In the meanwhile, Western Illinois University destroyed its philosophy program. Completely. Because university students obviously don’t need philosophy.
The reason why philosophy was cut is that universities have adopted the same approach to measuring the success of an academic program as the one that is used (controversially yet ubiquitously) to measure the health of a national economy. An economy is considered healthy if it constantly grows. Nothing else matters, just the constant dumb increase in the rotation of money in the economy.
This same ridiculous system has been adopted in higher ed. A robust and vibrant department that produces great research and educates a healthy number of students is considered a complete and abject failure if the number of its majors doesn’t constantly increase. And I mean, constantly. It’s all about that: numbers up = good, numbers not up for a semester = bad, let’s eliminate the program immediately. My blog is not read by idiots, so I know I don’t have to explain why this system is deranged.
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