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PERRIN LOVETT

~ Fiction, Freedom, and The West

PERRIN LOVETT

Tag Archives: higher education

Avoid American Colleges

15 Thursday Oct 2020

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ACTA, Amerika, college, education, higher education

Almost all of them (4,000ish) are worthless.

The stories are becoming tedious at this point. Today, it’s a self-described racist ruining a Linguistics department and #takemathback(to the stone ages):

In the latest sign that the mind of U.S. academia has been hijacked by the left, a professor from the University of California-Santa Barbara described herself “a white American” who is, therefore “by definition racist.”

In a webinar lecture entitled, “Undoing White Supremacy in the Language Disciplines,” Mary Bucholtz, Professor and Chair of the Department of Linguistics at the University of California-Santa Barbara, broke the news to America’s majority white population that white supremacy “is a system that White people have built in order to oppress everyone else.”

Read the whole pathetic thing and then read PCR’s hilarious take on the matter. If you are a young American contemplating college, the seriously reconsider. For a guide to the very few decent schools, consult the ACTA A-list. Be mindful that the criteria are academically-based; schools may have other structural and/or cultural problems; I know three of the “As” do. Again, I recommend Thomas More of NH and Magdalen College, also of NH. (One will note a distinct lack of Hoax adherence at those two). For other options and/or for graduate school, then look to Europe, especially Eastern Europe. Consult the “Polish Option” and similar academic potential in GET OUT!

“Catholic” and “College” in Name Only

11 Saturday Jul 2020

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"Catholic", college, decline, education, higher education, Marquette, social stupidity, TikTok

A future college racket victim happily TikTok’d about something that obviously upset the professionally-agitated and mentally-ill rabble of the digital divide.

A petition on Instagram also encouraged others to copy and paste a template and send it to the university urging them not to admit Pfefferle. It reads:

Ms. Pfefferle has been very vocal on social media (TikTok, Instagram) about how she is enthusiastic about coming to Marquette in the Fall. As a Marquette student who is passionate for the University’s core values, such as Cura Personalis, and recognizing everyone’s human dignity, these transphobic, racist, and xenophobic comments should not be tolerated.

These comments made by Ms. Pfefferle were shared publicly, and were clearly presented as mocking jokes. Ms. Pfefferle is obviously proud of her statements, as she stands behind her words in every post.

These comments create and perpetuate an unsafe space for the LGBTQ+ community, first generation students, and Dreamers at Marquette.

Samantha Pfefferle is proud of her transphobic and xenophobic opinions, which under no circumstances should be allowed at Marquette. The University can and should make it their priority to ensure students (specifically LGBTQ+, immigrants, first gen, and POC) feel safe, valued, and appreciated on campus.

Eventually, Pfefferle was contacted by the dean of Marquette University’s undergraduate admissions, who warned her she was not yet a student.

“[He] had the heart to tell me I wasn’t a student,” Pfefferle said, describing the interaction to the Fix. “This means that my classification is still in limbo and is currently being decided by the administration. I have been accepted, I paid for my housing, I have my roommates, I even have a complete class schedule. If that doesn’t make me a student, what does?”

Pfefferle says she was also quizzed on a number of things by other Marquette officials, including her views on “Dreamers.”

What makes you a student? Sitting through four to six years of psycho-babble and racking up six-figures of void Shylock debt. She should have told them that her view on invaders (Dreamers) is that one can dream better in one’s own country than in ours. Dreaming, being, and bitching elsewhere also goes best for other invaders, even more invaders, pedophiles, and not-Americans. Of course, telling these “Jesuit” termites anything is a waste of time, as it attending their failed, useless, and sinful college. Communicating with the academic pharisees is akin to communicating with anonymous petitioners who see external Cura Personalis for thee but not for xhem. Shun the wicked; don’t talk to them. Or give them money.

Marquette, like almost all the others, is out. I think we’re down to two schools in the US – Magdalen College and Thomas More, both in NH and both literally, Biblically Catholic. If she could part with the idiocy of anti-social media, this young lady might do well in Poland.

As for the Instagerm losers and the Marquette inquisitors, if they’re this upset by an eighteen-year-old’s online song and dance, they’re in the wrong kind of “institution.”

Grading the Colleges 2019

21 Wednesday Aug 2019

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college, education, higher education, Walter Williams

Dr. Walter Williams has the dirt on the schools:

For many parents, August is a month of both pride and tears. Pride because their teenager is taking that big educational step and tears because for many it’s the beginning of an empty nest. Yet, there’s a going-away-to-college question that far too few parents ask or even contemplate: What will my youngster learn in college?

The American Council of Trustees and Alumni provides some answers that turn out to be quite disturbing. ACTA evaluated every four-year public university as well as hundreds of private colleges and universities. That’s more than 1,100 institutions that enroll nearly 8 million students, more than two-thirds of all students enrolled in four-year liberal arts schools nationwide. ACTA’s findings were published in their report “What Will They Learn? 2018-19.” It doesn’t look good.

No “A” schools in the Ivy League. My undergrad alma mater got an A. My grad school university a D (based on the undergrad programs).

THE REPORT

The College Basket Case

17 Monday Jun 2019

Posted by perrinlovett in News and Notes

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college, deep decline, education, higher education, mental illness, society

As I’ve pointed out a few times before, the American education system is, by and large, broken, from kindergarten to graduate school. A new survey reveals the magnitude of the underlying issues facing the modern college student.

A 2018 survey at 140 educational institutions asked almost 90,000 college students about their health over the past 12 months. The survey found that more than three in five (63%) respondents reported experiencing “overwhelming anxiety” in the past year, while two in five (42%) reported feeling “so depressed that it was difficult to function.” Students also reported that anxiety (27%), sleep difficulties (22%) and depression (19%) had adversely affected their academic performance.

In the same survey, 12% of college students reported having “seriously considered suicide.” Another study, which looked at college students with depression, anxiety and attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) who had been referred by college counseling centers for psychopharmacological evaluation, found that the same proportion—12%—had actually made at least one suicide attempt. Half of the students in the latter study had previously received a prescription for medication, most often antidepressants.

Colleges are feeling the squeeze, with demand growing nationally for campus mental health services. A study by Penn State’s Center for Collegiate Mental Health reported an average 30% to 40% increase in students’ use of counseling centers between 2009 and 2015 at a time when enrollment grew by just 5%. According to Penn State’s report, the “increase in demand is primarily characterized by a growing frequency of students with a lifetime prevalence of threat-to-self indicators.”

This is a system terminally out of control. The schools and their students are mirrors, reflecting a changed, fractured, and fragmented culture and society. Our enemies have done their jobs well, over many decades. None of this will be fixed soon nor easily.

American Collegiate Restoration

15 Wednesday May 2019

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college, education, higher education, Walter Williams

Dr. Walter Williams, once again, examines the failings of American higher education. He reviews a new book on possible restoration.

For the high cost of college, what do students learn? A seminal study, “Academically Adrift,” by Richard Arum and Josipa Roksa, after surveying 2,300 students at various colleges, argues that very little improvement in critical reasoning skills occurs in college. Adult literacy is falling among college graduates. Large proportions of college graduates do not know simple facts, such as the half-century in which the Civil War occurred. There are some exceptions to this academic incompetency, most notably in technical areas such as engineering, nursing, architecture and accounting, where colleges teach vocationally useful material. Vedder says that student ineptitude is not surprising since they spend little time in classrooms and studying. It’s even less surprising when one considers student high school preparation. According to 2010 and 2013 NAEP test scores, only 37% of 12th-graders were proficient in reading, 25% in math, 12% in history, 20% in geography and 24% in civics.

A quarter-century after the fact, I almost – almost – question the collective wisdom of the University of Georgia. It’s almost like technology worship and diversity uber alles isn’t the answer. Dunno,maybe it’s bigger athletic budgets.

U.S. Education: Up, Down, and … Ouch?

12 Wednesday Sep 2018

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academia, college, economics, education, higher education, jobs, money, schools, violence

There a seldom-discussed phenomenon which, given enough time, will invariably affect any large institution. There evolve two classes of people therein. The first carry out the core functions of the outfit. The second consists of support and administrative functionaries, often important but not critical. Eventually, the second class almost always comes to control operations within the institution; their compensation usually outpaces the core function class.

In an example related to American education, we once again have the yearly college salary numbers from CUPA. Interesting, telling numbers.

The Tenure-tracked professors:

They’re doing better with the Trump economy.

Screenshot 2018-09-12 at 12.12.49 PM

But the Executive-level Admins are doing much better.

Screenshot 2018-09-12 at 12.15.04 PM

Some of these jobs are arguably important to a large school. But, who does the educating??? And all of the professorial numbers ignore the trend of the adjuncts, poorly (POORLY) paid and overworked – teaching 50% of all classes.

Young people, please consider all of this along with the rising, always rising costs associated with the process. And consider the following trend:

With the improving economy and the diminishing quality of the degrees, more and more companies and whole industries are abandoning the quest for credentials.

No diploma? No problem.

More and more companies are scrapping college degree requirements for jobs. They’re not saying you shouldn’t seek higher education, but not having a degree won’t be a barrier for you to work in certain jobs at their companies.

Some of the 15 big companies saying “no bachelor’s degree is fine” include Google, Nordstrom, Bank of America, Ernst & Young, IBM and Apple.

The changes are coming as job seekers, as well as high school graduates, consider whether college is worth the skyrocketing cost.

Something to think about, degree or not.

Also, and semi-related, a few lower schools are bringing back the paddle.

An area school recently sent home consent forms informing them of a new corporal policy at an area school. The superintendent says they’ve received a little over a hundred forms back, a third of them giving consent to paddle their child.

“In this school, we take discipline very seriously,” said Jody Boulineau, Superintendent of GSIC.

GSIC is going old school with a new policy for this year.

“There was a time where corporal punishment was kind of the norm in school and you didn’t have the problems that you have,” the Superintendent said.

You heard that right. Georgia School for Innovation and the Classics, a K through 9 charter school, is bringing back paddling students as a form of discipline.

Younger young people, think about that.

If students engage in anything even resembling “violence,” even in self-defense, they may rest assured that they will be disciplined, up to and including possible arrest. But, what’s forbidden to the child goose is a-okay for the sinecure gander. And, this particular school, new and innovative as it might be, is in a district with an utterly dismal academic success record. So, the kids can expect to literally take a beating in exchange for a fraudulent, substandard education, for that unnecessary credential.

During another age and in another century, your young author was a frequent target of the “board” of education. As such I can kind of sympathize with the administrators (always the ones in charge) who seek to use it again. However, if I recall correctly, all those whacks did little (nothing) to deter boys from being boys. In other words, it usually doesn’t work. And much else has changed in the past 100+ years. Then, schools expected order just as students expected instruction. Both usually got what they needed. Today, it’s a different, worn and sad story.

All things to think about, if that’s still acceptable.

On the Adjunctification of Higher Education

02 Monday Oct 2017

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academia, adjuncts, America, college, education, higher education, Homeless Adjunct, IQ, schools, society

I have a nominal esoteric interest in formal education. I write, from time to time, about the schools, what they were, what they’ve become, and their modern failings.

To the point: increasingly, the “education” is worthless and is overly expensive. That’s a problem for students and for larger society.

The “liberal” takeover angle gets a decent amount of attention and rightly so. For instance, more and more schools abandon “AD” and “BC,” because PC. 10,001 other examples to go with that one.

But it’s not, as a whole, a purely left-right issue.

I follow a small number of my fellow WordPressers. I get daily updates. I read this one with thoughtful attention. Please do likewise. It’s by “The Homeless Adjunct” and, as might be expected, sheds light on the trials of the non-tenured, part-time faculty of America’s colleges and universities (75% of all instructors now). It’s bad.

This piece is a follow-up to an earlier post (2012). I think it was that one that made me follow Homeless. Read it too. Also consider her (slightly liberal – but mostly correct) take on the overall problem:

Within one generation, in five easy steps, not only have the scholars and intellectuals of the country been silenced and nearly wiped out, but the entire institution has been hijacked, and recreated as a machine through which future generations will ALL be impoverished, indebted and silenced. Now, low wage migrant professors teach repetitive courses they did not design to students who travel through on a kind of conveyor belt, only to be spit out, indebted and desperate into a jobless economy. The only people immediately benefitting inside this system are the administrative class – whores to the corporatized colonizers, earning money in this system in order to oversee this travesty. But the most important thing to keep in mind is this: The real winners, the only people truly benefitting from the big-picture meltdown of the American university are those people who, in the 1960s, saw those vibrant college campuses as a threat to their established power. They are the same people now working feverishly to dismantle other social structures, everything from Medicare and Social Security to the Post Office.

Looking at this wreckage of American academia, we have to acknowledge: They have won.

BUT these are victors who will never declare victory — because the carefully-maintained capitalist illusion of the “university education” still benefits them. Never, ever, admit that the university is dead. No, no. Quite the opposite. Instead, continue to insist that the university is the ONLY way to gain a successful, middle class life. Say that the university is mandatory for happiness in adulthood. All the while, maintain this low-wage precariate class of edu-migrants, continually mis-educate and indebt in the students to ensure their docility, pimp the institution out to corporate interests. It’s a win-win for those right wingers – they’ve crippled those in the country who would push back against them, and have so carefully and cleverly hijacked the educational institutions that they can now be turned into part of the neoliberal/neocon machinery, further benefitting the right-wing agenda.

So now what?

This ruination has taken about a generation. Will we be able to undo this damage? Can we force refunding of our public educational system? Can we professionalize faculty, drive out the administrative glut and corporate hijackers? Can we provide free or low-cost tuition and high-quality education to our students in a way that does NOT focus only on job training, but on high-level personal and intellectual development? I believe we can. But only if we understand this as a big picture issue, and refuse to allow those in government, or those corporate-owned media mouthpieces to divide and conquer us further. This ruinous rampage is part of the much larger attack on progressive values, on the institutions of social good. The battle isn’t only to reclaim the professoriate, to wipe out student debt, to raise educational outcomes — although each of those goals deserve to be fought for. But we will win a Pyrrhic victory at best unless we understand the nature of the larger war, and fight back in a much, much bigger way to reclaim the country’s values for the betterment of our citizens.

There’s more to it than that, but the five-point plan pretty well sums up the problem. This is something to truly consider if you’re off to college or have a youngin headed that way. Grades and test scores are up while IQs are down. Just too many degrees floating about. Faculty paid at 1970’s levels in 2017. A pathetic return on investment in many cases. Outside of a few (and shrinking) fields, an absence of actual learning. The death of critical thinking. Football coaches who view your daughter as a prostitute for the team and recruits. Get the picture?

For the adjunct faculty, Homeless and others, I may have a partial answer to the professional issues. Maybe, not sure. Just as there is a real thing called the IQ Communication Gap, that dictates an incredible difficulty related to and communicating with those 2 SD north or south of one’s own intelligence level, so there is also a real IQ cap on elite faculty – at places like Harvard, Yale, Oxford, etc.

The average student at Harvard (let’s call them representative of the elite students of the world) clocks in at 128 (W. or S.B.). That’s superior but not genius. The average faculty from these institutions rates around 133. And the curve is extremely narrow, clustering almost exclusively around that number.

Those too far below can’t make it for obvious reasons. Those above, however, suffer a similar yet more difficult to define exclusion. Around 135 there is a steep drop off. At 140 there is a collapse. One SD above the average, in the real genius range, the chances of obtaining elite teaching or research work effectively falls to zero.

This may be a product of the genius/near genius tendency for nonconformity. Or, it might have to do with the fact that we think and operate entirely differently that the rest of humanity. Whatever the cause, the effect is real.

I have a sneaking suspicion, one that might make a good thesis or research project for some psych. grad student. Anyway, I suspect that the average adjunct professional has a higher IQ than the average tenure track professional within a given institution. It’s even possible, as a whole, that average adjunct IQ exceeds that of the regular elite professors, as a whole. That could be a stretch – but not one too far. And that’s the faculty. I have no doubt I am 100% correct when comparing adjuncts to superfluous administrators.

Whatever the cause, the effects are real and felt. Please do read those above articles if you have half a modicum of interest in the subject.

Like Homeless I have some hope that the system may be salvageable. However, a better strategy is probably to abandon the schools and start new, better, and more modern alternatives. People are doing that with great success.

And, like the story of Cato’s cattle, it’s the great success that’s admirable.

Sham U.

04 Monday Apr 2016

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America, Canada, freedom, higher education, students

Recently I wrote (again) of the terrible decline of academics in academia. This is becoming a pet subject of mine because of my tenuous ties to higher education and, more importantly, because education is critical in the quest for personal freedom. There’s a reason why they didn’t want slaves knowing how to read.

Here are some links, one based on the other, providing more evidence of the decline. They are derived from studies and experiences in Canada. I suspect American students are even worse off.

No offense, USC sweeties. Google.

Charles Hugh Smith takes a look at the insane and unrewarded growth in the costs of higher education. U.S. student debt has ballooned by $1 Trillion in the past decade – with nothing to show for the expense. Students emerge from the schools burdened with debt, knowing nothing, unprepared for employment in jobs that don’t exist.

Smith cites to an article by Ron Srigley, a professor at Prince Edward Island University in Canada. Srigley gives an insiders account of what education should be, what it used to be and what it has become. He explains the lack of reading, comprehension, and motivation on the part of students, grade inflation, the lack of substantive curriculum, administrative tyranny, and gradual loss of scholarly faculty.

Great works—of science, art, literature, philosophy, and history—are the giants on whose shoulders we stand in our efforts to become giants ourselves. The fact that such works may now plausibly be replaced by narcissistic and transparently self-promoting twaddle, or indeed by nothing at all, is a sign of the nihilism of the modern academy. This is the classroom in which our sons or daughters (or you) very likely sit each day…

  • Srigley.

Great works inspire great work and through great effort produce great minds. Today pandering and mediocre works produce nothing aside from years of debt repayment.

Smith wrote a book, The Nearly Free University, which outlines a better, modern alternative to the expensive, dreary and pointless university system. With technology and determination a student today can still receive a real liberal education, minus the costs and nonsense which accompany the “traditional” school experience. Please share this information with anyone you know in higher education, especially if he happens to be a university bound student. In addition to the mind, money and time are terrible things to waste too.

And Another Thing!

08 Friday Feb 2013

Posted by perrinlovett in Uncategorized

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cigars, crime, government, higher education, justice, Natural Law

Whoa, I’m on fire.  After I published the last post I remembered something else I wanted to blab about.  I have now forgotten what that was.  Anyway, I want to plug for my buddy Russell Wilder at Top Shelf Cigars (http://www.topshelfcigarshoppe.com/) and JFR cigars (http://www.casadefernandez.com/).  In particular I write in praise of the JFR 770:

0208131212

“770” refers to 7 inches by a 70 ring gauge.  That means this joker is a huge cigar.  A note: just as I own no guns (only for police and the military), I do not partake of dangerous, death-dealing tobacco products.  I also do not drink or lie…

Anyway, I think the JFR emanates from Nicaragua, where all the best (non-Cuban) tobacco comes from.  Just ask my friend, Nick Perdomo.  No, Nick, I’m not a tratior – well, today I am.  Anyway, again, I am told this little beauty draws remarkably well for such a stout cigar with no sidewiding or need for retouching.  It has a lovely dark brown wrapper and delicious taste, so I’m told.  I would say, based on the infomation I’ve been given, that the effect is mild to medium body (more medium).  Again, not the ass-kicking one would expect from a stick of this magnitude. 

0208131211

Witness the JFR 770 in action, immediatley above.  In the Augusta area you can get this delightful monstrocity at Top Shelf, see the link herein.  The rest of ya’ll check with your local tobacconist. 

Oh, THE THING I FORGOT!  Some of you know I tried and lost 😦 a federal jury trial last fall.  My guy was charged with the most erroneous terrorism charges immaginable.  I truly thought we had the case in the bag until the Jury came back with a guilty verdict.  In short, the defendant was the most sympathetic individual I have encountered in my legal travels.  He was a highly decorated U.S. Army veteran who was horribly injured by the government’s never-ending wars of aggression and profit.  When he sought help from the only source available, he was arrested and railroaded in spite of my efforts.  Of course, at sentencing, the government came in “on my guy’s side” due to his horrible condition (which they caused).  He got time served.  Unbeleivable, except we live in the USSA, the new Amerika.

I am slowly working with several nationaly syndicated heavyweights about making this sad story public.  I don’t know yet if we’re going to do a generic story to protect identities or if we’ll actually be able to state the case in detail.  Either way it will be a compelling piece about the “Just-Us” system in Amerika.  Stay tuned.

ALSO, I am currently seeking a new career in higher education.  This is due in part at my disillusionment following my last jury trial (God willing, my last), my general dissatisfaction with the local legal racket, and my desire to serve society by producing lawyers and other citizens with a greater sense of what Natural Law is and how it affects us all.  Then again, this is why I started ths little blog.  More to come!

Perrin Lovett

perrinlovett@gmail.com

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