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The Quiet Throat-Cutting of the American University

Syracuse University announced the other day that it will phase out 93 of its approximately 460 academic programs. The administration framed the decision as strategic alignment, calling it a portfolio review driven by student demand and institutional focus. Provost Lois Agnew insisted the move was “not a cost-cutting exercise.” Taken at face value, some of these cuts are routine catalog maintenance. Fifty-five of the ninety-three programs had zero students enrolled. Twenty-eight were advanced certificate supplements to graduate degrees. The provost herself noted that Syracuse offered more than double the roughly 200 programs typical of peer institutions, and a university trimming a bloated catalog to concentrate faculty resources is doing ordinary academic management. Reasonable people can call that housekeeping.

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If Not Adverts, Then What?

Too many of us are obsessed with the bottom line, making money, and taking advantage of others if it means increasing the balance of our bank accounts. America has always been about betterment — even if it means taking advantage of others to get there.

The American Way is no longer the American Dream, or home ownership, or education — no, the American Way is all about serving, and collecting, the mighty advertising dollar. Sell your eye for a penny; click your wrist for a nickel.

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Teachers in France Have The Right Idea: Strike!

The other day, I was watching television and I saw a commercial for a certain credit card company that showed a teacher shopping for their own school supplies. I was reminded how bad our education system currently is — bad enough that it supplies teachers with a certain budget for the year but when that budget is exhausted, as it often quickly is, they have to pony up if they want to give their students crayons or colored paper or project supplies — regardless of how important those supplies may be for their education. I couldn’t imagine a bank teller being told by their employer that they could only have a certain number of pens at their station, and that they would have to pay for any others if they needed them.

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Stuffing City Coffers by Increasing Traffic Citations

Recently, a person who shall remain nameless, was visiting her family in the Midwest.  She was out driving with her mother and was subsequently pulled over by a police offer three blocks from her mother’s house.  The alleged offender was given a $200.00USD traffic citation for not yielding to a school bus. Now, not yielding to a school bus is a serious violation, but the only problem is that neither she, nor her mother, ever saw a school bus!  Was there ever a school bus?  Or was this a virtual stickup with a badge and a ticket book?

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Rutgers Pays Toni Morrison $30K: Commencement Speeches as a Pageant Play

Over the weekend, the most incredible news broke that Nobel and Pulitzer prize winner, and living institution, Toni Morrison was charging Rutgers University $30,000.00USD to speak at this year’s commencement ceremony.  I can’t decide who has the tinnier ear here:  Morrison or Rutgers.  Perhaps they’re both equally culpable.

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