West Virginia University to drop 32 majors including all world language programs

Re:West Virginia University to drop 32 majors including all ... by bigtex on Saturday August 12, 2023 @08:57AM (#37099702)

Public schools have been growing the administrative side of the business for decades, getting more money than ever before per student and it seems children are learning less and less. That Doesn’t seem like the best track record for thinking deeply. They do get paid very well and in many states are allowed to retire early which insane pensions so maybe too much thinking on salaries and more attention to the students.

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Re:West Virginia University to drop 32 majors including all ... by chasing on Saturday August 12, 2023 @09:03AM (#37099753)

Might I suggest that if it’s a problem maybe it’s a good thing to have people study it more deeply?

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Re:West Virginia University to drop 32 majors including all ... by bluGill on Saturday August 12, 2023 @09:54AM (#37100199)

Maybe,but it seems like a self perpetuating fraud of the taxpayers and students who are funding education costs growing faster than inflation to me.

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Re:West Virginia University to drop 32 majors including all ... by chasing on Saturday August 12, 2023 @11:42AM (#37101302)

If you are concerned about spiraling costs and the siloing of wealth in this country, let me suggest you look elsewhere. Students and educators ain’t it.

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Re:West Virginia University to drop 32 majors including all ... by bluGill on Saturday August 12, 2023 @01:24PM (#37102334)

There are many different causes and all need to be addressed. Look over there is the refrain of people who want to hide their corruption.

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Re:West Virginia University to drop 32 majors including all ... by imtringued on Monday August 14, 2023 @03:11AM (#37118307)

https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/MAixm2zlg0vbz_OVY3D2I3QJen8=...

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Re:West Virginia University to drop 32 majors including all ... by bigtex on Wednesday August 16, 2023 @11:26AM (#37148558)

Yep, excellent list. I wonder where this state ranks in student outcomes???

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Re:West Virginia University to drop 32 majors including all ... by bigtex on Wednesday August 16, 2023 @11:24AM (#37148526)

https://www.chicagotribune.com/suburbs/daily-southtown/ct-st...

https://www.cbsnews.com/chicago/news/2-investigators-highest...

https://www.illinoisloop.org/salary.html

https://www.forbes.com/sites/adamandrzejewski/2018/06/04/the...

Seems that the "educators" in Illinois are very wealthy.

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Re:West Virginia University to drop 32 majors including all ... by dahfizz on Saturday August 12, 2023 @08:59AM (#37099724)

Bloating administrations is one of the drivers in the cost of education. Throwing more people at the problem will just waste more money

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Re:West Virginia University to drop 32 majors including all ... by rayiner on Saturday August 12, 2023 @09:55AM (#37100210)

Judgment is a good thing for society. These fictitious fields hurt the credibility of real fields of study. If you’re a doctor—or anyone else, but especially a doctor—you should be publicly, vociferously, and condescendingly judgmental towards homeopathy or chiropractic. It’s your obligation for the good of the public.

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Re:West Virginia University to drop 32 majors including all ... by chasing on Saturday August 12, 2023 @11:34AM (#37101216)

Education is also important — along with the administration of that education — so when people judge things they can do so from a standpoint of understanding and not from the standpoint of reactionary politics and uninformed gut takes. (Education is how doctors become doctors, after all.) Thoughtful and educated judgment born of understanding is good for society. Just clouding things with dumb opinions — or pure bullshit — helps no one.

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Re:West Virginia University to drop 32 majors including all ... by rayiner on Saturday August 12, 2023 @12:53PM (#37102037)

If something is obviously not working, or doesn’t make sense, it’s important that the public be able to criticize it by reference to common sense and lived experience. Otherwise, you’re turning over the policing function entirely to the same people who are deeply invested in protecting the legitimacy of a field of inquiry.

Legitimate fields of study usually do not have trouble establishing their legitimacy to ordinary people. My undergraduate degree is in aerospace engineering. I’ve never had to argue from authority to get people to accept that’s a legitimate field that produces actionable facts.

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Re:West Virginia University to drop 32 majors including all ... by chasing on Saturday August 12, 2023 @03:25PM (#37103401)

Seems a little naive to believe engineers don’t make arguments from authority all the dang time…

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Re:West Virginia University to drop 32 majors including all ... by xyzzyz on Monday August 14, 2023 @01:38PM (#37123990)

The point is that they earned this authority, because their planes fly, whereas, for example, experts on childhood education cannot point to such obvious undeniable achievement that laypeople cannot reach.

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Re:West Virginia University to drop 32 majors including all ... by shortrounddev2 on Saturday August 12, 2023 @11:33AM (#37101202)

We have too many administrators bloating up university budgets. In my experience, very few people involved in academia truly question it or ask how educational systems should be built from the ground up. They usually are the worst defenders of that system, since they're the ones who flourish in it most. I don't think anybody who works in academics is truly capable of thinking outside of it.

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Re:West Virginia University to drop 32 majors including all ... by anigbrowl on Saturday August 12, 2023 @12:59PM (#37102084)

Academics hate administrators, but are too timid/selfish to coordinate with other academics across departmental lines to undermine the administrative body - not least because academics hate administration and don't have a good idea for how to deal with it.

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Re:West Virginia University to drop 32 majors including all ... by anigbrowl on Saturday August 12, 2023 @12:58PM (#37102072)

Especially since we need more people thinking deeply about how to make education work, not fewer.

I'm not sure that's true. The US system is staggeringly wasteful, partly because there are 50 states and thousands of school districts all making out that they are unique and different and need to find their own ways of doing things (a critique which could be leveled at the US more generally). This is an invitation to corruption and endless politicking.

Amid all the various studies and reports and education manifestos, you know what I never hear? Of policies derived from surveying students about what they think and what does or does not work for them. Generally when I bring this point up it gets dismissed with some variation of 'students will just ask for more time off and less work and standards will crumble' which I don't think has any basis in fact.

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Re:West Virginia University to drop 32 majors including all ... by chasing on Saturday August 12, 2023 @03:28PM (#37103422)

Have you ever taught a class?

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Re:West Virginia University to drop 32 majors including all ... by anigbrowl on Monday August 14, 2023 @12:29PM (#37122970)

Yes, and the existence of difficult classes does not warrant the exclusion of learners' perspectives from policy decisions.

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