Worth of Academia/Liberal Arts

[JaPo]

It's funny, that with as much experience I have as both a professor and a student, I have never experienced this caricature you are describing concerning Literature courses. I've heard people repeat it, but I've never seen it.

"Every argument is acceptable" I've never even heard a student say this, much less an educator. It goes against almost everything we believe in from a pedagogical level. The entire point of the writing and analytical reading process is to analyze the validity and strength of arguments.

I'm sorry that you got such a terrible education, wherever it was. I would say that maybe my experiences have been skewed because I graduated from, and have taught at top 5-10 universities, but I have also taught at community and state colleges and I still haven't seen what you are describing.

This. It's quite a weak characterisation on panamaican's part. English taught at the top colleges and universities is thoroughly legitimate. Indeed, I would say many of the 'Liberal Arts' are extremely well developed and fairly assessed even if they turn out to be of little use in the job market. Admission to an English degree at Cambridge, for example, is not easy to achieve and neither is graduation with a First or even 2:1 qualification. I am also inclined to agree with you on your criticism of Uchi Mata's 4 points and have noticed the very same trends on these boards.

 

[SammyPops]

Are liberal arts in the US the same as social sciences?

One can get a great job with social sciences: teaching, law, solid white collar jobs such as HR or administration in both private and public sector.

 

[panamaican]

It's funny, that with as much experience I have as both a professor and a student, I have never experienced this caricature you are describing concerning Literature courses. I've heard people repeat it, but I've never seen it.

"Every argument is acceptable" I've never even heard a student say this, much less an educator. It goes against almost everything we believe in from a pedagogical level. The entire point of the writing and analytical reading process is to analyze the validity and strength of arguments.

I'm sorry that you got such a terrible education, wherever it was. I would say that maybe my experiences have been skewed because I graduated from, and have taught at top 5-10 universities, but I have also taught at community and state colleges and I still haven't seen what you are describing.

I'm pretty comfortable with my education.

I'm sorry that you don't believe in anything that you haven't seen first hand. It must make for a strange world where you out of hand minimize other's people personal experiences because you weren't there when they experienced them.

Then again perhaps because you are a liberal arts major your perspective is skewed. I was referencing the system in comparison to courses like computer science or chemistry. But if you've spent your entire academic career in liberal arts then these practices probably strike you as normal.

 

[panamaican]

This. It's quite a weak characterisation on panamaican's part. English taught at the top colleges and universities is thoroughly legitimate. Indeed, I would say many of the 'Liberal Arts' are extremely well developed and fairly assessed even if they turn out to be of little use in the job market. Admission to an English degree at Cambridge, for example, is not easy to achieve and neither is graduation with a First or even 2:1 qualification. I am also inclined to agree with you on your criticism of Uchi Mata's 4 points and have noticed the very same trends on these boards.

I never said they weren't legitimate, I said I disagreed with how they were implemented.

For a couple of guys bashing the critical analysis skills of others, you're missing the point I was making regarding the subjectivity of the grading. Specifically, that while there may be a plurality of answers, said plurality does not always leave space for an student's unique take on the work when it comes time for grading. They teach a series of skills for subjective analysis but there's also the expectation that said analysis will yield certain types of responses and when the response presented falls outside those expectations then you run into the possibility of subjective grading.

But as I also said, I'll cede the argument to those with more experience than myself. I've only taken a handful of liberal arts courses in my life (depending on how you look at law school course work) so I'll never imply that I'm an expert on these subjects at the highest levels.

 

[trainharder]

Yes, I have read Allan Bloom. I agree with him that the humanities have been driven down a bad path. I believe its mainly due to the invasion of identity politics.

I have an arts degree in general studies and I can't get a job with it. I'm going to go to a technical school and take a 2 year program so I can get a decent job.

You just have to believe man.

 

[Workers United]

I'm pretty comfortable with my education.

I'm sorry that you don't believe in anything that you haven't seen first hand. It must make for a strange world where you out of hand minimize other's people personal experiences because you weren't there when they experienced them.

Then again perhaps because you are a liberal arts major your perspective is skewed. I was referencing the system in comparison to courses like computer science or chemistry. But if you've spent your entire academic career in liberal arts then these practices probably strike you as normal.

Serious question. How did you draw this response from my post? I never said I don't believe it necessarily. I just said I hadn't seen it. And I've attended three different universities as a student and have taught at about 6-7.

I've been to about 25 conferences in literature/humanities/social sciences and attended at least 40 panels relating specifically pedagogy in the humanities. So yes, it's just my personal experience, but my personal experience is pretty vast.

Not all anecdotal experience based beliefs are the same, after all.

I'm not like most in these types of threads who have attended 1 second rate university and then proclaim to experts on what's going on in universities concerning the humanities and "identity studies" which is a phrase I've never heard before except here.

Or in some cases, have never attended a university but proclaim to know all about them.

 

[Workers United]

I never said they weren't legitimate, I said I disagreed with how they were implemented.

For a couple of guys bashing the critical analysis skills of others, you're missing the point I was making regarding the subjectivity of the grading. Specifically, that while there may be a plurality of answers, said plurality does not always leave space for an student's unique take on the work when it comes time for grading. They teach a series of skills for subjective analysis but there's also the expectation that said analysis will yield certain types of responses and when the response presented falls outside those expectations then you run into the possibility of subjective grading.

But as I also said, I'll cede the argument to those with more experience than myself. I've only taken a handful of liberal arts courses in my life (depending on how you look at law school course work) so I'll never imply that I'm an expert on these subjects at the highest levels.

You of all people should know that there's a large amount of subjectivity when it comes to grading for most fields. Even in fields like the sciences and math I hear there's plenty of subjectivity involved with lab assignments, fellowships. etc.

Lets get specific though, what types of responses do you see not getting a fair shake?

Heck I'm a commie, and I've probably graded about 10,000 papers in my teaching career and have only had a handful of complaints.

So lets get more specific and see if we can figure this out.

 

[panamaican]

Serious question. How did you draw this response from my post? I never said I don't believe it necessarily. I just said I hadn't seen it. And I've attended three different universities as a student and have taught at about 6-7.

I've been to about 25 conferences in literature/humanities/social sciences and attended at least 40 panels relating specifically pedagogy in the humanities. So yes, it's just my personal experience, but my personal experience is pretty vast.

Not all anecdotal experience based beliefs are the same, after all.

I'm not like most in these types of threads who have attended 1 second rate university and then proclaim to experts on what's going on in universities concerning the humanities and "identity studies" which is a phrase I've never heard before except here.

Or in some cases, have never attended a university but proclaim to know all about them.

Well, if you're intending to address those who've only attended second rate universities you should skip my posts.

And I draw my response from your decision to use the following phrase: "I'm sorry you got such a terrible education..." coupled with the previous description of my experiences as a "caricature". They combine to give the impression that you are minimizing my experience because, in your august career, you've never personally seen what I was describing.

Hillraiser disagreed with my post but he had the decency to frame his response in the context that perhaps I was drawing conclusions from the experience that were biased by my other academic experiences. Your response lacked even the attempt to respond to the experience itself and directed itself to a poorly veiled attack on the validity of the recollection (caricature) or the academic merits of the individual recounting said experience (terrible education).

I'll try to provide an analogy, hopefully you're open-minded enough to read it. There are people getting shitty legal educations. I personally have not had their experience. I've been to many competitions, attended conferences, etc. and never ran across anyone who had said experience or claims to teach in a fashion that fosters such an experience. But I'm not arrogant enough to dismiss the multiple claims by people that such experiences are occurring. Anyone who's taken a law school class knows just how subjective the experience can be and the extent to which the professor can shape the grading criteria. I've had bad professors with Ivy League educations so it's not a leap of logic to assume that in places where the professors aren't as qualified that a bad professor can both exist and be notably worse than anything I've experienced. Consider that and then apply it to the liberal arts before deciding that experiences that don't mirror yours must be "caricatures".

 

[Workers United]

Well, if you're intending to address those who've only attended second rate universities you should skip my posts.

And I draw my response from your decision to use the following phrase: "I'm sorry you got such a terrible education..." coupled with the previous description of my experiences as a "caricature". They combine to give the impression that you are minimizing my experience because, in your august career, you've never personally seen what I was describing.

Hillraiser disagreed with my post but he had the decency to frame his response in the context that perhaps I was drawing conclusions from the experience that were biased by my other academic experiences. Your response lacked even the attempt to respond to the experience itself and directed itself to a poorly veiled attack on the validity of the recollection (caricature) or the academic merits of the individual recounting said experience (terrible education).

I'll try to provide an analogy, hopefully you're open-minded enough to read it. There are people getting shitty legal educations. I personally have not had their experience. I've been to many competitions, attended conferences, etc. and never ran across anyone who had said experience or claims to teach in a fashion that fosters such an experience. But I'm not arrogant enough to dismiss the multiple claims by people that such experiences are occurring. Anyone who's taken a law school class knows just how subjective the experience can be and the extent to which the professor can shape the grading criteria. I've had bad professors with Ivy League educations so it's not a leap of logic to assume that in places where the professors aren't as qualified that a bad professor can both exist and be notably worse than anything I've experienced. Consider that and then apply it to the liberal arts before deciding that experiences that don't mirror yours must be "caricatures".

I should have been specific. I mean you got a terrible education as far as the humanities.

The situation you described, however, is directly in line with what has become a caricature account of humanities education. Particularly, it is used by talking heads and ideologues in order to dismiss the humanities. It's been repeated over and over with very little variation in form. Were you not aware of this?

So even if it happened exactly as you describe, you should be aware that such a narrative has taken the life of a cartoon caricature of a literature course. If you weren't already aware of this, I don't know what to tell you especially when it's been repeated on this very board by people, some of whom have admitted to never taking a college course in their lives.

 

[panamaican]

You of all people should know that there's a large amount of subjectivity when it comes to grading for most fields. Even in fields like the sciences and math I hear there's plenty of subjectivity involved with lab assignments, fellowships. etc.

Lets get specific though, what types of responses do you see not getting a fair shake?

Heck I'm a commie, and I've probably graded about 10,000 papers in my teaching career and have only had a handful of complaints.

So lets get more specific and see if we can figure this out.

It's specific to the professor and the subject in question, you can't broad brush it.

To use a less common experience and one where I did just fine grade-wise to avoid the perception of sour grapes. I once took a class on Blaxploitation film. There were certainly tools required for proper analysis of film and these were expected to be applied in the papers we wrote but depending on students individual backgrounds that analysis could yield different responses. My take away as a first generation American greatly differed from that of other first gen Americans because my dad had been an active black panther, and commie at one point, so he had given me perspectives on many of these films that weren't brought up in the course discussions. I learned from the discussions and the grades classmates received that certain perspectives fell outside what the professor felt we should have gleaned from a particular film, even if that perspective was a true reflection of what the student perceived.

 

[panamaican]

I should have been specific. I mean you got a terrible education as far as the humanities.

The situation you described, however, is directly in line with what has become a caricature account of humanities education. Particularly, it is used by talking heads and ideologues in order to dismiss the humanities. It's been repeated over and over with very little variation in form. Were you not aware of this?

So even if it happened exactly as you describe, you should be aware that such a narrative has taken the life of a cartoon caricature of a literature course. If you weren't already aware of this, I don't know what to tell you especially when it's been repeated on this very board by people, some of whom have admitted to never taking a college course in their lives.

Perhaps it's become a caricature because it is more prevalent than you'd like to accept?

Perhaps the humanities have become exactly what people are lampooning. And the only people who don't see it or do anything about it are the people within it's exclusive walls convincing themselves and each other that there's nothing wrong.

You saw the same thing in the legal industry where for years the education became less and less valuable to new graduates but it wasn't until the recession hit and law grads found their educations worthless for getting a job or for hanging a shingle that people within academia start being more critical about what they were actually teaching and how they were teaching it.

 

[Workers United]

It's specific to the professor and the subject in question, you can't broad brush it.

To use a less common experience and one where I did just fine grade-wise to avoid the perception of sour grapes. I once took a class on Blaxploitation film. There were certainly tools required for proper analysis of film and these were expected to be applied in the papers we wrote but depending on students individual backgrounds that analysis could yield different responses. My take away as a first generation American greatly differed from that of other first gen Americans because my dad had been an active black panther, and commie at one point, so he had given me perspectives on many of these films that weren't brought up in the course discussions. I learned from the discussions and the grades classmates received that certain perspectives fell outside what the professor felt we should have gleaned from a particular film, even if that perspective was a true reflection of what the student perceived.

I personally don't grade on what "true reflections of what a student perceived" but ok fair enough.

I can't really continue the conversation without more specifics, because it depends on the movie, etc.

There are limits to "Well this is what I think is important"

For example one time a student complained because I gave him a C on a report about South Africa. The paper was adequately written, at best, but he didn't even mention apartheid. Now even if he may not have thought it was important to mention apartheid, his paper should have at least addressed it.

It might be the same thing with the blaxploitation films. Some films do come from specific contexts and had pretty clear messages. One doesn't have to agree with the message, but to perhaps not acknowledge it is shitty scholarship regardless of personal opinion.

 

[Workers United]

Perhaps it's become a caricature because it is more prevalent than you'd like to accept?

Perhaps the humanities have become exactly what people are lampooning. And the only people who don't see it or do anything about it are the people within it's exclusive walls convincing themselves and each other that there's nothing wrong.

You saw the same thing in the legal industry where for years the education became less and less valuable to new graduates but it wasn't until the recession hit and law grads found their educations worthless for getting a job or for hanging a shingle that people within academia start being more critical about what they were actually teaching and how they were teaching it.

We do plenty of self-critique in the humanities, which is another one of our qualities that separate us from different fields. We are always talking about the state of the humanities. Now, granted, I'm talking about the circles I am in so I may be blind to what's going on in other universities. If this type of education you described is widespread, yet outside of my radar, that's sad. It's sad because that means there's no oversight there, and I might be forced to tell students to only attend the Ivies and the Public Ivies.

I'll start believing its more prevalent when people with actual extensive experience in the Humanities start talking more about it. I mean it doesn't bode well when the talking heads of this board, talk radio, and news TV are right in line with your account.

It's an obvious attack against the Humanities, in part, because the humanities is one of the last areas of knowledge that contain the critical capacity to counter forms of political oppression and corruption. Almost every other field has completely sold out because they require corporate funding to operate. Political Science has become just a stepping stone for those working in and around politicians. The hard sciences have shifted towards corporate interests, etc. It's sad. The sciences used to be buddies with us, now they just go for the money. They've allowed a capitalist logic to infiltrate their thinking.

 

[Uchi Mata]

On that list, why is it that the business and science majors on this board are the worst at #1 and #4, and furthermore even lack the ability to realize they aren't good at them. That lack of self-awareness might be a clue to what makes liberal arts study so crucial.

My experience has been that almost all people are terrible writers, and few are skilled at breaking down arguments and evaluating their underlying logic regardless of academic discipline. Rhetoric in general is largely ignored in university as far as I can tell which is unfortunate as it's a very valuable body of knowledge from a practical standpoint.

 

[panamaican]

I personally don't grade on what "true reflections of what a student perceived" but ok fair enough.

I can't really continue the conversation without more specifics, because it depends on the movie, etc.

There are limits to "Well this is what I think is important"

For example one time a student complained because I gave him a C on a report about South Africa. The paper was adequately written, at best, but he didn't even mention apartheid. Now even if he may not have thought it was important to mention apartheid, his paper should have at least addressed it.

It might be the same thing with the blaxploitation films. Some films do come from specific contexts and had pretty clear messages. One doesn't have to agree with the message, but to perhaps not acknowledge it is shitty scholarship regardless of personal opinion.

And I wouldn't disagree with that. In law school, we call it issue spotting. You're expected to spot the issues and then analyze them.

If the problem is solely at the level where the student isn't even spotting issues then of course, that student's grade should reflect that shortcoming. But if the problem is one of analysis, it's a harder thing to pin down.

Part of why I object to what I see as minimization on your part ("terrible education" and caricatures), is that you're erroneously assuming that what people are complaining about is not addressing apartheid when they're really complaining about addressing apartheid but reaching conclusions that differ from the professor's preferred conclusions.

Note, I'm not implying an ideological bend from the professors. The professor can be ideologically neutral and still have predetermined expectations as to what a student should take from something. And while that may be well and good for that professor's classroom since the student must write in such a way as to please the professor, it also encourages a kind of groupthink I don't agree with.

You take a piece of classical literature and some professors will emphasize one interpretation over another. The student learns to parrot that interpretation to maximize their grade outcomes. Then they see the same book in another class with a different professor and a different emphasis and they parrot that interpretation to maximize their grade in that class. So they're taking these supposedly subjective analytical skills but being required to apply them in a stringent fashion to maximize their grades.

And maybe this ceases to be an issue as people pursue master's degrees and phd's in the humanities but the majority of people aren't going to. They're going to take a handful of classes as they finish up their actual majors. Or they'll go no further than bachelor's level work.

 

[Uchi Mata]

We do plenty of self-critique in the humanities, which is another one of our qualities that separate us from different fields. We are always talking about the state of the humanities. Now, granted, I'm talking about the circles I am in so I may be blind to what's going on in other universities. If this type of education you described is widespread, yet outside of my radar, that's sad. It's sad because that means there's no oversight there, and I might be forced to tell students to only attend the Ivies and the Public Ivies.

I'll start believing its more prevalent when people with actual extensive experience in the Humanities start talking more about it. I mean it doesn't bode well when the talking heads of this board, talk radio, and news TV are right in line with your account.

It's an obvious attack against the Humanities, in part, because the humanities is one of the last areas of knowledge that contain the critical capacity to counter forms of political oppression and corruption. Almost every other field has completely sold out because they require corporate funding to operate. Political Science has become just a stepping stone for those working in and around politicians. The hard sciences have shifted towards corporate interests, etc. It's sad. The sciences used to be buddies with us, now they just go for the money. They've allowed a capitalist logic to infiltrate their thinking.

I think you're overestimating the level to which entrenched power fears knowledge. Academia including the humanities is just not taken that seriously in the US these days. Look at the people who pass for public intellectuals:

http://www.foreignpolicy.com/2013_global_thinkers/public/

Most of them are politicians, businesspeople, or religious leaders and the academics on the list are mostly economists. You might get the occasional Noam Chomsky or Peter Singer, but they're hugely divisive and even the people who take them seriously probably couldn't give you an accurate rundown of their views. We're pretty far removed from the days when people like Milton Friedman, John Rawls, or Henry Kissinger were common topics of conversation.

Rather, I think the denigration of the humanities is almost completely practical in the sense that people in positions of power see much less value in their study than they did in the past. I think the narrative that the US is falling behind other nations in terms of practical education (e.g. STEM) is such a powerful one that politicians and adminstrators are inclined to put what resources exist towards improving education in those fields while squeezing what they see as useless and decadent humanities departments.

 

[panamaican]

We do plenty of self-critique in the humanities, which is another one of our qualities that separate us from different fields. We are always talking about the state of the humanities. Now, granted, I'm talking about the circles I am in so I may be blind to what's going on in other universities. If this type of education you described is widespread, yet outside of my radar, that's sad. It's sad because that means there's no oversight there, and I might be forced to tell students to only attend the Ivies and the Public Ivies.

I'll start believing its more prevalent when people with actual extensive experience in the Humanities start talking more about it. I mean it doesn't bode well when the talking heads of this board, talk radio, and news TV are right in line with your account.

It's an obvious attack against the Humanities, in part, because the humanities is one of the last areas of knowledge that contain the critical capacity to counter forms of political oppression and corruption. Almost every other field has completely sold out because they require corporate funding to operate. Political Science has become just a stepping stone for those working in and around politicians. The hard sciences have shifted towards corporate interests, etc. It's sad. The sciences used to be buddies with us, now they just go for the money. They've allowed a capitalist logic to infiltrate their thinking.

To again make the law school comparison - perhaps the problem is exactly the Ivies.

The problem with legal education stemmed from the Ivies where the students could afford to engage in highly theoretical debate because the name on their degree ensured employment. But to some student in a Tier 3 law school where practical skills are more important, heavily theoretical debate could be counterproductive.

There's a oft repeated claim that professors have little insight into the real world preferring to bandy ideas back and forth with each other, within the ivory tower, rather than engaging with those who must rely on the application of their teachings. Publishing obscure critiques of Shakespeare's plays for each other rather than writing fiction intended for the public. Self-aggrandizement of the intellectual variety.

As to your last paragraph - the humanities don't require 3rd party funding to operate? When did they rise above the economics of every other academic field?

 

[WorldofWarcraft]

if college just becomes about helping people more successfully enter the job market, then is basically becomes trade school. which we do need more of, but there should always still be places to enrich the mind.

Enrich the mind? We have the internet now, which is like a university times infinity.

 

[alexdlrg]

I would say you are brushing with to broad of brush, when it come to calculus. It is the main math disciple (alongside statistics) when it come to economic or financial analysis.

That may be true. I didn't study economics or financial analysis. However, I think an understanding of statistics is more important than calculus for most people. We have some kind of an innate sense for calculus which allows us to drive a car and catch a ball without being able to solve calculus problems in a book.

On the other hand, statistics are consistently misunderstood and misrepresented in our daily lives, and we don't have an innate ability to detect when people are using statistics to manipulate us. It's been said "'There are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies, and statistics." However, people educated in statistical reasoning can't be lied to so easily, and that's very important in the modern world.

I say this as an engineer who took more courses in calculus than statistics.

 

[Devout Pessimist]

As a second point, the specific video you linked is to a cross-ex debate, which is a form of policy debate. The complete mess that policy debate is often takes the form of identity politics, but exists independently - you basically just have to have to be brainwashed in a very specific ideology, and use that to construct as many arguments as possible. I knew a guy (now a tax attorney) who was one of the top policy debators in the country. He spewed in a similar way, except his policy construct of choice was german idealism. In other words, it's another situation where endemic problems aren't caused by identity politics, but do give it a platform.

Red= Fixed

Yellow= What is this person's name who you claim participated in these bullshit debates and is now a top policy debater?

That style of debate is a bunch of bullshit. You can try to justify that nonsense until you are blue in the face but from what I can hear its a bunch of useless noise. The fact that you are making a poor attempt to interpret what is going on is laughable at best.

Take a breath, watch the video I have posted and then just admit people speed reading, hyperventalating, rapping, using racial slurs and swearing is not debate, its a bunch of random nonsensical bullshit.

"Yet the fool speaks many words"
-Ecclesiastes 10:14

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