect the social and cultural capital the humanities bring to the table.
Young people aren’t doing very well these days.
While it is true that mental health at multiple levels is of great concern, to blame strictly technology is too limiting.
Better simply to repackage pandering as rigor — e-learning, digital literacies, competency-based programming, personal learning agendas — and simply deny there is a problem
Many of these programs, however, have proved very helpful especially to underrepresented communities.
“How much are students actually learning in contemporary higher education?”
No promise to teach you history or politics or biology or to make you wise or thoughtful or prudent.
This is a broad comment that I disagree with. While the extent to which this is taught from major to major varies, situating the self within these frameworks are the basics of knowledge development. How universities are translating these skillsets is a different conversation.
The traditional language of “professors” and “students” still exists, though “service provider” and “consumer” are making serious bids to replace them.
There has long been discussion on the continued corporatization of the university. How does this (mis)reflect our values?
Administrators control the modern university.
There are multiple factors at play here, in part, linked to the state and federal governments scaling back funding, causing a necessary move to supplement funds. This includes, e.g., tuition increases and a greater number of international students (due to their higher cost of attendance), opening up the conversation to issues linked to accessibility, (lack of) diversity, and student debt.
Audre Lorde who did the most to make black women’s sexuality a focal point of political and social philosophy
This also paved the way towards critical conversations linked to intersectionality recognizing race, class, gender, and sexuality as simultaneous markers of identity not requiring one to choose or rank. All vital concepts that gave birth to third world feminism.
13th Amendment in 1865 legally abolished slavery, but blacks quickly became subject to a displaced form of violence
This heavily resonates today in the context of the Prison Industrial Complex. The documentary titled 13th helps to highlight the scale of this problem targeting Blacks and other communities of color.
that black lives do not exist for pleasurable disposal in a society still mired in its white supremacist history.
Black Lives Matter has centralized the ways in which lives today and historically are valued. Accountability here is at the core, which makes those who have benefited from the privileges of this system especially uncomfortable. These conversations and movements are necessary in creating change.
to wonder not only how black folks feel about these situations, but how they think about them
Tied to the importance of perception in terms of how one sees oneself versus how one is perceived. Intimate connections here within the larger political climate. Also problematizes the ways in which physical black bodies are sites of violence.
Now, there are people who get PhDs and don’t want to be professors, and that’s great for them and I’m glad they find the PhD a useful part of their personal and professional lives.
There is also a distinct in terms of wanting to be a professor and the likelihood of being one (in tenure track terms). Many times even having the conversation can be difficult for doctoral students, depending on the advisor.
alt-ac
The very term alt-ac is so problematic because it notes that the "ac" is the sole goal whereas everyone else must "settle" for "alt-ac." A new vocabulary is needed.
knowledge that colleague has in their head that’s just going to be lost to those who remain
This point is an important one. Universities produce knowledge and knowledge is not neutral. Certain types of knowledges and perspectives are more valued than others. Although still equally valuable, their is something lost, but, at the same time, these lost knowledges manifest themselves in different ways.
ultimately my failure
Accountability is questioned here, but there are many circumstances that are out of our control in this process.
when I got an email telling me my last (and best) hope for a tenure-track job this year had evaporated.
This moment linked to the desire of attaining a tenure track job versus the likelihood directly opposes doctoral training which prepares graduates strictly for the professoriate. It is seldom discussed so openly and necessary as it is experienced by many. There are numerous other options, but a pause is merited here in confronting the reality.
To risk failure
Risk is almost a given in order achieve success.
“Difference” or “otherness,” that is, the unknown, would arouse curiosity rather than fear;
The direct implication of social relations allows for the exposure of power structures at play that debunk notions (to a degree) of (un)belonging.
“experience” and “experiment” formed its pedagogical ground
It is often easy to dismiss how heavily clad in experience the word experimentation is. The connection is vital in the ways in which experimentation and experimental poetry is shaped and analyzed.
experimental poet.
This very label intrigues as it pushes the boundary of the genre, but at the same time questions its limits.