Real Goddamned Mail. Geography Edition.

• I lurve the new header. It's actually a view I have out my office window here at Xxxxxx University. It's rare to see it uncrowded, even in the summertime.
• I teach at Xxxxxx College and was glad to see you used a photo from our campus in the header.
• I have sat right at that those tables. They're in the lower quad here at Xxxxxxx State University. Of course I've been bonked on the head with a frisbee from time to time, but it's a great place to while away office hours.
• You must have copied a photo from my college website (Northern Xxxxxxxx University) for your new  header. That's a spot I pass by once a day or so as I walk to class. It's a beautiful spot and I always wish I had a little picnic basket instead of my goddamned briefcase.

Mod Note: The photo in the header is not from any of the four campuses named above.

RYS Flashback. Four Years Ago.

"The Beauty of our Weapons." One of Our Chief Correspondents Waxes on Consumerism, Online Courses, and Leonard Cohen.

I clearly remember the first time a student suggested to me that he was my employer, that he “paid my salary” with his tuition. I responded by noting that in all likelihood his mommy and daddy were my employers, not him, but that even if he was paying his own tuition, he had the relationship wrong. “You may think of yourself as the CEO if it makes you feel better,” I said, “but I’m not one of your employees because you can’t fire me – at least not directly. Better to think of me as a consultant hired to tell you why your company is tanking.”

What’s the big problem that fills me with anxiety even during the summer? I’m pretty much in tune with the correspondent who wrote the “old saw” post, though my take is more abstract: American higher education reflects the values of American society and those values are largely consumerist. Which is to say, anti-intellectual. On the other hand, most professors in the sciences, humanities, and social sciences value intellectual effort, if not always for its own sake, for reasons that go beyond the consumerist model of education. We think ideas and knowledge are important, not just because one can turn a profit with them, but because one can use ideas and knowledge to think about the world and understand it. But the whole purpose of consumer culture is to anesthetize one to ideas.