The suicide of the university proceeds apace:
—Item 1 comes from Hiram College in Ohio, which may—gasp!—shrink some tenured faculty positions:
Last December, Hiram College wrote to alumni to assure them that an ongoing academic redesign of the 168-year-old liberal arts college, led by President Lori Varlotta, would proceed in an orderly fashion.
Foreign language, philosophy and religious studies programs may take the worst hits. “Everybody is scared to death,” one faculty member said. “The morale has just sunk to the pits.”
—Item 2 comes from our pals at crazy Evergreen State College in Washington:
Evergreen State College has announced that it is planning to cut $5.9 million from its budget in an effort to offset a rapidly declining enrollment rate.
The cuts were outlined by President George Bridges in a May 8 memo to the Board of Trustees, and are accompanied by plans to raise various student fees by hundreds of dollars, The Olympian reported last week. . .
According to a report released by an “Independent External Review Panel” in April, the college is expecting a decline in applications for the Fall 2018 semester of up to 20 percent, compounding the 4.5 percent decrease in Fall 2017, compared to Fall 2016.
“Further declines in applications (possibly by as much as 20%) and enrollments are expected for the Fall of 2018 based on current year-to-year data,” the report noted. “This condition, and the revenue shortfall it will create, will present Evergreen with significant financial challenges that will not be short-lived.”
Couldn’t happen to a more deserving bunch of idiots.
—Item 3 comes from the American Historical Association, which is trying to gloss over the plummeting number of academic job openings for the ranks of history Ph.D students coming on the market. But just take a look at this chart of job trends over the last 40 years:
Here’s a suggestion: how about teaching history, instead of constant oppression narratives?
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