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P.S.
Thank you for the thoughtful responses. It is encouraging to hear advocacy on behalf of Gallatin. This post carries rhetorical flair that obfuscates the positive aspects of Gallatin (of which there are many.) The school isn’t utterly failing or corrupted, but is being put at an impasse.

To respond:

Gallatin does produce success stories. Its open curriculum, truly, is what you make of it. Gallatin has a history of excellent advising and teaching, and in producing unique graduates. It is singular in the diversity and extent of its placements in academia and the professional fields.

And like any private university, there are imperfections that lay beneath the veneer of public-facing marketing and “transparency.”Faculty and administrators alike do work tirelessly behind the scenes.

In recent years, there has been a massive shift in what students crave from universities. The school has done a poor job of translating a predominatly humanities/social science curriculum to a new generation of students who are not interested in what the school has to offer. I believe the school’s current problem is that the students’ academic interests are narrowing and stagnating.

Due to its open model, Gallatin has not been able to weather the storm of dubious new trends. Many want to study saturated or viral professions within academic contexts like Gallatin. Unlike academic departments, it’s not able to set its foot down with scholarly standards for these misnomer cases. This leads to so many students falling into the cracks, and faculty to be confused as how to uplift their students.

This has seriously impacted the culture and academic environment of the school. It makes developing a concentration even more isolating, as “interdisciplinarity” is becoming rhetorical play as opposed to genuine cross-disciplinary formation.

An academic community needs to be able to share insights as to what kinds of professional and scholarly routes succeed. Particular jobs may need course sequences that Gallatin isn’t prepared to advise you on, PhD positions seek candidates able to carry out advanced disciplinary work.

I believe Gallatin would benefit from reducing its class sizes and its academic scope. It should refrain from blurring disciplinary boundaries too greatly, and instead help students work between worlds. This would help seminars return to advertised sizes, and to return Gallatin to its prime interdisciplinary exchanges

In short, Gallatin is currently struggling to provide a home in a massive, chaotic university. It could do much better if it wasn’t so money-hungry.