So You Want to Be a College Professor - commentary

A recent Wall Street Journal article is a must read for every existing full-time and adjunct faculty in the US. Also, any current undergraduate student who longs to be a college professor needs to understand what is happening to their dreams. The former ivory-covered halls ain't what they used to be.

The last two sentences of this opinion piece sums up the results of the changes I have seen in my 25 years in higher education, working at a major research university, a small private university and one of the largest community colleges in the country. It all boils down to these two sentences directly quoted from the piece entitled So You Want to Be a Professor by By Naomi Schaefer Riley:

"Higher education has gone so far off the rails in recent years that parents and students hardly know what they are supposed to have learned in a freshman composition course or in Sociology 101. And as long as there is a degree waiting at the other end, they hardly care."

While there are several societal trends behind the dumbing down of America which also infects the highest rung of our education ladder, this piece does begin to speak to one, so give it 60 seconds . . . http://tinyurl.com/dkyjou