Your comments, please, on Barbour's statement:

Fire Shelby · Status: Offline

Your comments, please, on Barbour's statement:

Date: Apr 15, 2004

Ugh. Barbour pointed out that all of the new IHL board members understood the economic needs. Note that he didn't say they understand higher education. And if Robinson thinks we can be self sufficient through selling products, she clearly doesn't know anything about higher education.

Date: Apr 15, 2004

quote:
Originally posted by:
""Our universities and colleges are economic gold mines, and we have to do a better job of mining them.""

Ouch.

Date: Apr 16, 2004

Barbour is half right. College & universities are critical to improving the economic well-being of the state.

But gold mining is really very destructive to the surrounding area.

I think a diamond mine is a better analogy. If the extraction is hasty & careless, the product may be worth far less (industrial grade) than if proper care had been taken in the mining process (gem stones).

In their eagerness to turn a fast buck with that research "gold mine," the Thames administration is effectively strip mining USM.

Another point to be made is that a great component of Barbour's "gold mine" is the educational process & not the production of patentable "inventions." Ultimately, it's the quality of the graduates (students) that will help advance Mississippi economically & not the short-term effects of patents, inventions & research grant monies.

Date: Apr 16, 2004

quote:
Originally posted by: Invictus
"Barbour is half right. College & universities are critical to improving the economic well-being of the state. But gold mining is really very destructive to the surrounding area. I think a diamond mine is a better analogy. If the extraction is hasty & careless, the product may be worth far less (industrial grade) than if proper care had been taken in the mining process (gem stones). In their eagerness to turn a fast buck with that research "gold mine," the Thames administration is effectively strip mining USM. Another point to be made is that a great component of Barbour's "gold mine" is the educational process & not the production of patentable "inventions." Ultimately, it's the quality of the graduates (students) that will help advance Mississippi economically & not the short-term effects of patents, inventions & research grant monies."

You are right on today, Invictus! Please note that these students should be considered neither a university's "possessions" nor its "customers". A university's investment in the quality education of its students will produce dividends far into the future.

Date: Apr 16, 2004

quote:
Originally posted by: Sphere
"You are right on today, Invictus! Please note that these students should be considered neither a university's "possessions" nor its "customers". A university's investment in the quality education of its students will produce dividends far into the future. "

Its like the folk singer Utah Phillips says (paraphrasing): "Don't ever let the business, suit and tie crowd call our children 'America's most valuable natural resource' [or similar noun]. Have you seen what they do to valuable natural resources? Have you seen a clear-cut in the forest, have you seen a strip mine - they're gonna strip mine your soul for the sake of profit . . . ."

Date: Apr 16, 2004

Of course the gov. has a board to agree with him. The IHL defines its first main mission statements thus: "Higher Education Matters." Then they add the following sentence, presumably to clarify exactly why it is significant: "Universities are the wellsprings of civilization and human capital." They really do believe that people are disposable commodities who are only worth their earning power. They want an educational model with the ethics AND profitability of Enron, where the in-crowd gets rich and has fun and the rest of us can slave in the mines to find enough metal for the their golden parachutes.

Ultimately, it seems to me, his remarks show simply another person with anti-education, anti-intellectual assumptions, while swearing on a stack of bibles that education means so much. Of course they really mean that education is good because it puts so much money in their own pockets.