Here is a local story that relates to a lot that has been said:
http://www.westword.com/news/commun...ore-students-but-did-it-fail-teachers-9317325

(I am sure that @WBahn has experience with this -- maybe personally).

One AAUP official characterizes the movement in Colorado as a top-down, numbers-oriented, “consumerist” approach, one that prizes enrollment and retention figures over quality instruction.
“They are more concerned with getting tuition than providing an education”

I think that says it all...

 

Here is a local story that relates to a lot that has been said:
http://www.westword.com/news/commun...ore-students-but-did-it-fail-teachers-9317325

(I am sure that @WBahn has experience with this -- maybe personally).

I've certainly seen various pieces of this and have, indeed, experienced portions of it directly. The situation at the community colleges seems to be quite a bit worse than at the four-year universities, but similar pressures are coming to bear here, particularly in the wider core service courses such as many the math department teaches. The new metric for "instructor effectiveness" in many of the core courses is the fraction of students that receive a grade of C or higher, typically requiring that 75% to 80% meet that floor, regardless of how poorly prepared incoming students are or how little progress they might actually make in learning the material.

I've been told several times that I need to reduce the amount of work in my lower division courses, but always with the ass-covering admonition that I'm not being told to lower the standards in the process. My best estimate is that the current amount of work expected in those courses is somewhere between 1/8 and 1/4 of the work expected in comparable courses 30 years ago, although I wouldn't be surprised if it isn't even lower. Yet there's no doubt that at least as many of today's students struggle just as much meeting the lower expectations as did students three decades ago.

When I took Intermediate E&M, the professor gave, as the first homework assignment, a prior semester's Honors Introductory E&M final exam that we had to turn in the next class. When he handed them back, anyone that had scored under 80% had a pre-filled out and signed drop slip attached and he made it clear that he expected anyone that received one to use it and to retake the introductory course. All but one person did -- the person that didn't was the only person that ended up failing the course (and even she admitted that she legitimately failed the course and should have dropped and retaken in the intro course). Back then, it was perfectly acceptable for a professor to set a bar and say that if you don't meet it, you don't belong here and we aren't going to slow the course down to accommodate you if you choose to stay. Today anyone doing that might as well turn in their letter of resignation at the same time.

One thing that I have seen an increasing amount of are students who insist that they deserve higher grades than they've earned and are quick to lodge complaints with the departments, colleges, or even directly to the university leadership, usually full of little more than the same vague accusations mentioned in the article.

My course policies also have the comment that students are assumed to be adults capable of making their own decisions regarding what the best use of their time is and also of accepting the consequences of those decision. I've had a few complaints about that language, but so far it has stood up.

 

Years ago when I went back to college for the second time for a EE degree what disappointed me so badly was the utter lack of relevant substance in so much of the suposed core classes (those that remained anyway) related to the field.

The math classes wasted more time on useless irrelevant crap than they did on anything of practical applied math or engineering related work and what core classes there was were so stripped of anything of depth and value it should have been a disgrace to the university.

However on the opposite end sports related funding and campus support of that area was at it top end ever and trying to go higher! Almost every class I had had at least one student in it that was riding on a full 4 year sports scholarship of one kind or another with money to spare despite being dumb as a box of rocks. They could chase some ball really well and that was enough to get them a free ride on the backs of everyone else, like me, who was paying out their butt to get an education that would hopefully get them a better job and life when they were done.

 

Now my sadness is complete:

Protests Break Out Over Proposed Blazing Saddles Showing

Grass Valley, CA — Protests broke out late this week as a group of activists marched in front of Grass Valley’s Del Oro Theater after the establishment announced plans to show a special weekend matinee of Mel Brooks 1974 comedy film Blazing Saddles. The protesters, who object to the use of what they see as racist themes in the iconic film, say that the movie isn’t funny, and promotes unrealistic portrayals of Irish people around the world.

I don't know what to say.

UPDATE: Disregard this post; the web site is a satire site, something I should have figured out before posting.

 

Now my sadness is complete:

Protests Break Out Over Proposed Blazing Saddles Showing



I don't know what to say.

There's an old sci-fi novel about a society set up on some distant planet that only has two laws. The first was that it was unlawful to offend anyone for any reason. The second was that it was unlawful to be easily offended.

We're certainly getting the first one well in place.

 

Now my sadness is complete:

Protests Break Out Over Proposed Blazing Saddles Showing



I don't know what to say.

Certain sensitive SJW's get really upset during that scene where the sheriff gets held hostage by himself. The emotional and social justice logic conflict is too much for them to reconcile.