terrapinsanity.com

An opinion piece in the Diamondback this morning gets dangerously close to taking note of how the emperor wears no clothes.

Speaking about potential down sides of taking unpaid internships, Malcolm Harris (a senior in both English and Gov’t and Politics) questions the ecosystem that evolves when campus programs and companies/agencies collaborate.

Let’s make the harder point than did Harris: The proposed Gen Ed requirements just unveiled would institutionalize “experiential learning” (translation: “unpaid internships” for most of our students), wherein students will pay increasingly-costly tuition bills to College Park in return for some employer or government bureaucrat signing off that they did the free labor.

This does the state’s mandated volunteerism requirement for high school graduation one better – we get to charge for it, and presumably curry favor with select area businesses or agencies by steering students to one or the other.

It is no wonder that this refactoring of CORE became such a priority for the Provost – if admissions reins supreme then budget is its handmaiden, and a requirement that students pay for credits delivered by someone other than an expensive faculty member has clear appeal.