Modern “Edukayshun”
Saw a reference to this on Drudge. Maybe it’s just me, but today’s scheduled activity seems oddly apropos for a place named Brown University. Perhaps they should change their name to “Brown 25“. (smile) (WARNING: links may be considered in bad taste and are probably not safe for small children.)
And before anyone asks: yes, the first link seems to be legit and not satire.
Oh well, at least they’re a private institution so they’re not wasting public funds. Other than the tax breaks they get. And the grants/loans/subsidies from various governments they and their students waste while promoting and attending stuff like this.
Category: "Teh Stoopid", Dumbass Bullshit, Pointless blather
What can Brown do for YOU today?
Apparently lots of things…..
Things certainly come out different there . . . .
Sad … butt true!
The things I never knew until I read TAH. . . . . .
Ivy League Light Bulb Jokes:
How many Dartmouth students does it take to change a light bulb?
None. They don’t have electricity up there.
How many Yale students does it take to change a light bulb?
None. New Haven looks better in the dark.
How many Princeton students does it take to change a light bulb?
Two. One to mix the martinis and one to call the electrician.
How many Penn students does it take to change a light bulb?
One, but he gets 6 credits for it.
How many Columbia students does it take to change a light bulb?
Four. One to change the light bulb, and three to guard him.
How many Harvard students does it take to change a light bulb?
One, and the whole world revolves around him.
Cornell? Who cares!
How many Brown students does it take to change a light bulb?
How many Brown students does it take to change a light bulb?
Oh … nevermind … they are all at a seminar learning how to get their asses reamed and prostate messausaged!
Higher education in this country has totally gone to shit.
@5: Actually, that could be the punchline to all of those schools – as far as I know, they each have similar events. In fact, Yale is also known for its ‘naked parties’, naked run, a group a pranksters known for stripping naked in the library and passing out cookies to people studying for exams in the library, etc.
Suffice it to say, there’s a lot of nudity and sex going on. In some cases it’s the ‘work hard / play hard’ mentality, and in others it’s just college kids being college kids.
The flip side is that there are also all sorts of bright kids doing cutting-edge research into theoretical physics, biomedicine, computer science, nanomaterials, etc.
Hondo, I don’t think grant and loan money really funds these sorts of things, at least not to any noticeable degree, and while you can argue that by funding OTHER things the univeristies would otherwise have to invest it it frees money for these sorts of frivolous activities and thus grants / loans / etc. indirectly have an impact, you’re missing a more distressing reality. If you want to be truly horrified, look into what these schools take from incoming federal grants as ‘overhead’ they use to cover operating costs, building maintenance, etc.
And while I disagree with Sparky’s comment -parts have gone to shit, and parts really excel- here’s an example of the overhead costs I was referring to that will make you lose your lunch:
http://osp.fad.harvard.edu/content/fa-cost-rates-federal-sponsors
An entire workshop on prostate massage? I know I’m pretty much a dullard, but the description on that one scares the bejeezus out of me….
I’m not clear on how the words “pleasurable anal penetration” are not an oxymoron…..
Exit only my friends, exit only…..
Anonymous: money is fungible. A dollar “earmarked” for one purpose merely frees up another dollar to be used for something else. This is why it’s a bad idea to give repressive totalarian regimes like North Korea “humanitarian” aid. All they do is either (1) divert all/part of it, or (2) use the resources freed by that “humanitarian” aid for other purposes.
And regarding overhead: yes, it’s excessive. But just where do you think some of that goes? Back into the university’s general budget to defray other costs – thus freeing money for “essential student programs” like Sex Week and the like.
My wife went to Yale … she has some great stories.
I wish I went to Yale …
But Hondo, look at how bravely transgressive they are.
See? How transgressive…and brave?
Meanwhile Mark Steyn has a post on how the Toronto School Board sicced the cops on a blogger who is often critical of them for a clearly sarcastic post and how our own Federal Dept of Education has its own SWAT team (WTF?!?), which has to make you wonder what exactly the education bureaucrats are so concerned about.
But don’t you dare fail to appreciate their transgressive bravery!
Dear Mom and Dad,
I just wantid to tell you how munch I apreeceate you and all that you due four me. While at Brown Universeidee I is getting a good edumicashen and quite franklee my ass feals grate two.
Reguards … your son (in pre-op whoremoan treetmant to become a woman),
Charlie (soon two bea Charlette)
68W58: I think I’ll take a pass on “look at them”, thanks. I plan on having dinner later. (smile)
@10: Sure, money is fungible, but it’s a very indirect route – things like ‘Sex Week’ are (probably) funded by student activity funds and not (for example) overhead on a research grant that’s looking at new methods for self-assembling graphene circuits. And while you can try to argue that some percentage of the overhead on that example grant goes into a general fund, which in turn covers unforeseen operating costs, and somehow the student activity funds were insufficient to cover ‘Sex Week’ and thus these funds were used, we’re talking an incredibly small -negligible, really- and indirect route.
We could surely find similar things in the military, or any organization for that matter, and while in all these cases -including education- it reflects on the organization as a whole, it also needs to be kept in perspective. Most on this site dislike the ‘scary vet’ meme intensely, and deservedly, because reporting on those few scarred people who happen to be vets gains attention. But the whole picture is still considerably different.
As for where the money goes, no, it’s not mostly for nonsense like this – it’s more for the ever-expanding list of Vice Presidents, middle-managers, administrative consultants to administrators, all of whom are needed to staff the utterly endless committees that are needed to ‘investigate’ whether new commitees need to be formed to hire a new Vice President. It’s a vicious cycle. Sex week is of no real consequence.
Anon–in 1962, in this country, we spent on average just over $500/year per student in K-12 education. Even when you adjust for inflation, that translates to just over $2500/year.
Today, that figure is well over $10,000. FOR K-12. 3 R’s shit. And 80 percent of the HS graduates in NYC can’t even read!
We’ve gone from an educational system that put men on the moon, developed the polio vaccine, etc., to a bunch of whiny fucktarded baby birds, who do nothing but scream for momma to feed them with their mouths open, and where did they get these ideas?
From an educational system that taught them they’re all special little snowflakes, right up to the point they had to hop out of the nest, and promptly got themselves torn a new asshole when the rest of the world wouldn’t kiss their massaged and fisted assholes.
Explain to me, if you can, why the education I got (out-of-state tuition, BTW) for $6000/year in the mid-80’s can cost almost $30,000/year today for fundamentally the same thing? Why does teaching Sally and Johnny to read require expensive tools, Headstart programs, and ever-intrusive “help” from a system that has so far utterly failed by every useful measurable metric?
Sparky, I can confirm that high school grads can’t read and can’t write.
My sister, who teaches pre-med students, has told me more than once that every incoming freshman class has students that are so functionally illiterate, they have to take remedial English. The last time I asked her, the percentage of students requiring this class was 52% of the total number of freshmen. This is at the college level.
There is also plenty of evidence that shows that Head Start is wasting tax money on pre-schoolers because the effects are lost by the time they reach 3rd grade.
@16: I think there are a lot of complexities in the educational landscape, but on the whole, speaking of K-12, I’m pretty much in complete agreement with you that it’s an abomination compared to the past. Grade inflation is rampant, teachers unions are detestable and too many parents view ‘school’ as day-care and have no interest in being involved and/or serving as a role model for their kids. And that’s the tip of the ice-berg. No disagreement there. Our universities have also deteriorated a bit, but because of the nature of higher education, the result is a bit different – at a university, you choose a major and often times choose a good number of the classes within that major. And our top schools, like Yale or Harvard, still have plenty of top talent at both teaching and research who are able to share their knowledge with willing students. The flip side to that being that you can, as a student, opt to take classes where no effort is required – ‘rocks for jocks’, ‘clapping for credit’, etc. These classes are also offered at these top institutions. My point to Hondo was simply that, yes, distractions and pointless exercises in idiocy like ‘Sex Week’ happen at some of our best schools, but so does some cutting-edge research and science. Not as much as I’d like, and not as much as should, but you CAN, if you choose to, still get a top-rate education there. This sets it apart from most K-12 schools where you don’t have a choice in teachers, subject matter, etc. Now, all in all, there’s no good, comprehensive reason why education should cost as much as it does now. Sure, some things are going to be more expensive – if you’re studying to be a scientist, things like an electron microscope or a supercomputer are almost inseparable from their respective fields today, which probably wasn’t true when you were going through the system, and they cost money. But other subjects don’t have that – calculus, at least at the level taught to undergraduates, isn’t changing in any… Read more »
At least part of the reason that higher education costs have risen is that the government has made so much money available: the more that the government makes grants available, the more cash goes into the higher education business which means higher salaries for educrats (but also faculty), which means that it becomes more expensive for people to go to school, which means that the government has to make more money available for people to go to school…
Well the education bubble will burst eventually, the credentials (which are what most people want from colleges and universities) can be provided more cheaply online-for most majors anyway, probably no way for a lot of degrees which require applied skills and knowledge to go online. When that bubble does burst the screeching from academia will be epic.
Sure, some things are going to be more expensive – if you’re studying to be a scientist, things like an electron microscope or a supercomputer are almost inseparable from their respective fields today
Newsflash, anon–I could send my daughter to UNH (in-state) for a Liberal Arts degree, or I could send her to Georgia Tech (out-of-state) for an Engineering degree. Guess which one is cheaper?
GOOD research universities get money not only from government, but from the private sector as well. This helps pay for those fancy toys (including the research reactor we had at GT) and other stuff that provides us with a better quality education and MUCH better career/pay after graduation.
OTOH, you have places like Haaaahhhhvaahhhhdddd, from whom we have Senator Fauxcahontas claiming fake Native American ancestry for set-asides. She taught ONE class, and for it was paid $350K/year. Harvard, for example, has a $40 BILLION endowment–that’s enough to send every single undergrad there for the next 150 years at current tuition rates FOR FREE.
No, our K-12 educational system has failed in its job miserably, to the point where we use the first two years of college as “catch up” if in fact they ever do. (Over half of all students who start college never finish, and half of those drop out within the first year.) Where a kid is being shoved into a college track they’re neither qualified nor desiring, we could instead send them into a vocational track which they’d derive a far greater and immediate benefit, for starters.
But then again, then we wouldn’t have the government in charge of over ONE TRILLION DOLLARS in student loans anymore. C’est dommage.
Somebody at these institutes of learning should ask the inhabitants of Sodom and Gomorrah how their fornication weeks ended.
Egads. Seems like we learned more while living in gender segregated dorms and had to sign in before 10pm!
I’m disappointed. I thought schools required a certain level of accomplishment, and intelligence, to gain entry. There are people alive today who actually have to go to school, at the university level, to learn any of this? If so, that doesn’t speak well for their ability to grasp course material.
On the plus side, they scheduled the prostate stimulation seminar for thursday, helping to keep the noble tradition of man love thursdays alive
@ 24 … pithy!
Teaching America’s children how to give the Caliphate a prostate-induced orgasm.
Prostate play… Doesn’t sound as good when you actually put it to words.