Good news everyone! I have largely completed moving the Hammer Horde from our previous abode, Castle Frostbite, to… well, I haven’t quite decided. When the workshop I am planning for the back yard is finished I was thinking “Sanctus Fornax” would be appropriate, but if you have ideas toss them over in the comments.
The reason this is good news is that the whole house buying and moving process has consumed my life for the past month and a half, so now we should start getting back to some sort of “more than once a month” schedule here. To make up for that in part, I wanted to send out an interesting report on the cost of DEI salaries in VA public schools:
Should Virginians Pay for University “Diversity” Leftism?
I am going to put together a little longer essay on the finer points, but really it is a pretty straight forward bit of work. I personally think the most shocking thing is how universities are hiring fewer and fewer professors, leaning ever more on adjuncts and grad students to teach, all while raising tuition, yet somehow are finding plenty of cash to pay salaries for DEI administrators. Hire full time faculty? Nah, just get an adjunct with an MA to teach a lecture hall of 300 students. Just as good.
Anyway, there’s a long essay in the chamber on the virtue of justice in Adam Smith, as well as some other virtue laden discussion.
Happy New Year!
Congratulations to you and the missus, and the little missives.
Good topic, along with the pattern of adjuncts and exponential lending. I did a little piece on student debt that I think was before your time at 3P. I'll link it, just in case you need a little more fuel for the fire--and who doesn't, with what you're burning through? https://thirdparadigm.substack.com/p/reinventing-education
Cracks In The Ivory Tower by Brennan, Magness discusses incentives within departments. It was rather interesting
"Several studies have found that university administrators exhibit the classic characteristics of utility- maximizing bureaucrats. In other words, they utilize the tools under their control to essentially “oversupply” the functions and services of their own offices. The motives for doing so are multifaceted. Some administrators seek new streams of money to maximize their own budgets and the various perks that come with each. These streams may include both public appropriations and student- derived payments such as tuition and fees. Others want job security, particularly the type that comes from entrenching oneself as a gatekeeper of university resources." (p. 206)
https://parrhesia.substack.com/p/cracks-in-the-ivory-tower for a review