Once upon this time in a major university, close, close by
I don’t know how to best express this: either as a fairy tale for adults or a dark and minatory Kafakesque tale. But in a major university on the East Coast, one may register for the ‘upper level’ course Shakespeare, the prerequiste being a “D” in freshman English. This means that a senior,can register for the course, having just gotten by with a ‘D’ in freshman English three years ago, with no literary studies of any kind in between. English majors constitute about 1% of the undergraduate student body, and 0% of the Masters and doctoral students. Do you think this is a means of keeping English teachers in employed?
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June 17th, 2006 at 6:48 am
in it that old adage, that those that can, do, and those that can’t, teach. And with tenure being what it is, I guess there are still lecturers still going now that were first appointed in the 60’s when liberal arts colleges were still places of excellence.
One good trick to get round tenure though, is just to shut the whole department down. Successfully used here in Australian Universities.
Cheers
June 17th, 2006 at 9:00 am
Very astute comment, although some humanities aficianados might not like it. I’m sure that if there were no political fallout, some college Presidents would do just that: close down the department. I’d be interested to learn which universities in Australia have done so.