A perennial jockshop joke on this blog, CMU is shutting down the academic apparatus of the school to put on football games no one attends. Faculty is too expensive there, which creates a drag on the school’s sports subsidy.
Explaining this to professors and students in an open forum is certainly a challenge, but UD finds CMU’s approach to it impressive and instructive (pay attention, Rutgers).
1. Provide a safe house for the president [“CMU President George Ross was not in attendance.”]. A popular variant of this is to have the president attend, but be sure she has just been appointed the most recent of twelve or so interim presidents in the last three or four years. This allows the president to be there, but to explain in answer to all questions that she doesn’t know anything.
2. In their answer to all questions, administrators in charge of the public meeting must never use the phrase “student education,” and instead always use the phrase “student experience.” The adjectives holistic, organic, comprehensive, all-around, full, multifaceted, diverse and community may precede the phrase.
3. Constant references to the infinite delicate complexity of the budget are a must; the audience must be made to understand that a vanished faculty and behemoth empty stadiums and a president who presides over this outcome always getting raises are all, according to the math, budget imperatives that keep the university in glowing health.
April 23rd, 2017 at 9:43PM
if you look closely at the marketing for kid’s theme parks, it also stresses ‘experiencing’ the wonder of the joint. apparently, uni shills and pr hacks decided potential admits aren’t anymore discerning at 19/20 than they were at 7/8…..
April 24th, 2017 at 5:27AM
My local Podunk Tech has associate VPs for, er, uh, both student experience and student success. The student success slot may be code for heir apparent to the current president.
April 25th, 2017 at 9:22PM
jack, years ago i read a book where the author wrote that american has become one giant pigeon drop scheme. and it has, most especially with unis. students/taxpayers are the pigeons, persuaded to give up their money for the promise of a greater payoff, if they just go along with the plan. alas, no payoff, your money is gone, the con keeps rolling, and the marks can’t figure out how they got rooked….