Links for 9/9/10

Frank Donoghue

the center of gravity at almost all universities has shifted so far away from the humanities that the most pertinent answer to the question "Will the humanities survive in the 21st century?" is not "yes" or "no," but "Who cares?"…

our research culture is both self-contained and absurd. Essentially, we give the copyrights of our scholarly articles and monographs to university presses, and then buy them back, or demand that our libraries buy them back, at exorbitant markups. And then no one reads them. The current tenure system obliges us all to be producers of those things, but there are no consumers…

The humanities will have a home somewhere in 2110, but it won't be in universities…

Scott Jaschik

the University of California at Los Angeles's business school is proposing that it give up all state funding -- in return for greater budget flexibility and the right to raise out-of-state tuition to the levels of private institutions. The plan has been approved by UCLA, but is awaiting a review by Mark G. Yudof, president of the university system.

Leading public universities regularly complain about the decline in the shares of their budgets that come from the state, even as regulation has not lessened. But being willing to give up those funds altogether is rare…

CHRISTOPHER SHEA

university presidents, who can make upward of $1 million annually, gravely intone that the $50,000 price tag doesn’t even cover the full cost of a year’s education. (Consider the balance a gift!) Then your daughter reports that her history prof is a part-time adjunct, who might be making $1,500 for a semester’s work. There’s something wrong with this picture…

Naomi Schaefer Riley

The state needs accountability measures, and they must be enforced by a party other than the faculty, who, it could easily be charged, have a conflict of interest. That's what Texas A&M got right.

But Hugill is right, too. These accountability requirements are silly… if the State of Texas wanted to get its money worth out of its public-education system, voters should demand that professors return to the classroom. Asking how much money professors bring in through research is like opening up a fruit stand and asking how much money employees bring in through the sale of cellphones. Cellphone sales aren't the business. They aren't the mission. And they're distracting employees from selling fruit…