He launched into 20 minutes straight of what happened at the HECC (Higher Education Coordinating Council, prounounced "heck) meeting and how it wasn't quite as dire as what Tom told me but still pretty bad. Apparently the scoop is that the colleges have identified the departments that don't have at least 5 majors every year and targetted them for cuts or elimination. But nothing has happened yet. It seems odd they would use an absolute number rather than a percentage since the enrollments by school differ wildly. Five students in a student population of 5000 is a lot different from five in 30,000. Anyway, it looks like the philosophy department at his school is on the chopping block. The sacrificial lamb to the state budget weenies who know next to nothing about education but lots about bean counting.
Why do I care? I never did well in philosophy. In fact I only took one course and met the rest of the requirement by taking theology. But after talking with Larry many coffee mornings, I''ve gleaned quite a bit. Stuff I learned elsewhere like ethics and critical reasoning are the meat and potatoes of philosophy. So, like if nobody majors in it we shouldn't teach it? There is a flaw in that thought somewhere. So we train everybody to be little computer programmers and bean counters and biotechnicians without ever teaching them ethics or critical reasoning or anything about thinking about life. Everybody gets a cost effective trade school education. If you buy that reasoning, the entire liberal arts curriculum is unnecessary. Well, maybe it is. I don't know.
So Larry goes on an on about the academic politics at his school and then asks me if I'm interested in applying for the job of Director of Computer Services there as they finally realized they need somebody with technical as well as administrative skills for the job. He's gonna bring me the job description, but I can't imagine that I'd thrive in it. Of course, in fantasy if I worked there I could make a really dramatic statement by resigning when they delete the philosophy department :-)