As the debate over the future of higher education continues to gain momentum, an increasing number of journalists, analysts, and critics are identifying academia as the next major bubble. Education has emerged as a core concern on both the left and the right, thanks to its unique impact on economic productivity.
But too often, this debate is conducted in a manner and style that mirrors that of wonkish academicians.
Important aspects of the debate get lost when conversation becomes mired in public-policy-speak, within the same esoteric, self-referential, insular, and inaccessible language that frustrates us when it comes from the professorial elite.
And so, in the spirit of directness and accessibility, I’m pleased to introduce “Inside Academia,” a new project aimed at slicing through the jargon. Inside Academia, hosted by Andy Nash, is a weekly video interview program distributed at InsideAcademia.tv. In split-screen format, Andy Nash will speak with a new guest each week in these short, direct, 10-15-minute-long episodes.
The aim is to engage the uninitiated by distilling complex debates into accessible, coherent narratives that will themselves form, over time, a catalog of knowledge on a wide range of issues impacting academia and our nation.
What Bloggingheads.tv is to politics, InsideAcademia.tv aims to be, in its own simple way, to education.
People in universities seem to always forget that the real world doesn't operate anything like an college. They think they are above it all and all so smart, when they really are at best a side show.
Example GPA's. Nobody in the real world cares one bit about GPA's, but in the education world its everything. Bad GPA, your education is in trouble. I know more people with bad GPA's who learned far more then those with good GPA's. It just one of those goofy no sense things about academia.
That's one of the reasons my BA will be the only college degree I have.
The idea of not having to deal with the real world may have been a good idea at one time, but it sure makes most academics have a weird sense of reality. That's not good.
People in universities seem to always forget that the real world doesn't operate anything like an college. They think they are above it all and all so smart, when they really are at best a side show.
Example GPA's. Nobody in the real world cares one bit about GPA's, but in the education world its everything. Bad GPA, your education is in trouble. I know more people with bad GPA's who learned far more then those with good GPA's. It just one of those goofy no sense things about academia.
That's one of the reasons my BA will be the only college degree I have.
The idea of not having to deal with the real world may have been a good idea at one time, but it sure makes most academics have a weird sense of reality. That's not good.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseI look forward to watching this, hopefully later today.
One nit: I think you mean "SLICING through the jargon," not "splicing." "Splice" means to join.
Reply to this commentLinkReport Abuse