<p>Hi all You parents who are worried that their college-bound kids are going to do nothing but party for the next six years while either burning through tens of thousands of dollars of your money OR racking up piles of debt you & they will spend the rest of your lives paying off ..... and then move back home after graduation with YOU picking up the tab for their lives</p>
<p>The inspiration for this new thread came from another whole thread dedicated to your little Einstein's partying ....</p>
<p>You can read my reaction to this whole subject starting with :</p>
<p>So now here is <em>your</em> recommended reading selection for today [ don't read it too close to bedtime cuz it'll probably give you nightmares ] ==></p>
<p>It's called THE FIVE YEAR PARTY by Craig Brandon</p>
<p>..... conveniently available for your review or purchase courtesy of amazon.com at :</p>
<p>One of the themes / chapters of The Five Year Party is how colleges are increasingly turning to pure entertainment to keep their charges happy and the tuition bucks flowing in… A few good examples here =></p>
<p>The phrase "to have an ax to grind’ means: * “To have a grievance with someone, especially where one feels the need to seek damaging retribution”*</p>
<p>I don’t have any grievance with anyone, and I’m certainly not ‘seeking damaging retribution’</p>
<p>I’m just trying to educate naive parents on a what a joke ‘higher’ education has become in this country; and part of that is a recommendation of a book about this and what they can do about it … see the title of this thread</p>
<p>Let’s see: on arrival at CC, you parachuted into a student’s thread about partying at a campus you apparently have no connection to and proceeded to issue a rant which resulted in the students in the thread referring to you as “that crazy lady who thought all college students were alcoholics.” Proud of your contribution, you initiated this thread and included a link to the previous “crazy lady” posts you had made.</p>
<p>Anyone who posts on CC because he/she feels a need to “educate naive parents on a what a joke ‘higher’ education has become in this country” has an ax to grind - or is a ■■■■■, or both.</p>
<p>Okay, Class … now put down yer pencils for a minute & let your kids fill out their college applications or write their essays *on their own !! * … Novel concept , I realize</p>
<p>Today, your recommended reading is about how college administration is the leading cause of watering down the value of your tuition dollars, using a tool known as The SNEF … did you realize that PROFESSORS exchange ‘tips’ about how to ‘dumb down’ their classes ??</p>
<p>Some relevant quotes from the Article yer about to read :</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Here is today’s text =></p>
<p>" How to Improve Your Teaching Evaluation Scores Without Improving Your Teaching! "</p>
<p>Tomorrow I’ll post an article from an academic periodical that details how one prof used these tips and more! … to dumb down his classes in the pure interest of academic self-survival …</p>
<p>Neither — actually I’m a Professor Emeritus / retired after 24 yrs on the faculty of Brown University</p>
<p>Just based on that you can probably ascertain that I’ve been around for a loooong time in academia, and am simply <em>appalled</em> at the steady decline in academic standards that’s occuring and even affecting our country’s best schools</p>
<p>I’m also shocked at the apparent ignorance – or deliberate ignoring of this
issue – that your average parent expresses … hence this thread to hopefully ‘wake up’ some of these folks, and offer them some advice on what to do about it [ see Post # 1 in this thread ]</p>
<p>Don’t feed this ■■■■■. Nothing of his prior posts suggest its the voice of a woman, a retired person, or most of all, a former educational insider. Quite the contrary.</p>
<p>I must offer a qualified apology to my readers here</p>
<p>Yesterday, in Post # 9 , I promised another article on this topic … unfortunately the entire article is available only to subscribers of the journal Academic Questions</p>
<p>But you can at least read the first page to get an idea of it , here :</p>
<p>BTW starbright : how can you never have even heard of this happening when --as I’ve conclusively shown – there are multiple articles on the subject in peer-reviewed academic periodicals ??</p>
<p>And people accuse ME of exaggerating my credentials !!</p>
<p>Shannon, Do you realize that both Stephen Colbert and Conan O’Brian “borrowed” from “your recent commencement address:”</p>
<p>“Excerpt from my recent commencement address:
" You, the Class of 2011, have been called by many ‘The Greatest Generation’ …
… well, actually not by ‘many’ , just a few
… well , actually not by a few … just by ME !!
… but you now share that special advantage that 92% of your peers have = a college degree !!”</p>
<p>"Today, you have achieved something special, something only 92 percent of Americans your age will ever know: a college diploma. "
[Conan</a> O’Brien Delivers Commencement Address](<a href=“Commencement | Dartmouth”>Commencement | Dartmouth)</p>
