Monday Magic in February

When was the last time a student's actions made you feel delight?

Police break up "riot" near West Virginia University that school says started as "playful time in the snow" [cbsnews.com]

Police called an incident Friday near West Virginia University a "riot" after the crowd began throwing glass bottles and rocks at officers. . . .

Spruce Street is an absolute war zone right now! #VivaWV #StayStrongSpruce pic.twitter.com/8dL3JpQ1my

— WVU Barstool (@WVUBarstool) February 1, 2019

Working class ‘increasingly excluded’ from German academia [Times Higher Education]

The flava:
The professoriate has become closed off to people from lower social backgrounds as increased competition for academic jobs favours the middle classes, according to a study from Germany.

The German professoriate of the 1970s was disproportionately made up of graduates from humble backgrounds as their more privileged peers chose other career paths.

Yet by the 2000s, this had reversed.

The article:
https://www.timeshighereducation.com/news/working-class-increasingly-excluded-german-academia

An Adjunct Instructor’s Final Syllabus [nytimes]

Res ipsa loquitur, in so many ways.

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/01/18/opinion/sunday/adjunct-instructor-syllabus.html

Read this before signing up for an online college course [marketwatch.com]

The flava:
Online courses aren’t living up to their promise to disrupt higher education.

That’s one conclusion from a pair of studies released this week analyzing trends and outcomes of different types of online learning opportunities.

The first, which focused on Massive Open Online Courses, or MOOCs, offered by Harvard University and MIT, found that the majority of students taking these courses don’t return after their first year, that participation in the programs is largely concentrated in affluent countries and that the courses’ low completion rate hasn’t budged much in six years.

The second, a review of research on the outcomes of fully-online degree programs, found that on average, these programs have actually contributed to widening educational attainment gaps between well-off and low-income students without improving affordability.

The article:
https://www.marketwatch.com/story/read-this-before-signing-up-for-an-online-college-course-2019-01-18

11-year-old Louisiana prodigy heads to college [KTVE]

"What Is a University Without a History Major?" [nytimes.com]

The flava:
Chancellor Bernie Patterson’s message to his campus was blunt: To remain solvent and relevant, his 125-year-old university needed to reinvent itself. . . . The University of Wisconsin-Stevens Point, Dr. Patterson explained in a memo, could “no longer be all things to all people.”

The article:
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/01/12/us/rural-colleges-money-students-leaving.html

Back when Ron Suskind first wrote a book.

Does it make you feel old that it's been more than twenty years since A Hope in the Unseen was published?  Did you read it?  Was it an archetype?

Krabby Kathy submits a proclamation.

I just looked at the Transparent Cal website to get my ass in gear to get out of adjunct teaching.  That website shows the salaries of California state employees.  I felt angry and resentful in November about my low income, and then school ended and my relief calmed the resentment...until I applied for unemployment.  I had my unemployment interview on 12/28 (applied 12/07), and EDD "had to call the school" to see if I was lying.  So I'm still waiting.  The unemployment money has to pay for February bills.  I bet my department chair at $111K a year has none of these worries.  I am over 50, female, and white, and I am now training to be a truck driver to get out of adjunct hell.  I figure if I have to drive all over, I want to get paid for it.
 
--Krabby Kathy

Some colleges win. Some colleges lose.

The shuffling continues, as predicted.