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Growth Wins

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Clarissa

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This is not a fake headline. It actually happens. One strategy is to identify students who started the application process online and then quit or people who accessed the college’s webpage and used the search box. What qualifications these people have or whether they are even literate matters not a whit. It’s all about growth. Growth, growth, growth. Numbers. That these numbers create gigantic holes in a college’s budget serves as no deterrent. Growth always wins even though it’s an utter fiction.

24 responses to “Growth Wins”

  1. el Avatar
    el

    How do colleges increase their funding by those Chichikov’s “dead souls”?

    I suppose those ‘students’ exist only on paper, right?

    Besides, the word ‘growth’ need not have positive connotations, it can be a sign of a life-threatening disease in human body or in an institution.

    Liked by 2 people

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    1. Clarissa Avatar
      Clarissa

      That’s exactly it. We don’t increase funding. We create large budget holes by anticipating large numbers of students that don’t arrive. You make a great point about growth. With your permission, I’ll use it during the next debate on whether increasing “numbers” should be our only goal.

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  2. el Avatar
    el

    \ That these numbers create gigantic holes in a college’s budget serves as no deterrent. 

    But somebody must financially benefit from creating those fake numbers, even if those are only short-term benefits till those employees destroy one university and move to the next. Cui Bono?

    Liked by 1 person

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    1. Clarissa Avatar
      Clarissa

      In the specific case of my university, we have a young ambitious chancellor who wants a more prestigious job. To get such a job, he must show a growth in numbers on a graph. Then he’ll benefit financially from that new job.

      And everybody else is playing along because he’s THE BOSS and people are being subservient.

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  3. methylethyl Avatar
    methylethyl

    Cancer is a growth…

    Liked by 2 people

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  4. TomW Avatar
    TomW

    Higher ed is also addicted to newness. Administrators are happy to jump on every bandwagon that comes along, and there’s nothing but praise for new courses, new programs, new majors, new initiatives, etc. And while some of those new things are good and needed, no one ever gets praise for doing a good job with all the well-established things that are the foundation of what the university does.

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    1. Avatar
      Anonymous

      This feels like it’s applicable more broadly than just in education.

      Liked by 1 person

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    2. methylethyl Avatar
      methylethyl

      Perpetually chasing newness is the essence of the progressive mindset.

      It’s why you can’t get rid of conservatives: they’re the only ones who can maintain your infrastructure.

      Liked by 1 person

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      1. Avatar
        Anonymous

        There are several different types of people running around calling themselves conservatives. There are tradition and stability minded conservatives who fit that description and will preserve and maintain. But there is also the type of conservative who boils absolutely everything down to money, that type of conservative is extremely destructive.

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        1. methylethyl Avatar
          methylethyl

          Can predict with nearly 100% accuracy how the guys who replaced our septic system feel about drag queen story hour. They used to be Democrats.

          Are they more conservative, or more progressive?

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          1. Avatar
            Anonymous

            It sounds like they might be traditionalist conservatives, but it’s hard to say based on that issue alone.

            Honestly, the recent obsession with drag queen story hours is just a distraction from serious issues. From the perspective of a child young enough to want to hear someone else reading stories, I don’t think a drag queen is all that different from a clown or a bunny rabbit reading stories. Lots of drag queens almost look like clowns the way that they are dressed and made up. The events are ultimately stupid because they are supposed to promote tolerance – which is not happening, because children really aren’t going to understand what a drag queen is, and so I don’t see how any tolerance could be developed. They are also completely harmless for the same reason, the children really aren’t going to understand what a drag queen is. The drag queens are wasting their time and so is everyone whose gotten worked up condemning or defending them. It’s just stupidity in every direction.

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            1. Clarissa Avatar
              Clarissa

              How do people not get tired of the argument that “it’s only the tiniest of minorities and what harm can it do”? We’ve been shown time and again how this supposedly tiny, unimportant thing then grows into a much larger thing and then squeezes everything out if it’s not stopped early.

              Nobody starts by bombing the Okhmatdyt. They start with making one step across the border in 2003. Then another in 2005. And while people are arguing about how it’s not a big deal and let’s not overreact, it all somehow slides towards whole cities being erased.

              You are literally three minutes away from losing custody for refusing to saw off your son’s penis and you are babbling about bunnies like it’s supposed to be cute. It’s not cute. Teen Vogue came out with a picture of a woman with amputated breasts. It’s not cute.

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              1. Avatar
                Anonymous

                I’m sorry, but I find this slippery slope argument ridiculous. I am opposed to allowing any sort off transition surgeries to be done to minors and I think drag queen story hour is basically harmless. I don’t see my position changing on either issue.

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            2. methylethyl Avatar
              methylethyl

              Like many children, I was effing *terrified* of clowns and people in animal costumes at that age. I have no idea how anybody thinks that’s a good idea, *even if you remove all the cultural baggage.* It’s literally one of the most common childhood phobias.

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              1. methylethyl Avatar
                methylethyl

                …but it is just one tiny issue among many, picked at random. I could predict, probably with 90+% accuracy, what any of those workmen think about our current immigration policy, about inflation, about covid policy, about student loan forgiveness, about public education, about criminal prosecution, about homeless policy… and it wouldn’t be the progressive view. Normal people want the same normal things they’ve always wanted: stability, family, a house to live in, good jobs, opportunities for their children, and safe neighborhoods. Progressives are against all of that right now, and quite a lot of us are wondering why they hate us so much.

                If you couldn’t predict that yourself, you need to get out and talk to more people outside academia.

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              2. Clarissa Avatar
                Clarissa

                We also have to ask, if a friend man feels the need to prance around in panties and make-up around small children, why do we assume his sexual dysfunction (because what else can it be?) will stop at that? Why are we using small children to give an adult pervert some free thrills? Why is the man doing it? What goal does he pursue? And what his next goal is going to be after we feed this one?

                Clowns have no sexual component while drag queening is aggressively and exclusively sexual. And the idea that very small children don’t know the difference between sexualized and non-sexualized engagement and hence don’t care is the favorite tool of pedophiles.

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              3. methylethyl Avatar
                methylethyl

                My family was really into the community theater scene– I grew up around drag queens, and count at least two of them as family friends. I have never been to their shows (crowds and noise not my thing), but my mom has, and I hear it’s a raucous good time. For adults. Those guys have zero interest in kids, and as soon as DQSH started being a thing, they told us, straight up, don’t take kids to that stuff: drag is *adult* entertainment, and while some of us are just gay and have no interest in kids and would not want to do that… the scene also attracts a lot of very damaged people, and the ones who *do* have an interest in being around kids are the *last* people on earth you want around your kids. Don’t do it.

                I’m not part of that scene, so I’m gonna take their word for it.

                Liked by 1 person

              4. Clarissa Avatar
                Clarissa

                I like drag queen shows myself but a drag queen who would take his number to kids is a sick, sick puppy.

                It’s the same as, for example, horror novels. It’s perfectly fine to read them. But an adult who reads hardcore novel aloud to small kids is a perv. That can only be done for pervy reasons.

                Liked by 1 person

      2. Avatar
        Anonymous

        I understand what you mean and could even agree in spirit. But the latest conservative leader did nothing but talk about infrastructure, while the progressive leader helped pass infrastructure bills that Republicans that voted against them then took credit for and bragged about to their constituents.

        How would you adjust your statement about conservatives and infrastructure to account for that?

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        1. methylethyl Avatar
          methylethyl

          Talking generally about ideologies. Not about party politics. In US party politics, there is only one party: the rich. Most of what they say, or claim as platform issues, is irrelevant. What they do benefits the rich at the expense of the rest of us.

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  5. Stringer Bell Avatar
    Stringer Bell

    There’s this idea in social science called Goodhart’s law which states that when a measure becomes a target, it ceases to be a good measure. Academia has great examples of it. Number of papers used to be a good metric to judge someone’s research but when it was explicitly used as a metric for determining promotion/tenure, people gamed the system and now number of papers means nothing anymore. Same thing with number of citations, etc.

    Number of students enrolled is explicitly used to determine college rankings, which means that metric is also useless because colleges rig those numbers.

    Did you hear about how Columbia rigged its stats to boost their rankings?

    https://edition.cnn.com/2022/09/22/opinions/columbia-ranking-inaccurate-data-thaddeus/index.html

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  6. cliff arroyo Avatar
    cliff arroyo

    “favorite tool of pedophiles.”

    If Drag Queens want to do good works why don’t do they do highway cleanup? Volunteer at animal shelters? Delivering meals on wheels?

    Why this laser focus on children?

    To be clear I think DQSH might work with a different emphasis…. more Dame Edna/Mrs Doubtfire (or even Maude Frickert or Aunt Blabby) and not the sexualized and/or grotesque monstrous look that modern drag queens favor.

    What person thinks this look is appropriate for small children?

    Liked by 1 person

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    1. methylethyl Avatar
      methylethyl

      “why don’t they do highway cleanup…”

      It’s difficult in heels.

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    2. Clarissa Avatar
      Clarissa

      All of the mommies posted on Insta and gathered coolness points.

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A conservative literary critic and college professor

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