Part II: A college education is not what it used to be | Eastern North Carolina Now

    Perhaps the time has come to eliminate "puppetry" masters and a few other frivolous courses and programs.

    This column is a continuation of last week's Teacher's Desk. In that piece I shared a new report that detailed the changes in modern college and university curricula away from required foundational courses more toward a smorgasbord that ignores the classics of the liberal arts curriculum.

    This week's piece is simply a pass-along from The Nation about one of the Occupy Wall Street protesters who is $35,000 in debt for student loans and believes The System has betrayed him. Here's the story:

    A few years ago, Joe Therrien, a graduate of the NYC Teaching Fellows program, was working as a full-time drama teacher at a public elementary school in New York City. Frustrated by huge class sizes, sparse resources and a disorganized bureaucracy, he set off to the University of Connecticut to get an MFA in his passion--puppetry. Three years and $35,000 in student loans later, he emerged with degree in hand, and because puppeteers aren't exactly in high demand, he went looking for work at his old school. The intervening years had been brutal to the city's school budgets--down about 14 percent on average since 2007. A virtual hiring freeze has been in place since 2009 in most subject areas, arts included, and spending on art supplies in elementary schools crashed by 73 percent between 2006 and 2009. So even though Joe's old principal was excited to have him back, she just couldn't afford to hire a new full-time teacher. Instead, he's working at his old school as a full-time "substitute"; he writes his own curriculum, holds regular classes and

The link above gives you more, but the intro is enough to make the point.

    Another story in the state news last week reported that the UNC Board of Governors is considering an increase in tuition, of as much as $10,000. They contend this is necessary in order to retain faculty and keep programs that otherwise might need to be cut to accommodate recent appropriations of "only" a 5% increase in appropriations to the UNC system.

    Perhaps the time has come to eliminate "puppetry" masters and a few other frivolous courses and programs, as well as administrative positions that dream up and approve such foolishness. We propose a simple means of doing so. It is: All future funding will be based on the number of graduates who are actually working in their field three years after graduation. Ahhh, but we realize you've got to have sufficient courses for those atheletes who otherwise would never be able to remain eligible, but perhaps those too should done away with.

    Let the whining and gnashing of teeth begin.

    Delma Blinson writes the "Teacher's Desk" column for our friend in the local publishing business: The Beaufort Observer. His concentration is in the area of his expertise - the education of our youth. He is a former teacher, principal, superintendent and university professor.