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‘I’m not wanted’: Florida universities hit by brain drain as academics flee
(www.theguardian.com)
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this post was submitted on 31 Jul 2023
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Good luck finding right-wing professors, Ron. Alumni of the Florida Universities are going to be really mad when the schools can't fund football and basketball in the coming years. They already have a recruiting crisis due to Ron's actions.
It's a lot like that quote:
If conservatives become convinced that an education makes people less conservative, then they will not gaze inward to wonder why that might be, but instead reject education.
Education != indoctrination
I'd agree, which is why we shouldn't be presenting slavery as a circuitous jobs training program, like Ron DeFascist wants to.
At some level, education is about instilling certain ideas and theories within an audience for the purpose of driving some kind of social activity. Whether that activity is academic research or religious proselytization depends on the information being conveyed. But every form of education does require a certain set of axioms be taken at face value.
People tend to lose sight of the fundamental and necessary techniques used in imparting new knowledge while fixating on the relative values that the new knowledge provides when they toss out words like "indoctrination".
Can you articulate the difference to me? I'm curious to see what you come up with.
Yeah, sure, I’ll bite.
Education is teaching kids to think for themselves while giving them the ability to tell fact from bullshit.
Indoctrination is forcing your own ethics, morals, and beliefs onto children who lack the ability to discern fact from bullshit, usually early enough in their development to ensure that the bullshit you’ve forced onto them becomes permanently encoded into their brain structure.
Nobody’s indoctrinating college students. The students are being taught to critically analyze information and are using that critical analysis to realize that the worldview they’ve been spoon-fed is bullshit.
I think some confusion has happened since I made my last comment. I was under the impression that
Education != indoctrinationwas saying that DeSantis wasn't going after educators, but instead, getting rid of "indoctrination".I wholeheartedly agree that the major difference is that education teaches to question your world, and indoctrination tells you to shut up and get in line. What DeSantis is getting rid of is education, and making room for indoctrination.
To wit: This is not education. It’s indoctrination.
Education is the act of imparting knowledge, usually with the goal of improving general understanding and critical thinking skills, while indoctrination carries inherent connotations of partisanship - usually about believing a specific doctrine or ideology, even if facts or evidence suggests it to be untrue.
Absolutely no shortage of right-wing academics and ideologues who would be happy to take an $80k/year stipend to tell their RAs to play PraegerU videos for an auditorium-sized classroom while they clumsily flirt with freshman co-eds in the back office.
Once you abandon the idea of education as a real thing that colleges are actually supposed to do, its basically just a no-show job that functions as a kick-back to your cronies.
But won't that mean that everyone will just go to universities in other States? Isn't the point here about a brain drain, not the complete loss of all population.
The people with no brains to drain will stay in Florida presumably.
That depends on how you value your college degrees. If degrees represent real useful career knowledge, then sure. But if they're just tokens handed out to a social network, then why would I leave Florida U if I know an FU degree will land me a good job in a high-paying Florida business? If I'm just working the sales desk of a construction company or doing entry level accounting on my way to completing my CPA license or Real Estate License, who cares whether U. Miami or Florida State is a diploma mill?
There are plenty of very good doctors that come out of Baylor and Brigham Young University, despite both campuses being notoriously far-right. You don't need a liberal education to learn to code. You don't need it to update actuarial tables at a big insurance company. You don't need it to help run a multi-billion dollar media empire.
There is no shortage of good money in cultivating a large loyal contingent of right-wing academics, either. Certainly Milton Friedman and Karl Ichan and Charlie Munger did very well for themselves.
And where will the drained brains even go? It isn't as though Silicon Valley or Wall Street are lacking for far-right ideological leaders. In the end, you're still going to end up working at Exxon or Apple or FOX Media or Goldman Sachs, no matter how liberal your politics. Moving to California won't save you from Peter Thiel or Ben Shapiro.
It's not that having a right leaning political viewpoint will prevent you from learning higher skills it's just that if businesses consider Florida to not be of high education quality then they won't accept their diplomas.
Sure if I can just pay some money and then lie around doing nothing and get a degree that's great, but only if the degree is actually valid outside of Florida. Otherwise I wanted a qualification that gives me options.
The education that's being targeted isn't business school training or software development. DeSantis isn't defunding the petroleum engineering department. This is all revolving around the liberal arts schools, effectively forcing out anyone with a history or english lit degree that doesn't spend the weekends in white hoods.
For real?
Dude once they are desperate it'll be the PTO warriors that become "professors".
Professor isn't a title many on the right can achieve. A Education PhD, published research, and the clout in the education community play a role. The education community rarely produces any right wingers outside of the business related schools.
You do not need a PhD to teach college students.
That is a college instructor, not a professor.
You do not need a teaching degree to be a professor.
Most universities are private institutions, and can employ whomever they see fit in whichever positions they seem appropriate. They have a vested interest in employing accredited individuals.
What I am saying is Florida will run out of such individuals at which time, it will become very easy for anyone to become a college professor.
Also, I have been a college professor, and I only have an undergrad. Not in teaching. It was my actual title.
Instructor and professor are not the same thing. Professor requires a PhD in the subject being taught.
... I just explained to you that that is not the case.
Your simply disagreeing doesn't do anything for your argument. I have provided sources, and am a former professor who does not meet your criteria.
The burden of proof is on you. Cheers.
And I am explaining that it is the case. Anyone who calls themselves a professor and doesn't have a doctorate in their field is a hypocrite and a charlatan. I view them the same as a civilian pretending to be a military member or veteran. Sorry but you have to earn that title, not just give it to yourself.
Again, I had that title. So, again, you're absolutely incorrect. Thanks for playing. Cheers.