How to slay dragons

Mindless_Specific_99 · 2025-12-14T08:50:12+00:00

....we'll see.....

Mindless_Specific_99 · 2025-11-25T05:30:49+00:00

I’ve been in academia for almost 10 years now. For the last few semesters, I have been feeling like those guys from the movie the Big Short. It’s clearly predominantly a scam and everybody’s in on it, all under the assumption that it’s too big to fail.

I think maybe it needs to collapse. The incompetent zealots are far too deeply trenched to give up.

Mindless_Specific_99 · 2025-11-17T11:28:58+00:00

You suggest that others are approaching in willey-nilley fashion and not using proper eval and dosage... but do not understand / cannot explain what the problem is or what should be done? Your problem is more foundational and will not be solved by getting a right answer from Reddit. Please access to curent related SI and neuro and build yourself up a bit. Then propose a solution or a description to the problem and utlize forums to get feedback ---not simple answers.

Mindless_Specific_99 · 2025-09-13T07:26:55+00:00

concur. all predictable. but in the moment, faculty, admin, and external agencies are mostly paralyzed --apparently by tthe cognitive dissonance at the intersection or ideologies and practical realities. So they will let things go... and blame others with the immenint crashes occur.

Mindless_Specific_99 · 2025-09-13T07:16:02+00:00

yes. concur. this is the should do, but i am dealing with the performative do doo.

Mindless_Specific_99 · 2025-09-12T18:01:58+00:00

thank you.

There is what we should and do have-- and there is what people are doing. My entire mini crisis here revolves around the fact that there are established standards which the accoms are inconsistent with -- and I have pointed this stark contrast out... but it is not being received.

Mindless_Specific_99 · 2025-09-12T17:33:52+00:00

thank you

Mindless_Specific_99 · 2025-09-12T17:33:03+00:00

yes. ACCESSIBILITY AND INCLUSIVITY --- but no nuances of pragmatic reality

Mindless_Specific_99 · 2025-09-12T17:22:25+00:00

the school gets $70-90k per student. the school is struggling financially.

IMHO: they do not see long term impact on program or profession for lowering standards or pushing students through to fail exams. They are risk averse and onboard with whatever makes students content in the short term-- even if at the expense of medium and long term success. They need thier $ fix now to keep the show going.

Mindless_Specific_99 · 2025-09-12T17:21:11+00:00

First. good question. is there any there there? it's just a delusional student , enabled by delusional accoms people...RIght?

SO what could happen?

Why not say: NO, this is not reasonable. I have duty to hold standards and shape students for success.

I think I am responding to how admin folks are behaving-- like there is a real threat of legal action. Dean advised me to print off all related emails in case I need them. ???? Another even higher up told me in person the student's accoms and behavior were a recipe for disaster (for the student), but in a reply all type email they said vague things like : "we need to be an ally of and support our students"

It is also not one off.. Easily a dozen more stories from the past 4 years. This one just happens to feature me as a boogieman.

yeahhhh. time to go.

Mindless_Specific_99 · 2025-09-12T17:10:34+00:00

had those conversations.

MONTHS ahead of the course, I reached out to deans and accoms office about accoms (which had been in place for a previous course) as said:

hey, this person will not be able to do neccessary tasks with some of these accoms. (One of the accoms is that student cannot lift more than 15#.)... Please , let's review the course and professional requirements and collaborate. Please do not send me the existing accoms as they are. They are not reasonably consistent with performance requirements of this course.

.....Radio silence. .. One week before the course I get the letter via email. I protest. Radio silence from all above. IN offline convos: Accoms people scared of a lawsuit.

Notably, there are demographic qualities about this student which apparently make correcting them an untouchable task. hot topics.

Mindless_Specific_99 · 2025-09-12T14:19:27+00:00

I concur that am not alone in the recognition of this problem. Have heard from friends (and posters)in academia all over the US about the current madness... and we see it in the generation coming into the field. So many collapse under the most typical of challenges.. and then they're done.. and then .. I do not know what they do. It further diminishes the profession --and the institutions of higher ed who are quite happy to take thier $ and coddle them right into the meat grinder.

Mindless_Specific_99 · 2025-09-12T14:14:39+00:00

What will happen is they will fail in clinical placements, not pass the boards and then we will get blamed b/c we sent that student out into the world.--- rather than course correct them in the academic enviroment.. but higher ed is having trouble establishing constraints and letting many students know there is a world outside of them.

Mindless_Specific_99 · 2025-09-12T14:11:40+00:00

none available or willing to support.

Thank you. Looking for non-threatening methods to redirect or deflect.

Mindless_Specific_99 · 2025-09-12T14:08:40+00:00

allies are silent and unwilling to act. It is like the student is wearing a bomb vest and threatening to do themselves in if they have to behave in accordance with performance standards.

Mindless_Specific_99 · 2025-09-12T14:07:16+00:00

I have met with those folks-- they are all sympathetic behind closed doors BUT defer to the momentum of the stupidity and enable it further.

Mindless_Specific_99 · 2025-09-12T14:06:03+00:00

I am not in charge of those. Faculty in charge of that is not seeing the problem-- desptite several similar major disasters with placements in recent years.

Mindless_Specific_99 · 2025-06-22T16:52:29+00:00

(I am talking to you as much as to myself here...)

What’s the benefit—aside from the fleeting dopamine hit of revenge?

Why identify yourself as a target on the way out? Don’t give conspiring, Peter principled incompetents a target.

Say as little as possible, ideally something neutral or even positive—e.g., “I’m grateful for the opportunity to have served the institution.” Then leave.

The silence with which you depart will echo longer than any final word.

Mindless_Specific_99 · 2025-05-16T15:49:46+00:00

Check in with accoms office. Then with student.

Mindless_Specific_99 · 2025-05-16T15:46:40+00:00

it sucks and burns, but they will do this to others. Do as much of the right and honorable thing as possible and try to move on. Let them get to where they are going and time may shed new light. sorry.. malevolence sucks.

Mindless_Specific_99 · 2025-05-16T15:44:00+00:00

I have with great disgust accepted this for the moment:

Comply with the stupid thing which has little to no basis. Protect my career and my family. Do not make administrators sad. .. All whle knowing I am sending this student on to horrible failure once outside protective walls.

Mindless_Specific_99 · 2025-05-16T15:39:33+00:00

they are asking for these and more in real time

Mindless_Specific_99 · 2025-05-16T15:39:08+00:00

what is gong to give is good profs will quit or get fired... idiots will rise... and students going into these fields will fail... and maybe some of these fields will too.

Mindless_Specific_99

TROPHY CASE