The Weird Arguments I Get Into These Days

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I just came off a heated exchange with someone I don't even know, about whether the Washington leadership should stop "obsessing about STEM."  (Apparently Steve Jobs, Mark Zukerman and Jeff Bezos all agree that what makes America the economic leader of the free world is the breadth of our education system.  While some countries such as France and ??? were specializing their students relatively early into narrow technical fields of expertise, the USA chose to provide its citizens with a broad education, which made Americans more flexible in their ability to solve problems.)

Of course, I approached this question from a political point of view: it's all very well to train our youth with a Liberal Arts education, with Art, Music, History, Literature, Social Sciences, Mathematics, and some Physics, Biology and Chemistry as well, but when it comes to seeking employment, in desperate times, hiring is based on a sort of bottom line: can you handle the technology?  If you have a major in a STEM field (Science, Technology, Engineering, Mathematics) you're presumed to be competent in technological problem-solving.

Of course, the course of the Economy is strongly influenced by the Steve Jobses of the world.  The leadership, the innovators must have a broad education that equips them for creative solutions to problems.  But, in contrast, at the lower level --and most levels are lower-level-- the problems are technical.  In other words, the majority of workers need a technical education.  So, with the education system we have, every student has to gamble on whether he or she is going to be some of the innovators --a low percentage bet-- or a worker --a much higher-percentage bet.

Well, as it happens, most of my friends are Liberal Arts people: History, Library Science, Foreign Languages, Music, Theater.  Of course my defense of STEM fields was seen as a direct attack on their disciplines, because people in these fields are under siege all the time, and are expected to defend their choice of field constantly, and to battle for majors, who submit to the parental and governmental pressure to move into STEM fields.  The minute I expressed the opinion that a STEM education might be a better bet for a student today, I was perceived as siding with The Enemy.  But no one finds it more welcome to have a student who loves, say, music, to go into a music major, than I would.  Such a person would be a disaster in a mathematics major.  Well, not a total disaster, but not as much of a success as in a music major.  The world would be a better place if only those who really enjoy mathematics took it up as a major.  There are always minors.  You could always minor in anything you like!

So, once again, one of the major contradictions in our society needlessly polarizes a discussion.  Education should not be a gamble; an education should equip a youth to function in a variety of fields and occupations.  If the nation needs more STEM capable citizens, then all students must be STEM competent.  One does not need to be a technology major to be competent technologically.  All students should be required to learn considerable mathematics, computer science, physics and chemistry, just as today STEM majors are nevertheless required to learn History, Foreign Languages, Art or Music, and English composition, whether they like it or not.  The holiday is over: we need an education far more enriched in STEM subjects for everybody.  This makes a lot more sense than to encourage more students to take up STEM majors.

Unfortunately, students will find STEM subjects harder to achieve a modest standard in; there is a great deal of deferred gratification.  So I might alienate more of my friends with this great idea of mine than I had up until now.

Competition for majors in college
Competition is, I suppose, a wonderful thing, for some people.  But it appears that the Competition switch must either be off, or on; the typical citizen grows up in an environment where the Competition Switch is turned on very early.  This means some really funny things going on in a small college.  When high-school kids visit a college, while they and their parents are still trying to decide which college to go to, they are sent around into various classrooms, in which representatives from each major give them a spiel about their subject.  (I have been the Math representative in years gone by.)  Now, instead of singing the praises of the school as a whole, these representatives (going on autopilot) sing the praises of their subject.

I takes a new professor some time --and a fair amount of courage-- to learn to present a given subject as simply a part of an entire suite of subjects that will fill the needs of this peculiar audience.  When I started out (and for various reasons it was several years before I was fielded as a representative to these innocent young future students, and their suspicious parents) I tended to sing the praises of mathematics, but focused more on how our major was different from a mathematics major at a competing school.  But, generally speaking, throughout the academic year, college professors spend a lot of time and energy marketing their major to a captive audience of undecided undergraduates.  Even on Facebook, we find ourselves lauding the benefits of the subject we teach, even when fully cognizant of how other subjects fit into a total education.  Faculty in certain areas are particularly defensive.

One reason for this is that allocation of additional faculty members is based on numbers.  This is an innovation brought in by professional college administrators.  It does make sense, because every department tries to make a case for additional faculty.  Sometimes it is necessary, because some disciplines are so vast that no one is able to teach courses in all the sub-fields.  For instance, in mathematics we have (1) Algebra --not just 8th grade algebra, but abstract algebra, such as Group Theory, Galois Theory, and so on; (2) Analysis: calculus, integration, approximation; (3) Topology: continuity, shapes, manifolds; (4) Linear Algebra: matrices, vectors, solving linear equations; (5) Geometry: preparation for high school teaching, hyperbolic geometry, projective geometry, etc; (6) Statistics (7) Applied mathematics: differential equations, numerical analysis; (8) Computer Science.  This is often a separate department, but often a small college cannot afford that. (9) Mathematics Education.

Obviously, a small school cannot hire 9 different sets of professors, one for each of these areas of specialization, nor can they hire 9 individuals to staff these needs.  So when someone is hired who can teach several of these areas, that's pure gold.  But in some departments, faculty simply refuse to teach courses in some areas, and insist on hiring someone to take care of it.

In other departments, faculty prefer not to teach lower-level courses, and petition to hire faculty specifically to teach underclassmen.  This is unfair by the new hires, who're doomed to teach lower-level courses for many years, until a senior professor retires, or drops dead.

In yet other departments, mostly those that are very popular, more faculty are needed simply to divide up the majors as advisees.  Each student has to have an advisor in that major, but Business is such a popular major (unfortunately of very little utility value for a prospective employer, but don't quote me) that we even conscript faculty in other departments, and even the administration, to advise business majors.  So a department often petitions for an additional faculty hire on the grounds of having a lot of majors.  Unfortunately, often the members of the committees that approve the hiring of new positions are staffed by Business faculty (and those in their circle--after all, hiring has to do with money, and who better to decide how to spend money than Business and Economics and Accounting professors?) so that they're particularly sympathetic to the "Lots of majors" argument.  In the final analysis, that's the only argument that can be supported with numbers.

It's a bit cynical to accuse a department of canvassing for majors for the sole purpose of supporting an application for a new professor, but I suspect that many faculty go on autopilot on this matter, and do not consciously realize that, at the back of their minds, that's what they're doing.  They probably say to themselves: we need a new faculty anyway, and we'll look pretty silly unless we have lots of majors ... Better get out there and beat the bushes.  Oh, what a tangled web we weave.

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