The kind with Weck

4 hours ago, GCrites said:

It will be interesting to see how AI will affect college enrollment. If AI makes it where only blue-collar jobs exist how much will that de-motivate prospective students?

I will make a prediction here: AI will be as impactful as MOOCs were a decade ago. And if you have to ask what MOOCs are, that tells you how much AI will really matter. Emphasis on the "artificial". 

On 9/25/2023 at 1:53 PM, Gramarye said:

 

 

 

I was there at OSU in 2001 when the Ohio legislature removed the annual tuition increase caps (formerly maximum 6%  increase per year) and there were many years of 15-19% tuition increases, of course compounded.  I would very much like to see, and would have liked to have seen, OSU remain a primary pathway for first-in-family college matriculants.  But I fought that fight and lost, long enough ago now that the loss itself is old enough to drink, though it'll have to settle for the swanky new BW3 at Lane & High where the old dive nightclubs used to be rather than the hole-in-the-wall BW3 at East Woodruff that used to have $3.25 Long Islands and $0.25 wings on Tuesdays.

 

Re-reading the last few posts of this thread. Were you at the demonstration at the Statehouse in 2002 or 2003 to get college tuition increases capped at 6% again or the one where they wanted to tie post-secondary funding to primary and secondary funding ("K-16"). You might remember the K-16 one where all of the mascots from the state schools appeared. I was in the Shawn E. Bear suit from Shawnee State.

16 minutes ago, GCrites said:

I was in the Shawn E. Bear suit from Shawnee State.

 

*spits out coffee*

I was the only one on Student Government that the suit fit properly. 

On 9/25/2023 at 12:14 PM, westerninterloper said:

The shrinking number of US-born college age students, especially in the Rust Belt, means that more prestigious universities are soaking up students from each tier below it. OSU, Michigan, Penn State eased admission requirements during Covid and actually admitted more students during that time; then the second tier universities like the Four Corners did the same to maintain their enrollments, taking in students who would have gone to Toledo, Wright State or Youngstown, but there aren't many people that those third tier universities can draw from - community colleges also are dramatically down, so it's been a big soak from the top. Good for the students perhaps, attending higher-ranking universities, but very bad for the open-access state institutions in the stagnant urban areas around Ohio.

 

The shrinking student-age population is huge, I don't think very many people outside of education understand the scope of this problem.  Ohio will likely have to close some state universities.  Akron or Cleveland State, Toledo, Wright State, and Youngstown seem to be at the highest risk of closure.  Ohio State is the healthiest state school, but it has also opened and expanded quite a few branch campuses since I was a student.  Those branch campuses are definitely vacuuming up some of the students who would otherwise have gone to another state school and thereby competing with the "lesser" state schools.

48 minutes ago, Foraker said:

 

The shrinking student-age population is huge, I don't think very many people outside of education understand the scope of this problem.  Ohio will likely have to close some state universities.  Akron or Cleveland State, Toledo, Wright State, and Youngstown seem to be at the highest risk of closure.  Ohio State is the healthiest state school, but it has also opened and expanded quite a few branch campuses since I was a student.  Those branch campuses are definitely vacuuming up some of the students who would otherwise have gone to another state school and thereby competing with the "lesser" state schools.

I cant see closures of minor state schools as they are economic drivers for their cities. Wright State, YSU, Akron are all strong research schools (not Ohio State or Cincinnati level but they have strong research programs). You will likely see a pullback at some of the branch campuses but for the most part the state schools really will be fine.

Look at PA and their state system. They have a ton of schools that are not research oriented, in small college towns and have much smaller student bodies than the Ohio state schools. Cleve State, Bowling Green, Toledo, etc will always have a mission and purpose and that is typically to be that school for students in the city who may not be able to travel to college or need to work and go to school at the same time. Maybe their mission changes some but they will be around for the long haul.

 

The schools that are going to have issues and struggle are the small colleges in smaller college towns that are typically private. They cannot rely on the local population to provide enough students for the school and they need to build a lot of residence halls and other physical plant to support a transient student body. Think Ohio Northern, Wooster, Ashland, Hiram, Mt. Union, Heidelburg. These are schools that will struggle in the next 10 years to keep the lights on. 

Those small town schools did fine when you could go to any school and get any degree then find good white-collar work easily anywhere. Now you have to study very specific things at very specific schools in very specific cities and know very specific people... or else.

On 11/15/2023 at 12:36 PM, GCrites said:

Those small town schools did fine when you could go to any school and get any degree then find good white-collar work easily anywhere. Now you have to study very specific things at very specific schools in very specific cities and know very specific people... or else.

IT's not really that way - there are plenty of jobs and positions that don't require specific certification, and a broad, liberal arts education is the best qualification. I frequently hear from business and other technical students in my arts and sciences classes that "we dont write papers" or "we dont do this kind of research" - they arent being prepared for the bigger tasks in life, just the technical ones that will get them an entry level job. It shows after about 10 years. They might make money in a business, but they arent as prepared to handle major social and structural problems in society. 

7 hours ago, westerninterloper said:

IT's not really that way - there are plenty of jobs and positions that don't require specific certification, and a broad, liberal arts education is the best qualification. I frequently hear from business and other technical students in my arts and sciences classes that "we dont write papers" or "we dont do this kind of research" - they arent being prepared for the bigger tasks in life, just the technical ones that will get them an entry level job. It shows after about 10 years. They might make money in a business, but they arent as prepared to handle major social and structural problems in society. 

I agree with you on the value of a liberal arts education and the benefits of training in liberal arts fields. I do not think that is the biggest issue with small town colleges though. From what I have heard from some administrators is that the enrollment cliff that is beginning now and the changing demographic of college students will drive students to colleges in more metro markets vs small college towns.  A liberal arts college like Thomas Moore in Cincinnati, or a Baldwin Wallace or John Carroll in Cleveland, or a Capital, Ohio Wesleyean or Otterbein in Columbus are poised to do fine because they offer the ability and options for students who may want to commute, or work part/full time during college and there is appropriate off campus housing in the area for students so college do not have to invest in and maintain a large physical plant of buildings.  Whereas, schools like Hiram, Mt. Union, Heidelburg, Ohio Northern, Wooster etc. will struggle because of the capital costs of maintaining their physical plant and attracting students who may not have immediate job prospects in the local area both during and after college

8 hours ago, westerninterloper said:

IT's not really that way - there are plenty of jobs and positions that don't require specific certification, and a broad, liberal arts education is the best qualification. I frequently hear from business and other technical students in my arts and sciences classes that "we dont write papers" or "we dont do this kind of research" - they arent being prepared for the bigger tasks in life, just the technical ones that will get them an entry level job. It shows after about 10 years. They might make money in a business, but they arent as prepared to handle major social and structural problems in society. 

 

When I was in school, I was pretty annoyed about the requirement to take a full range of liberal arts courses and electives, when I barely had time and energy to keep up with the workload of the graphic design courses I was actually there for. Granted I ended up with a BS rather than the BA more common in the field, but (at the time) that distinction meant nothing to me (and most job applications just say "bachelor's degree").

 

In the 20 or so years since graduation (and even during co-op quarters whole in school) I've worked with a lot of designers who went more the trade school route, or even took design courses online. Few of those designers have the skills to move much beyond the initial trade-oriented position they get right out of college. That's tough - it's a competitive field with new graduates entering the job market every day, changing styles and technology that new graduates probably understand better, and companies that often lack longevity. 

 

I started off freelance after college (thanks to the Post-9/11 slump), followed by a few jobs in print media (R.I.P) and a small agency while my now-wife made her way through grad school. That gave me a good chance to build up technical skills, and work quickly and independently with the chance to develop communication and project management skills that no doubt were improved upon by the additional courses I took in college. I've now worked my way up to an all-but-title creative director role (our parent company reserves "director" for high-level management) at the company I've been in-house at for 14 years. Design remains a big part of my job, but I also spend time defining brand standards and creating content - not to mention managing and communicating about projects. I don't feel like a trade-school degree would have adequately prepared me for that.

Edited November 20, 20231 yr by mrCharlie

9 hours ago, westerninterloper said:

IT's not really that way - there are plenty of jobs and positions that don't require specific certification, and a broad, liberal arts education is the best qualification. I frequently hear from business and other technical students in my arts and sciences classes that "we dont write papers" or "we dont do this kind of research" - they arent being prepared for the bigger tasks in life, just the technical ones that will get them an entry level job. It shows after about 10 years. They might make money in a business, but they arent as prepared to handle major social and structural problems in society. 

As a professional that specializes in this age group you have seen this phenomenon play out repeatedly in real time so you are able to remain optimistic when young adults sputter. But the people around them expect something different. People today get that students who study the humanities might wind up pouring coffee until they're 42 when the non-profit they volunteer for gets them into grant-writing or selling specialty arts items to known clients. That's why so few people study the humanities now and really not that many studied them at their peak. But now too many people who studied other things are getting locked out of offices during their early careers and thrown into warehouses and other unskilled blue-collar jobs that are just begging for people. Or calling strangers from a list to sell them some BS that they don't need. Again, you have the faith to get them to that 35 age bracket where they might find something that's not physical labor or operating machinery. But the rest of society doesn't. Family, friends, society, uteri etc. hate that these skilled, educated young guys are doing the same jobs as high school graduates. They cannot wait any longer. They want more from that critical late 20s-early 30s period. But now it's too hard for people who aren't engineers, IT people, pretty girls, H1-Bs, people who have somehow been there since they were 18 (probably nepo babies) and actual nepo babies get into offices at this stage. The problem is that it really is turning out like Idiocracy. We need to come up with a way that young guys don't get diverted away from office work like that because there's too much of a chance they will give up and withdraw from society.

 

So it's hard to talk them into taking a chance on some small town without good jobs.

4 hours ago, mrCharlie said:

 

When I was in school, I was pretty annoyed about the requirement to take a full range of liberal arts courses and electives, when I barely had time and energy to keep up with the workload of the graphic design courses I was actually there for. Granted I ended up with a BS rather than the BA more common in the field, but (at the time) that distinction meant nothing to me (and most job applications just say "bachelor's degree").

 

In the 20 or so years since graduation (and even during co-op quarters whole in school) I've worked with a lot of designers who went more the trade school route, or even took design courses online. Few of those designers have the skills to move much beyond the initial trade-oriented position they get right out of college. That's tough - it's a competitive field with new graduates entering the job market every day, changing styles and technology that new graduates probably understand better, and companies that often lack longevity. 

 

I started off freelance after college (thanks to the Post-9/11 slump), followed by a few jobs in print media (R.I.P) and a small agency while my now-wife made her way through grad school. That gave me a good chance to build up technical skills, and work quickly and independently with the chance to develop communication and project management skills that no doubt were improved upon by the additional courses I took in college. I've now worked my way up to an all-but-title creative director role (our parent company reserves "director" for high-level management) at the company I've been in-house at for 14 years. Design remains a big part of my job, but I also spend time defining brand standards and creating content - not to mention managing and communicating about projects. I don't feel like a trade-school degree would have adequately prepared me for that.

I think this gets at my point better than I tried to articulate it - those "annoying" liberal arts courses are the ones that come back in 10 or 15 years to help you understand the bigger structure of what is going on in the world - and how to make your way in it and up it if that's your aim. The students who get a "just the facts", "hands-on" degree can do fine sitting down to that first job - it's job training after all, which the companies themselves should be doing, not foisting it on 18 year olds and their parents to finance - but a deep and broad education really benefits the person in the long run - makes them more independent from the vagaries of the capitalist economy, more flexible, better able to see what's going on and what's coming when they are 35 or 40 and things suddenly change. It's a long term investment. 

Just now, westerninterloper said:

I think this gets at my point better than I tried to articulate it - those "annoying" liberal arts courses are the ones that come back in 10 or 15 years to help you understand the bigger structure of what is going on in the world - and how to make your way in it and up it if that's your aim. The students who get a "just the facts", "hands-on" degree can do fine sitting down to that first job - it's job training after all, which the companies themselves should be doing, not foisting it on 18 year olds and their parents to finance - but a deep and broad education really benefits the person in the long run - makes them more independent from the vagaries of the capitalist economy, more flexible, better able to see what's going on and what's coming when they are 35 or 40 and things suddenly change. It's a long term investment. 

The second issue with the "hands-on" work - which I absolutely value and respect - is that after 25 or 30 years, your hands get tired. Injuries are a major problem in blue collar trades, and many of the folks I know who've done that work for a lifetime are left with a broken body when they retire. It's honest, good-paying work, but it's very taxing physically. So many of the college kids I work with have parents in the trades and they tell them - get a college education - trades are great, but they don't want that for their own kids. 

I get it, I hated my liberal arts classes and just found them to be an annoyance and means to an end. I got very little out of my foreign language requirement at the time and as a business major, did not see the need to take philosophy or even a history class.

 

However, as I got older, i see the value in the knowledge and while I may not remember a lick of Spanish from college, these courses do (in a collective manner) teach you how to think critically and also engage with people who have varying interests. It may not have done anything for my technical skills, but it helps me relate to clients, engage with those who may have a variety of interests and be a more well rounded adult. 

9 minutes ago, Brutus_buckeye said:

I get it, I hated my liberal arts classes and just found them to be an annoyance and means to an end. I got very little out of my foreign language requirement at the time and as a business major, did not see the need to take philosophy or even a history class.

 

However, as I got older, i see the value in the knowledge and while I may not remember a lick of Spanish from college, these courses do (in a collective manner) teach you how to think critically and also engage with people who have varying interests. It may not have done anything for my technical skills, but it helps me relate to clients, engage with those who may have a variety of interests and be a more well rounded adult. 

Someone told me many years ago that more people should go to university so that we have interesting people to talk to, something like that. I really feel that now that I'm 50, and live in a pretty blue-collar town. Sports, family and house projects seem to be the reliable topics among people I know, I miss living in my university town for random, deep conversations that really take me places. I also travel a lot - I'm in Romania this week because we found cheap tickets, and what do you know, Romanian is a Latin/Romance language, that high school Spanish I "never used" still helps me read when I'm in France, Spain, Portugal, South America, and now, Romania. 

I enjoyed my liberal arts classes just as much if not more than the ones in my major. I just don't like how a liberal arts education is now a kiss of death for one's early career. Engineering and healthcare already pare back the General Ed classes severely yet those are among the few you can count on to have a decent late 20s/early 30s. So the people who know how the world works are spinning their wheels with no money while the people who are loaded up on technical details are having money thrown at them. Doesn't that seem backwards?

A reliable source at Georgetown told me that Harvard applications are down 25% since the Gay scandal.  I have no other details. This may be a one-year phenomenon; but, still, it's surprising to me.

 

In today's climate, I can see Jewish students being apprehensive attending Harvard and other institutions where students openly embrace anti-Semitism under the cloak of anti-Zionism (as if that's better), but not due to fears of employer retaliation. Just safety. 

 

The name, pedigree, connections, and endowments are still beyond peer. This will pass. The mobs will disperse. 

7 hours ago, Dougal said:

A reliable source at Georgetown told me that Harvard applications are down 25% since the Gay scandal.  I have no other details. This may be a one-year phenomenon; but, still, it's surprising to me.

 

This has been widely reported (https://www.cnn.com/2023/12/15/business/harvard-early-applications/index.html), though I'd be interested in seeing this alongside other benchmark elite schools, as well as a wider sample of institutions like top-tier public universities, before saying what those data really reveal.

 

Also remember that applications had been going up for a long time and it wasn't like Harvard was increasing its class sizes to match.  Crazy as it is to think of, there was a time, maybe 50 years ago, when Harvard took around 20% of applicants.  It's in the mid-to-low single digits now, around 4%.  But part of that has been the increase in the amount of Ivy League schools that elite students would apply to, which, in circular fashion, was driven by the knowledge among those students and their parents that acceptance rates were going down, so people would apply to all eight Ivy League schools to maximize their chances of getting into one.

 

Another thing I'd be interested in teasing out of the data is whether applications, acceptance rates, matriculation rates, and overall objective quality of matriculants increased or decreased at the schools that recently stopped participating in the USNWR college rankings.  Columbia dropped from #2 to #18 in those rankings in 2022 after admitting to goosing its data submitted, and then afterwards decided that it would no longer participate.

I'm sure graduate student enrollment at most Ivies is through the roof in that same time period. Grad school is a pure cash cow for most schools since a high graduate acceptance rate doesn't hurt schools' reputations and they use little in the way of facilities. I went from using every building (except the healthcare one) in college to 4 buildings for my first Master's then only 2 buildings for my second -- one for food and one for class.

41 minutes ago, Gramarye said:

 

This has been widely reported (https://www.cnn.com/2023/12/15/business/harvard-early-applications/index.html), though I'd be interested in seeing this alongside other benchmark elite schools, as well as a wider sample of institutions like top-tier public universities, before saying what those data really reveal.

 

I can only offer you Georgetown numbers.  Last October they were expecting 25,000 applicants for 1,600 freshman places; post-Gay scandal, the number of applicants is rising - they now don't know what to expect as a total.  

37 minutes ago, Gramarye said:

Also remember that applications had been going up for a long time and it wasn't like Harvard was increasing its class sizes to match. 

Nationwide, we should see applications going down overall over the next decade due to fewer college aged kids. Gen Z is a smaller generation than Millennials so they regardless of the pushback against college education, there will just be far fewer kids to go around. I think the short term blip of applications to elite schools will subside some and these schools will have to increase their acceptance rates due to the smaller applicant pool of students.

 

The one thing about Ivy league schools or other elite colleges is that they will always "eat" first when it comes to admitting students and meeting their numbers. 

49 minutes ago, Brutus_buckeye said:

The one thing about Ivy league schools or other elite colleges is that they will always "eat" first when it comes to admitting students and meeting their numbers. 

 

Agreed.  The most vulnerable schools are not the Ivies.  It's the private colleges with high tuition, lower endowments, and not as much prestige.  Unfortunately, there are arguably at least a few Ohio private liberal arts colleges that would meet that description, many of them in small towns in which they are significant employers by the standards of a small town.

The most significant. I mean it's gotten a little better about these towns not just being a funeral home, flower shop and antiques store but I just don't want a tiny alumni network when I want to work in an office in the city for a company and don't know anybody. 

1 hour ago, Gramarye said:

 

Agreed.  The most vulnerable schools are not the Ivies.  It's the private colleges with high tuition, lower endowments, and not as much prestige.  Unfortunately, there are arguably at least a few Ohio private liberal arts colleges that would meet that description, many of them in small towns in which they are significant employers by the standards of a small town.

 

I went to Hiram - and fortunately the school is in pretty good condition financially, but you're absolutely right. If Hiram were to go under, Hiram Township, Garretsville, and Mantua would all lose a the area's biggest direct and indirect employer. 

2 hours ago, Gramarye said:

 

Agreed.  The most vulnerable schools are not the Ivies.  It's the private colleges with high tuition, lower endowments, and not as much prestige.  Unfortunately, there are arguably at least a few Ohio private liberal arts colleges that would meet that description, many of them in small towns in which they are significant employers by the standards of a small town.

Schools like Hiram, Mt. Union,  Ohio Northern, Wooster are what concern me. Oberlin and Wittenburg will have the endowment to sustain themselves but they will still come out hurting from this because they have such a large physical plant to maintain at their respective schools. 

https://record.umich.edu/articles/u-m-adopts-statement-on-diversity-of-thought-freedom-of-speech/

 

University of Michigan (as much as I hate to say it) is taking a positive step in the free speech debate on campuses. Hopefully, this will lead to more open discourse in the future.

US College Closures Are Expected to Soar, Fed Research Says

Tue, December 3, 2024 at 7:55 AM PST 3 min read

 

(Bloomberg) -- The number of colleges that close each year is poised to significantly increase as schools contend with a slowdown in prospective students.

 

That’s the finding of a new working paper published by the Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia, where researchers created predictive models of schools’ financial distress using metrics like enrollment and staffing patterns, sources of revenue and liquidity data. They overlayed those models with simulations to estimate the likely increase of future closures.

 

Under the worst-case scenario which assumes a one-time 15% drop in prospective students — known as the “demographic cliff” — 80 additional colleges would shut, impacting more than 100,000 students and 20,880 staff members. If that student decline was spread out over five years, annual closures would tick up by 4.6 schools, the report shows.

 

MORE

Note that 100,000 affected students among 80 colleges in this scenario is 1,250 students per college.  This is consistent with what I and others were saying upthread: 

 

On 1/11/2024 at 11:44 AM, Gramarye said:

The most vulnerable schools are not the Ivies.  It's the private colleges with high tuition, lower endowments, and not as much prestige.  Unfortunately, there are arguably at least a few Ohio private liberal arts colleges that would meet that description, many of them in small towns in which they are significant employers by the standards of a small town.

 

Not likely to be a good decade ahead to be a small Ohio town anchored by a mid-tier or lower private liberal arts college.  Which is a shame, because many of those are beautiful towns with small but pleasant, walkable downtowns.  The photos section of these forums has some good montages of many of them.

I feel like a lot of those little expensive schools -- believe it or not -- attracted a lot of first-generation students. Not the "Safety Schools" but the garden-variety ones. Some of those parents knew so little about higher education that they thought those schools were like buying a luxury car and that they had to be better than "Chevrolet Ohio State" and "Ford Michigan". Then between the the parents' bad personal network, the kid's high school network and the college's tiny town their degree would slide off of the graduate like they were covered in Teflon. Back at home with Mom and Dad they wouldn't find work that suited their degree that cost 4-5X than one from a state school or they had to move so far away to actually use it they would only ever see them once every few years. A couple decades of this and people started nope-ing out of those kind of schools.

Edited December 4, 2024Dec 4 by GCrites

Covid hastened the demographic cliff's arrival in the Midwest, so we're already seeing the impacts on small privates and open access publics. Bluffton just merged with Findlay; Wright State, Akron, Shawnee State and others are way down, and will fall further. A significant number of university branch campuses, extensions, and small rural colleges are going to be under significant pressure in the next ten years. OSU, Michigan, and most MAC schools will be fine. Akron will be significantly smaller, I anticipate. Wisconsin and Pennsylvania's state systems have already started consolidating and closing campuses.  

Shawnee State is now free tuition for any student with a 3.0 in high school from within two counties away including Kentucky. 

18 hours ago, GCrites said:

Shawnee State is now free tuition for any student with a 3.0 in high school from within two counties away including Kentucky. 

That's a sign of desperation, and isn't sustainable. 

They say it's due to donations but I'm not sure that's fully funding it. WV has offered the Promise scholarship for decades for students which offers up to $5500 a year for 3.0+ students. It used to pay full tuition at WVU and Marshall but now does the $5,500 for a longer list of schools.

 

https://www.cfwv.com/financial-aid/promise-scholarship/

Hiring managers are avoiding new graduates. Here's where they are looking instead.

 

When given a choice, 37% of hiring managers surveyed by Workplace Intelligence on behalf of Hult International Business School said they would rather have a robot or AI do the job than hire a new grad. Forty-four percent said they would rather give the job to an existing freelancer instead of a new grad, and 45% would rather recruit and rehire a worker who has retired than bring on a graduate.

Thirty percent even said they would rather leave the position unfilled if the only other choice was filling it with a new grad...

 

...According to the research, 52% agree or strongly agree new college graduates don’t have the right skill sets. Additionally, 55% agree or strongly agree with the idea that new grads don’t know how to work well on a team, and 49% agree or strongly agree they have poor business etiquette...

 

...Martin Boehm, executive vice president and global dean of undergraduate programs at Hult International Business School, told The Playbook in an email that part of the problem is that the curriculum at many colleges has not changed in step with the workplace.

 

https://www.bizjournals.com/columbus/news/2025/01/14/hiring-jobs-market-ai-college-grads.html?utm_source=st&utm_medium=en&utm_campaign=me&utm_content=CO&ana=e_CO_me&j=38463315&senddate=2025-02-04&empos=p3

 

note: if you have BizJournals access in another city try changing the URL to your city.

 

I can't help but feel that some of this is that schools don't teach fads. Six Sigma isn't a fad if you're in manufacturing but was a fad everywhere else. AI might end up being a fad outside of specific situations. Remember the fad of everyone learning Python that didn't really need to? It takes too long to develop curriculum and onboard professors for fads before they fizzle out.

Edited February 4Feb 4 by GCrites

I read the whole article (somehow not paywalled, which surprised me), but I feel like it leaves out critical information, not even acknowledging obvious questions like: recent college graduates in what?

Yes I would have liked to seen that as well. Like in engineering the employers often have major direct input on what is taught but in say business they have less.

Edited February 4Feb 4 by GCrites

My daughter is in her first year at Kent State and received this today:

 

Several cultural courses will be cut beginning next week. 

Edited February 19Feb 19 by Oldmanladyluck

Backstory for those interested in more than a screencap post:

 

https://www.ynetnews.com/article/s15j11jj9ye

 

In a move that has sparked outrage among Jewish groups and pro-Israel activists, Hunter College, a publicly funded institution within the City University of New York (CUNY) system, has posted a job listing for a professorship in Palestinian Studies. The listing explicitly calls for "a historically grounded scholar who takes a critical lens to issues pertaining to Palestine including but not limited to: settler colonialism, genocide, human rights, apartheid, migration, climate and infrastructure devastation, health, race, gender and sexuality"– all within the context of Palestine.

 

...

 

The controversy surrounding the job posting is the latest in a series of antisemitism-related scandals at CUNY. In January, CUNY’s faculty union, the Professional Staff Congress, approved a resolution to divest from Israel over the war in Gaza. Following public backlash, the resolution was overturned. Similarly, past graduation ceremonies have featured speakers who delivered virulently anti-Israel speeches, further cementing CUNY’s reputation as a hotbed for anti-Zionist and antisemitic rhetoric.

 

================

 

Outrageous that it was ever posted and it's good that at least someone in the right place had the pull to get it pulled, though it would also have been fun if this guy had gotten the job: https://elderofziyon.substack.com/p/palestine-studies-instructor-sought

Hochul’s move here is profoundly racist and dehumanizing. Defining Palestinian studies as fundamentally antisemitic means defining Palestinians as something to be erased. It is genocidal. 

 

This is also an unacceptable attack on academic freedom. The governor should have no say in faculty hiring.

3 minutes ago, DarkandStormy said:

This is also an unacceptable attack on academic freedom. The governor should have no say in faculty hiring.

 

The state government of New York provides $2.1 billion annually in local assistance funding to CUNY.

 

Do you think they have no right to influence what gets taught with that money?

 

3 minutes ago, DarkandStormy said:

Hochul’s move here is profoundly racist and dehumanizing.

 

As an English major, I love getting my recommended daily allowance of irony early in the day.

Just now, DarkandStormy said:

Hochul’s move here is profoundly racist and dehumanizing. Defining Palestinian studies as fundamentally antisemitic means defining Palestinians as something to be erased. It is genocidal. 

 

This is also an unacceptable attack on academic freedom. The governor should have no say in faculty hiring.

 

It's a publicly funded university.    If the people paying the bills don't have a say, who does?

 

Ynet can be counted out to post it in the most negative way possible (they are a mouthpiece of the radical "settler" movement) but it doesn't sound like their is a positive here if the description of the listing is remotely accurate.

 

There's a ton of ironic history here.   CCNY was heavily Jewish while other institutions were openly discriminatory.

5 hours ago, Gramarye said:

 

The state government of New York provides $2.1 billion annually in local assistance funding to CUNY.

 

Do you think they have no right to influence what gets taught with that money?

 

 

As an English major, I love getting my recommended daily allowance of irony early in the day.

 

When you can't discuss a point, resort to ad hominem.

 

This is, I think, crossing into Current Events territory, so I'll refrain from any further replies here so as to comply with forum rules.

6 hours ago, Gramarye said:

Backstory for those interested in more than a screencap post:

 

https://www.ynetnews.com/article/s15j11jj9ye

 

In a move that has sparked outrage among Jewish groups and pro-Israel activists, Hunter College, a publicly funded institution within the City University of New York (CUNY) system, has posted a job listing for a professorship in Palestinian Studies. The listing explicitly calls for "a historically grounded scholar who takes a critical lens to issues pertaining to Palestine including but not limited to: settler colonialism, genocide, human rights, apartheid, migration, climate and infrastructure devastation, health, race, gender and sexuality"– all within the context of Palestine.

 

...

 

The controversy surrounding the job posting is the latest in a series of antisemitism-related scandals at CUNY. In January, CUNY’s faculty union, the Professional Staff Congress, approved a resolution to divest from Israel over the war in Gaza. Following public backlash, the resolution was overturned. Similarly, past graduation ceremonies have featured speakers who delivered virulently anti-Israel speeches, further cementing CUNY’s reputation as a hotbed for anti-Zionist and antisemitic rhetoric.

 

================

 

Outrageous that it was ever posted and it's good that at least someone in the right place had the pull to get it pulled, though it would also have been fun if this guy had gotten the job: https://elderofziyon.substack.com/p/palestine-studies-instructor-sought

Accurately describing the behavior of the state of Israel is not anti-Semitic. 

2 hours ago, Boomerang_Brian said:

Accurately describing the behavior of the state of Israel is not anti-Semitic. 

Agreed. 
 

Of course that doesn’t remotely describe that propaganda session offering college credit on the taxpayer dime. 

15 hours ago, Boomerang_Brian said:

Accurately describing the behavior of the state of Israel is not anti-Semitic. 

 

It is not.   I recall having this conversation years ago on Free Republic discussing the behavior of the radical "settlers".

 

However, actual support for Hamas crosses that line.  Any condoning of the events of October 7th crosses that line.

two out of three ain't bad --

 

 

 

September 23, 2024 10:05 AM

 

Tri-C, LCCC see fall enrollment gains while Lakeland's struggles continue

 

JOE SCALZO

 

paywalled:

https://www.crainscleveland.com/education/tri-c-lorain-county-community-college-grow-enrollment

On 2/26/2025 at 11:33 AM, E Rocc said:

 

It's a publicly funded university.    If the people paying the bills don't have a say, who does?

 

Ynet can be counted out to post it in the most negative way possible (they are a mouthpiece of the radical "settler" movement) but it doesn't sound like their is a positive here if the description of the listing is remotely accurate.

 

There's a ton of ironic history here.   CCNY was heavily Jewish while other institutions were openly discriminatory.

I just learned from a colleague in education that the state of Ohio is now requiring a pre-packaged "science of reading" curriculum to be taught to all teacher education students, and the faculty will be observed and their online class activity monitored to make sure they keep to the prescribed curriculum. Having course requirements is one thing, but to get that deep into faculty teaching - particularly when the state is forcing one particular kind of reading pedagogy on academics, at the risk of shutting down their entire education program - is another example of that overreach.