Category Archives: Professional

In other words, to choose an adviser is nevertheless to commit oneself by that choice. If you are a Christian, you will say, consult a priest; but there are collaborationists, priests who are resisters and priests who wait for the tide to turn: which will you choose? Had this young man chosen a priest of the resistance, or one of the collaboration, he would have decided beforehand the kind of advice he was to receive. Similarly, in coming to me, he knew what advice I should give him, and I had but one reply to make. You are free, therefore choose, that is to say, invent. No rule of general morality can show you what you ought to do: no signs are vouchsafed in this world.

“Existentialism Is a Humanism,” Jean Paul Sartre

Established in May by Governor Rick Scott, a Republican who has said he wants to run Florida’s education system more like a business, the task force includes legislators, businesspeople and educators appointed by various parties. It finalized its recommendations earlier this month. The governor is now reviewing the report, which divides reform into three different but interlinked areas: accountability, funding and governance.

Recommendations for accountability include a call for more metrics to determine university success and performance, while those for governance include allowing the state university system’s Board of Governors more control over funding (currently the state legislature holds much of that control). Funding recommendations call for non-uniform tuition among the state’s 12 universities and a further look into differential tuition among degree programs.

“Pricing Out the Humanities” Colleen Flaherty

It may seem a bit of a stretch, but this morning when I was reading about this program at the University of Florida, it was Sartre that came to mind. In the mid-twentieth century the great enemy of freedom was a kind of mindless submission to authority, religious or otherwise. Among other things, in “Existentialism is a Humanism,” Sartre hoped to show that individual choice was nonetheless inescapable.

There are still people who submit to authority mindlessly, of course, but in our time the object of worship and submission is more likely to be the market than the cross, which is, as with all gods, said to be the last authority on what it means to be human. As Sartre knew, if you ask a priest, you have to expect a Catholic answer; if you ask a Republican, you have to expect a market answer. That doesn’t make our choice inevitable.

“In my second year on the tenure-track as an English professor at a state university in Texas, I was advised to think about my plans for university and community service to be ready for my tenure bid in four years. On my self-evaluation form that year, I stated that I planned to initiate a National Organization for Women student chapter the following year. A few days later, my department chair stopped by my office to scold me. He said, “About your plans for a NOW chapter … we don’t need any of that nonsense here in West Texas.” I was too stunned to say anything, and he left after giving me a stern look. A year later, his wife told me at a departmental party that his two daughters used to complain about his old-fashioned ideas about women’s equality, but she then said that, essentially, “you can’t teach an old dog new tricks.” I suppose she meant to express sympathy with me, but also meant to warn me not to cross him about the NOW issue.”

More here.