Terrifying times in academia. I was just telling someone yesterday that I had long imagined my eventual "next chapter" should I ever retire from my current career as a high school teacher would be to pursue a Ph.D., having already earned two Master's degrees, one in my twenties and one, after several years in the workforce, in my thirties. Now in my early fifties, though, I cannot imagine returning to academia, which seems to have turned into a hellscape of threats to academic freedom and free speech from both right and left.
In most fields of endeavor including the private, government and not-for-profit sectors, there is a limit to how much meddling "senior management" can do before the job does not get done. Where is that limit in academe? Can prospective undergraduate students comparison shop based on the level of academic freedom at a particular college or university? It would seem that most prospective students are channeled, for better or worse, into the home state university system regardless of quality perceived or real.
Terrifying times in academia. I was just telling someone yesterday that I had long imagined my eventual "next chapter" should I ever retire from my current career as a high school teacher would be to pursue a Ph.D., having already earned two Master's degrees, one in my twenties and one, after several years in the workforce, in my thirties. Now in my early fifties, though, I cannot imagine returning to academia, which seems to have turned into a hellscape of threats to academic freedom and free speech from both right and left.
In most fields of endeavor including the private, government and not-for-profit sectors, there is a limit to how much meddling "senior management" can do before the job does not get done. Where is that limit in academe? Can prospective undergraduate students comparison shop based on the level of academic freedom at a particular college or university? It would seem that most prospective students are channeled, for better or worse, into the home state university system regardless of quality perceived or real.