Published in The New York Times

So, my letter to the editor made it in The New York Times. AFTER, several rounds of editing: I’ve posted the back and forth of the revision and re-revision in the previous posts to the blog. The whole experience has been rather strange. Do they edit every “letter to the editor” like they did mine? I find that hard to believe.

I’m surprised by how much they stylistically edited, but also, by how much they tried to substantively interfere. Here’s an example of the kind of “editing” I find bizarre, and remember, this is A LETTER TO THE EDITOR, not journalistic piece. During the final editorial wrangle, the editor wanted to take my reference to the administration out because, as he explained it, that would need evidence to support it. WTF? Here was my response:

***

I’d be a bit upset if that part of the letter is removed–without it one might suppose it’s all just “market forces” when it fact there is something else going on.

There is indeed lots of evidence to support this. Any look at the profession’s main journal, The Chronicle of Higher Education, indicates this, and it has been the subject of many books including: How the University Works by Marc Bousquet (2008) and The Last Professors: The Corporate University and the Fate of the Humanities by Frank Donoghue (2008).

For a specific reference (and one close to home, written by a professor in my department), check out Professor Tim Brennan’s editorial to the Minneapolis Star Tribune on this subject http://www.startribune.com/opinion/commentary/42555122.html

***

As you can see, they kept the line in there, but I have no idea why I had to argue about keeping MY argument in MY letter to the editor. Have any of you had a similar experience or know of someone else who had a letter to the editor published in NYT?

Well, anyway, this was all a tempest in a tea pot I am sure, and given it’s back-page, tucked away in a “url”-on-the-backside-of-cyberspace location, it won’t really meaningfully contribute to the conversation we all need to be having about what is happening to our universities. Those of us IN it, already know the ugly truth too well. So far, we aren’t having a whole lot of luck getting other people to hear us. It’s a sad position to be in. A student of mine contacted me this week, ironically, about going to grad school. As someone who values the life of the mind I want to be encouraging, but I also feel as though responsibility dictates I warn her against doing it.

How did I get here?

And now I’m off to work on the dissertation, an endeavor that continually has the wind sucked out of its sails by the harsh reality my career faces.