How Jessica Fry, UTM student; helps funds her education
Funding higher education is not getting easier and one UTM student was featured in a recent Jackson Sun article for the way she and her brother are doing it. UTM student, biology-major Jessica Fry, has gotten creative when it comes to funding her tuition by selling vegetable produce with her MTSU-attending brother Daniel, at Three-Way and near Milan beside highway 45. http://www.jacksonsun.com/article/20110613/NEWS01/106130307
About Faculty Senate and the Faculty Handbook
For anyone reading this who is new to UTM, here is a brief explanation of the role of the Faculty Senate: The UTM Faculty Senate helps the Chancellor and Vice Chancellor for Academic Affairs make decisions that affect academics at UTM. The faculty handbook represents the years of work faculty senates have put into documenting our rights and obligations as faculty (which can be found at this link: http://www.utm.edu/acadaff/fachandbook/fachbook.pdf
Suggestion for reading relevant to higher education
To anyone yet to discover his writings, I would recommend the works of John Ralston Saul, Canadian Philosopher. I am currently reading his Equilibrium (2004) and his Voltaire’s Bastards: The Dictatorship of Reason in the West. The former is his treatise on humanism, but the latter; more intriguing, is a penetrating look at Western society. One of his major theses is that we live in an era when everyone is looking for solutions and answers, as if reality were simple, but in truth, reality is complex and our search should be for understanding first. Our “Western” organizations, governments, and yes, universities; are all structured so that power accrues to those who can offer simple, straightforward solutions to exceedingly complex problems.
The problems that beset: the global economy (turmoil in US, Greece, Portugal, Ireland), higher education (the defunding of public education in virtually all 50 states in the US), and the issue of multicultural societies (Oslo’s dual attacks of last week are the latest example of the troubles with multiple cultures in one nation state), are actually complex and therefore solutions will necessarily, only be reached by taking this complexity into account and not seeking easy solutions (usually offered up by those in power to promote their own interests). This is one reason I believe in the power of dialogue on matters such as these. Beware those peddling simple solutions to complex problems.
Have a great day.
