terrapinsanity.com

Following the Diamondback’s article this morning we know now that students, through their official organization on campus, the SGA, have had their input to the new Gen Ed plan. Not that it will change what is about to be rammed through. Good thing they didn’t blink, as they’d have missed the chance altogether.

The key observation in today’s article is:

The University Senate just released senators’ amendments Tuesday in anticipation of today’s meeting, where they will vote on the General Education proposal.

Since Congress can rush through fundamental changes to the nation’s economy in a space of hours without reading text, everyone else must feel this process is okay too. And besides, this is only the campus Gen Ed requirement, not a national health insurance system. What could go wrong with that? Who needs to care that approvals will be applied without stakeholders even knowing the changes, much less have a chance to contemplate consequences? We’re only talking about how our graduates fare and our university is hence viewed in the nation over the next few decades.

Right?

We shouldn’t be so concerned. Nobody believes the Provost will follow this blueprint any more closely than he follows the grand Strategic Plan, that we rammed through in similar breakneck speed. These exercises are becoming write-only documents, that are created to get Central off our backs. And besides, once we start learning the problems with this plan, under this Provost we can rush through even more changes in a panic.

So who needs to think hard about these things? To study consequences, run controlled pilots, model success rates of present students under proposed plans, calibrate expectations, engineer roll-out plans or persuade colleagues to reach strong consensus? Those are only things cared about by serious scholars, and apparently we no longer have any of those in College Park.