Discussion's not great/comfortable for every student. Lots of my students refuse to participate despite knowing the material and writing interesting things. Introverts? Anxious? Not a problem that needs solving. Professors who can't handle this need to learn a few other tricks.

I mean, beef is one of the Three-and-a-Half Midwestern Meats, so it ought to be good

("Some kind of fish that someone's grandpa caught in a lake" is the half, for people from elsewhere)

Time Magazine's Person of the Year, 2006. It was an honor just to be nominated

I will say, if I never again hear “private public partnership” again in my life, I will have heard it enough.

I was trying to wrap this up with a joke, but I got nothin'. It's tough out there. And, at least at YLCC, the problem is outside our power to fix at the source.

So students wash up on our shores with no practice at Doing The Things and no internal incentive structure for it. Professors have to either put a lot of work into holding the line, put a lot of work in to rebuilding their classes, or let the tide of mediocrity wash over us.

It's good to support students. But learning doesn't happen without challenge. And the push to graduate everyone can mean that challenges get hollowed out. Teachers don't have time or resources to differentiate between abilities evenly.

High school has been "show up and you'll graduate somehow" for a long time. It's ramped up in recent years. Covid played a part, but it was happening before the disease hit. Everyone Must Graduate so there's a heavy heavy emphasis on retakes, do-overs, flexible deadlines, etc.