How prepared are these students to enter the workforce anyway? Evergreen only offers regional, not national, accreditation.

I've also looked at some of the programs they offer (the students do not have classes) and their curriculum is a bit off-the-wall.

On the slightly positive side, lawmakers have finally started pressuring the administration at Evergreen to "clean up its act," but only as it faces a drop in enrollment.

It just seems like nobody's ever motivated to do the right thing until it hits them in the wallet. Whatever happened to ethics?

Or until it hits them in the ballot box. Angela Merkel, for instance, was content to let the Germans eat cake about the looming refugee crisis, only admitting it was a mistake when her party took a beating at the most recent elections.

> How prepared are these students
> to enter the workforce anyway?

Well... The pissiness of these children isn't a standalone phenomenon. The small-mindedness of Evergreen, however modest its standing in intellectual circles, is a reflection of its surrounding culture.

Amy's faith that these children will graduate to learn the truth about hard work in the marketplace of employment seems sensible, and I think it's a reflex we all share. But our reflex may be naive.

When we see government (and voters & taxpayers) so pathetically deluded about the matters like the minimum wage, the Ex-Im bank and similar contexts of bloated regulation, why would we expect that these students will, on an individual basis, fail in life? They're perfectly dialed in to the customs of our society.

The long-term health of our contemporary ethos may well collapse in social & economic contexts. But Western Civ has decided that it's perfectly cool to spend money that does not exist.

Yeah, sure, the oncoming corrections could be a horrific crash. But until it happens, these kids may well be able to bitch & moan their way through life, and every day is Christmas.

After all, it's still working pretty well for the Boomers.

As I've said before, these students aren't protesting and forcing these colleges to enact changes. They are bought and paid for actors used by the administration to enact changes they know no one else would support. Here is the payoff happening in public.

"It just seems like nobody's ever motivated to do the right thing until it hits them in the wallet. Whatever happened to ethics?"

Never actually existed except on a small scale. This is why western individualism and capitalistic greed lead to the greatest advancements in science and wealth. We really only have a few effective ways to get people to do things we need done that no one actually wants to do. 'Do it for the family', 'do it or I'll hit you', and 'do it and I'll pay you'. Of the above options greed is the most moral and most efficient choice.

They'll turn their screaming to getting the government to shoulder the burden of their student loans. And they may well succeed at that.

So, students "have diverted time and energy from their academic work" and the professors evaluating them are supposed to not only celebrate this, but reward it and "consider the physical and emotional commitment the students have made and consider accommodations for that effort, including the learning that is going on outside" their classes? Meaning, if the student didn't actually learn anything in the classroom, but attended a protest, that's hunky-dory?

That probably no big deal for social science or liberal arts students. But, how's that work with pre-med or engineering students? You want to drive across a bridge designed by an engineering student who spend more time at protests than he did in class, learning outside the program? Or will you drive out of your way to take the bridge designed by the engineering student who spent his time in class learning the mathematics of bridge building.

How prepared are these students to enter the workforce anyway? ~ Patrick at July 17, 2017 12:05 AM

They're not. And their professors and administrators of Evergreeen College don't care. As was argued by another in a thread long ago, the educator's job is to "educate," not to produce good citizens or skilled workers.

We don't look upon college as the place to get an education or collect knowledge. It's a place to get life experience. And that life experience must be vigorously sought out, as it is often hiding out in Mexico or Fort Lauderdale at the bottom of Jello shots.

The news reports that thousands of blue collar jobs sit unfilled for lack of skilled applicants. High school graduates don't want to enter the blue collar fields; they want to go to college.

And why wouldn't they? Becoming a tradesman or joining the military at 18 means you have to work; it's hard. Going to college is treated these days like a 4-year bacchanal. When my wife and I went with a nephew to visit some colleges in Northern California, the campus tours concentrated on the student life centers: the gym, the smoothie bar, the coffee shop, the rock climbing wall, the indoor hockey arena, etc. Nothing about academic rigor or hard work; no science labs or libraries.

Tour a factory or machine shop and see how many rock climbing walls or smoothie bars they show you. See how often you boss or drill sergeant (drill instructor for you Marines and sailors) gives you credit for attending a protest and learning outside the structured environment. AWOL doesn't mean "Absent While Observing Life" and it doesn't carry extra credit.

Crid has a point about society being set up for the non-working elite. Especially in government.

I just wrote the acknowledgments for my book and joked that the book spent several years trying to kill me. The woman who works for me, editing me, is in her mid 40s. She has great integrity and works really hard, and I love her and mentored her (vis a vis her desire to publish a book and she has a big first book coming out via Hachette this Fall). The guy before her was in his late 30s and was also great. Both times, I'd expected to hire a millennial. Those I tested or interviewed or (ugh) had work for me for a little while reflected work ethics and general ethics like those noted above.

I think if you want a worker -- as in, somebody who actually works -- you might be wise to look to the pool of people starting over in addition to people just starting out.

If nobody else will hire them, there's always George Soros.

> Crid has a point about society
> being set up for the non-working
> elite. Especially in government.

Well, that's not what I meant, though if you mean non-productive elite, we certainly agree.

But few people understand that wealth has to be created. The vast seem to think that all the stuff is just out there already... Usually in the accounts of rich white guys. Nasty ones, with grim hearts.

...Such that all we need to do to have a truly just society —or to merely get our own selfish needs met— is manipulate policy to spread other people's wealth in this or that direction.

I don't think we have to worry about bridge designs from engineers who attended this fine facility of higher learning.

http://www.evergreen.edu/studies

Tho they do offer geology, and that could be concerning.

The long-term health of our contemporary ethos may well collapse in social & economic contexts. But Western Civ has decided that it's perfectly cool to spend money that does not exist.

Well, that's what happens when you have a fiat currency: you can inflate away your debt. We can't be broke, we still have paper, ink and functioning printing presses.

"Crid has a point about society being set up for the non-working elite. Especially in government."

The problem with that is we are producing far too many people for those positions. Instead those jobs will go to people with not only those degrees but also family connections. The rest become minimum wage workers or welfare recipients. You end up with the guys at the top and the guys at the very bottom sharing a common culture. One that views success and wealth as gambling winnings gained only due to luck and hence feel no concern with robbing anyone else of their property. After all, they didn't build that. They just got lucky.

"We don't look upon college as the place to get an education or collect knowledge. It's a place to get life experience. And that life experience must be vigorously sought out, as it is often hiding out in Mexico or Fort Lauderdale at the bottom of Jello shots."

That is a great paragraph Conan. Yes indeed they want to be educators but they don't want to say what they are educating people in. If there were standards they might fail to meet them.

You don't see very much of this kind of silliness from strong-in-STEM schools. (The major exception is Berkeley, but its renown physics department operates pretty much independently from the rest of the university.) You probably won't be seeing much of this stuff happening at MIT, or Georgia Tech, or Purdue or RPI or Auburn or CMU. It's the schools that are traditionally liberal arts schools that are getting hit by this. And that's a function of the humanities allowing itself to be overrun by intellectual Visigoths.

If the humanities can be rebuilt in the U.S., do you know where that's going to come from? Probably the home-schooled kids.

> you can inflate away
> your debt

Certainly, if you have no integrity.

> And that's a function of the
> humanities allowing itself to
> be overrun by intellectual
> Visigoths.

A handsome allusion, but I think it's more about the Humanities' ranks expanding to include lesser lights and their administrative support. They aren't overrun, they're avaricious.

Listen, the most secure employer in the world is the one who can hold a pistol to the temple of the passersby when writing your paycheck (or who can, as described above, convince people that mist is money).

This made me thinka yooguys.

We've always had a tendency to deify politicians.

Some more than others.

Ben wrote:

As I've said before, these students aren't protesting and forcing these colleges to enact changes. They are bought and paid for actors used by the administration to enact changes they know no one else would support.

Ben, who is paying them?

One must admire Mrs. Kennedy for the skill with which she deployed these images in the difficult aftermath of her husband’s death.

First of all, no one mustn't. Why must one? Don't be silly.

Second, this piece over-inflates a minor, presumably-awkward encounter between a mawkishly intrusive and endlessly presumptuous press corp and a timid, overwhelmed woman who had, in the worst way possible, just escaped the the crushing embrace of the most cruelly competitive family of the 20th century United States.

I remember reading about it at the time. The media needed a hook— Throw them a bone, Honey, something warm & fluffy and accessible to popular taste. 'Okay, yeah.... Um, "Camelot."'

And they ran with it, playing that idiot melody every time she, or her children, walked into a room for the next twenty years.

Fifty-plus years later, clumsy-hack text salesmen are still trying to squeeze protein from a side order of wilted, stale fries. We're told it wasn't an offhand evasion from one of the most famously private women in world history... No, it was 'skillfully deployed imagery,' a cunning maneuver...

...Even though —and Golly! isn't it ironic???— she executed this master manipulation "without intending to do so and without understanding the consequences of her image making, [and] put forward an interpretation...."

Silliness. Sometimes it's just a cigar.

Silliness. Sometimes it's just a cigar. ~ Crid at July 17, 2017 3:44 PM

You know, I just used the article to illustrate the post-mortem deification of JFK.

Kevin, the administrators. They may not be paid in money directly but getting paid in grades, credit hours, free dorms. All are forms of payment. You see the same thing in the sports too.

> to illustrate the post-mortem
> deification

I know, but it was worth pulling apart the chassis. Pompous nitwits are going to be doing the same things in Internet Times as well.

Patrick: "How prepared are these students to enter the workforce anyway?"

A couple years ago I worked with a nurse in his early 40's who got a degree from Evergreen. He eventually grew up and got tired of working in food service and retail (places like Applebee's and Target). In his early 30's he went back to school at a real college, got a degree in nursing, and now performs skilled work in exchange for a decent, livable income.

Cousin Dave: "If the humanities can be rebuilt in the U.S., do you know where that's going to come from? Probably the home-schooled kids."

If they were interested in the humanities.

Almost all of the few hundred home schooled kids I've known over the past 30 years, and the few dozen I know now, are more interested in STEM, business, healthcare, skilled trades, and other things at which someone can make a good living, support a family and contribute to their community.

Cousin Dave: "If the humanities can be rebuilt in the U.S., do you know where that's going to come from? Probably the home-schooled kids."

If they were interested in the humanities.

Almost all of the few hundred home schooled kids I've known over the past 30 years, and the few dozen I know now, are more interested in STEM, business, healthcare, skilled trades, and other things at which someone can make a good living, support a family and contribute to their community.

Ben: "You end up with the guys at the top and the guys at the very bottom sharing a common culture. One that views success and wealth as gambling winnings gained only due to luck and hence feel no concern with robbing anyone else of their property. After all, they didn't build that. They just got lucky."

I think the students, teachers and administrators of Evergreen College, and those like them, view success and wealth as stolen by privileged, racist white men and Jews exploiting the noble brown people and women. And that's why they feel no concern about using the police, guns, courts and jails of the government, or direct violence and vandalism in the streets, to rob, persecute and oppress the successful.

Ken R has a good point about the home-schooled kids. The ones that I know of have all had some education in the humanities; a young man that I know who was home-schooled is now going into the Air Force as a pilot candidate (he's been flying for the Civil Air Patrol since he was a teenager), but he's read more classics than I have. However, I can see where a lot of other home-schooling parents might look at the current situation and say to themselves, "Humanities? What good is that?" And I'll say it once more, for the record: the humanities did this to themselves.

"A handsome allusion, but I think it's more about the Humanities' ranks expanding to include lesser lights and their administrative support. They aren't overrun, they're avaricious."

Hmm. Will ponder that. It's certainly true that if you go through the current (and vastly inflated) ranks of college administration, you'll probably find mostly humanities and social sciences majors. (Plus the IRS and other government agencies, as Crid notes.) How is this different from the 1950s? Or is the answer to that question, "the train was always headed down that track; it just hadn't gotten to the station yet"?