You apparently take the ground that a modern university is a personally conducted institution like a factory, John Dewey wrote, in 1915, to the editorial board of the NYT. But the modern university is in every respect, save its legal management, a public institution with public responsibilities. [Faculty] have been trained to think of the pursuit and expression of truth as a public function to be exercised on behalf of the interests of their moral employer -- society as a whole ... They will be content, for their own protection, with any system which protects the relation of the modern university to the public as a whole. It doesnt seem to me that the interest of the people of Maine is part of the calculations of this budgetary bloodbath in any way; Im certainly not able to think of how layoffs which threaten to force students to take many extra years just to fulfill the requirements for a degree because of insufficient staffing makes UMS more, in the Chancellors phrase, efficient. This is the discussion we, as Mainers, need to be having, or we, as USM faculty, staff, and administration (not to mention the representatives in government) are failing the people of our state.
Posted on: Sat, 08 Mar 2014 17:11:40 +0000
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