<div dir="ltr"><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif"><p>I had read all of the <a href="http://www.slate.com/articles/life/culturebox/2013/04/there_are_no_academic_jobs_and_getting_a_ph_d_will_make_you_into_a_horrible.html">doom-and-gloom think pieces</a>
about the status of the American university system, of course, but it
felt like none of that applied to me. I had a full-time position,
secured early in my career — the possibilities were endless. Although a
legal historian by training, I viewed myself as beyond such simple
labels: I was a <i>cultural</i> historian, in command of critical theory
and immersed in the latest and best work on gender and sexuality.
Activism informed my teaching; I exhorted my students to transcend and
transform the status quo. I coached my university's legal debate team to
a national championship bid and served on nearly a dozen PhD and EdD
dissertation committees. I launched several digital humanities
initiatives and curated a museum exhibit about professional wrestling,
attracting <a href="http://www.dallasnews.com/news/community-news/arlington/headlines/20150824-how-did-crowd-react-to-von-erichs-uta-exhibit-zooms-in-on-fans-enthusiasm.ece">mainstream attention</a> in the process.</p>
<p>I had not just survived the academic <i>Hunger Games —</i> I had emerged triumphant.</p>
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<p>Then it all began to fall apart.</p>
<p>First there was sniping, from peers and administrators. Critiques of
my teaching and debate team coaching, often made through backchannels
and delivered to me secondhand or not at all, centered on my easygoing
personal style (He doesn't use the title "doctor!" He teaches in
T-shirts!), my effusive student evaluations (If he's pleasing them, he
must be doing something wrong!), and my relatively calm demeanor (If a
young academic doesn't seem stressed beyond capacity, he's not working
hard enough!).</p>
<p>Then there was official pushback and politics. A proposal to create
interactive teaching materials from archival materials was derided as
bewildering and gimmicky. I learned that the public outreach in which I
engaged — that is, publishing in popular magazines — had ruffled certain
feathers. I watched administrators and donors who had championed my
career be shown the door, or at least swept under the rug, by an
incoming presidential administration — proving that the autonomy I had
imagined upon entering academia really was an illusion.</p>
<p>Finally, I realized not even students were too invested. When my best
friend visited my campus to give a talk, he observed one of my
lectures. I've got many shortcomings as an academic, but lecturing isn't
one of them. I've been on TV, radio, podcasts — <a href="http://www.oliverbateman.com/in-the-media/">you name it</a>.
By professor standards, which admittedly aren't that high, I could rock
the mic. But while my friend sat there, semi-engrossed in the lecture,
he found himself increasingly distracted by the student in front of him.
That student, who like all in-state students was paying $50 per
lecture to hear me talk, <a href="http://twitpic.com/cdgxj3">was watching season one of <i>Breaking Bad</i></a>. In a class with no attendance grade, where the lectures were at least halfway decent, he was watching <i>Breaking Bad</i>.</p>
<p>Later during that same visit, my friend asked me, in total sincerity,
"Why aren't you doing something meaningful with your life?"</p>
<p>"This <i>is </i>important," I insisted. But there was no passion
behind my words. I was a priest who had lost his faith, performing the
sacraments without any sense of their importance.</p>
<p>Op-eds about the failings of higher education are like certain
unmentionable body parts: Everybody's got one. Professors are or aren't <a href="http://www.vox.com/2015/6/3/8706323/college-professor-afraid">afraid of their liberal students</a>, adjuncts are <a href="https://www.guernicamag.com/features/the-teaching-class/">underpaid and exploited</a>, <a href="http://www.theatlantic.com/education/archive/2014/06/the-case-for-grade-inflation/373251/">grade inflation is rampant</a>, <a href="http://www.newsweek.com/2015/06/05/millennial-college-graduates-young-educated-jobless-335821.html">college graduates can't find jobs</a>, <a href="http://www.sanders.senate.gov/college-costs">student loan debt will doom us all</a>.</p>
<p>But these are just parts of a larger and even more troubling story.
After spending four years working in higher education, trying to effect
piecemeal improvements, I'm convinced that the picture is more dire than
most people realize: There's no one single problem to fix or villain to
defeat, no buzzword-y panacea that will get things back to normal.</p>
<p>And so now, after devoting nearly 20 years to this life, I've decided
to walk away. I'm quitting my tenure-track position; by May of next
year, I'll be out of this side of academia forever.</p>
<p>Here are some departing thoughts.</p></div><a href="http://www.vox.com/2015/9/8/9261531/professor-quitting-job">http://www.vox.com/2015/9/8/9261531/professor-quitting-job</a><br><br>-- <br><div class="gmail_signature"><div dir="ltr"><div><div dir="ltr"><div><div dir="ltr"><div><div dir="ltr"><div><div dir="ltr"><div>carlos palombini, ph.d. (dunelm)<br>professor de musicologia ufmg<br>professor colaborador ppgm-unirio<br><a href="http://www.proibidao.org" target="_blank">www.proibidao.org</a><br><a href="http://goo.gl/KMV98I" target="_blank">ufmg.academia.edu/CarlosPalombini</a><br></div><div><a href="http://www.researchgate.net/profile/Carlos_Palombini2" target="_blank">www.researchgate.net/profile/Carlos_Palombini2</a><br><a href="http://scholar.google.com.br/citations?user=YLmXN7AAAAAJ" target="_blank">scholar.google.com.br/citations?user=YLmXN7AAAAAJ</a><br></div><div></div><div></div><div></div><div></div><div></div><div></div><div></div><div></div><div></div><div></div><div></div><div></div><div></div><div></div><div></div><div></div><div></div><div></div><div></div><div></div><div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div>
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