CFP: The Medieval Academy's Centenary
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Friday, April 1, 2011
Toni Morrison and Snooki: More Evidence of the Decline of Higher Education
The USA today just announced that Rutgers paid Snooki (of Jersey Shore fame) more money for a talk on campus than they will pay Toni Morrison (Nobel Prize winner) to give their commencement address. Both are being paid well (over $30,000) but the very idea that somehow bringing Snooki to a major college costs more than bringing Morrison and that this has happened at a major research university suggests how very wrong things are in higher education! This is not a critique of Rutgers because I think this could happen almost anywhere. It just makes me sigh!
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My students laughed at me today in class for suggesting they might enjoy going to see Henry Louis Gates, Jr. when he comes to KU in a few weeks. I assured them I was serious, and they laughed again.
ReplyDeleteMaybe they're right, and they wouldn't enjoy it. But, I guess I hoped the thought of going to a voluntary academic talk shouldn't have been that funny. It makes me sigh, too.
You wonder why a university would be paying Snooki to come to the university in the first place, much less how much she winds up getting paid!
ReplyDeleteAfter all, if colleges regularly invite Snooki-types to campus, is it strange that students starting thinking it funny that they should - as college students - go see Gates?
Ditto the sigh.