Economics Comes to the Ivy Halls

For John, BLUF:  I suspect this is a self-inflicted wound and I find it, in one way, sad.  Nothing to see here; just move along.

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Academics reeling as market discipline comes to the University of Wisconsin

From The American Thinker, by Mr Thomas Lifson, 16 March 2018.

Here is the lede plus two:

If you are sick and tired of professors indoctrinating students in politicized classes that teach nothing of any use in real life, and hate the idea that tenure immunizes them from accountability, the next decade or so is going to provide some relief.  The reckoning is coming, as shocked professors at a University of Wisconsin campus just discovered.  The higher education bubble that Professor Glenn Reynolds of Instapundit has forecast to burst has just popped in Stevens Point, Wisconsin.

It turns out that you can’t earn a living teaching subjects that students aren’t that interested in.  Even if you have tenure.  Colleen Flaherty writes in the Chronicle of Higher Education:

…the University of Wisconsin at Stevens Point announced its plan to cut 13 majors -- including those in anchor humanities departments such as English and history and all three of the foreign languages offered -- and, with them, faculty jobs. Tenured professors may well lose their positions.

Further down we learn who died:

Here is the list of the departments being closed at Wisconsin, Stevens Point.

• American studies,
• art (excluding graphic design),
• English (excluding English for teacher certification),
• French,
• geography,
• geoscience,
• German,
• history (excluding social science for teacher certification),
• music literature,
• philosophy,
• political science,
• sociology
• Spanish.

I have a BS, and a Masters focused on Management in the Aerospace area, but still, there are some majors there I have enjoyed dabbling in, including History, Philosophy, Political Science and Sociology.  There are things to be learned in those fields.  For instance, there is that old bromide, "Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it." (George Santayana)  I would suggest Venezuela is an example of that.

Hat tip to the InstaPundit.

Regards  —  Cliff