Confessions of a Community College Dean

As regular readers know, I grew up in a city with minor league baseball. As it happened, a few of the players from the years I paid attention went on later to significant major league careers; one of them even became a first-ballot Hall of Famer. (Yes, I saw him play in the minors. Even then, you could tell he’d be special.)

A colleague here likes to tell the story of the evening student who visited her office in tears. The student had been trying to locate an academic adviser for a while, and at the time, they weren’t easily available in the evenings. (We’ve since changed that.) By my colleague’s telling, the student complained that it wasn’t fair; she had to work during the day, but she still wanted to feel “just like a real college student.” That meant advisors, and faculty, and even student clubs.

The Razzie awards are given each year to movies and performances that truly, impressively, memorably stunk. Adam Sandler is up for several this year, which seems about right.

In a meeting this week, a frustrated professor described politics as “trying to get one group of rich guys to convince another group of rich guys to do the right thing.” I thought he nailed it.

Should different economic classes have different colleges? And should those colleges have different missions? I’m not talking about the elite-of-the-elite letting in a few scholarship students, as welcome as that is. I’m thinking more of art history and philosophy at community colleges.

As regular readers know, I enjoy my technology. Though largely useless with analog technology -- like hanging curtain rods -- I have great fun trying to get black boxes that beep to do stuff that they weren’t entirely meant to do, or to do it for a lot less money than its producers had hoped. Technology allows me to be both forward-thinking and cheap, which is a lovely combination.

We have family friends whose older son started college this Fall. Apparently, when he got his Fall grades last month, he had his head handed to him. Having reeled from the shock for a while, now he’s studying much more aggressively than he ever has before.

I’m told that community colleges will lose the option to admit students on an “ability to benefit” basis as of July 1.