“A semester closes like the end of the world, I guess, full of portents and rumors.” So says a character in Roger Zelazny’s “Jack of Shadows,” the only sword-and-sorcery novel set partly on a college campus (and so of special interest to me).
As our semester and the calendar year slide toward their close, what signs or portents can we see for the future?
Locally, as of Friday afternoon, we have a new president at the University, Dr. Mary Ellen Mazey. Her inaugural week has been full of events that indicate an interest in engaging with the world at large (e.g. the conference on geography and presentations of undergraduate research earlier in the week) and with society closer to home (e.g. the week-long food drive).
Not everything about the new administration has been as equally auspicious (e.g. the revisions to the Academic Charter rammed past the Faculty Senate).
But, on balance, this looks like a good omen.
On the other hand, a recent study showed the University as one of the top 20 public schools in the country for student debt. To see the whole list, visit http://projectonstudentdebt.org/).
That’s not a list we want to be on.
The University also ranks very low for faculty compensation compared to similar universities in the state and the nation, and very high in what it charges students. Where is that money going? Is it being spent wisely?
This looks like a bad omen of things to come.
Nationally and internationally, the Occupy Wall Street movement has drawn attention to the severe economic unfairness that is poisoning this country.
All of a sudden, years into this desperate recession, politicians are discovering that unemployment is and remains unacceptably high.
If even politicians can get a clue, that must be a hopeful sign.
On the other hand, all across the nation and even in Bowling Green, the forces of reaction are sweeping away the Occupy movement – with savage and pointless violence in many cases (as with the now-infamous brutality against Occupy Oakland and the pepper-spraying of peaceful students at UC-Davis).
A bad sign.
Will the semester, and the year, end on a good note or a bad one?
Will next year begin with hope or despair?
That’s up to us, I guess. At most, omens are like cards; you play the hand you’re dealt.
If need be, bluff a little.
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