There’s quite a little scandal brewing at the University of Buffalo. Students have had to resort to social networking and articles in the Spectrum (Library Disarray, Quality of Libraries Questioned) to bring attention to the deplorable condition of the University’s Libraries.

I guess we have John B. Simpson to thank for this real life lesson in the dirty little secret of higher ed: research universities really aren’t all that interested in educating undergrads.

Now before you start hurling abuse, raise your hand if any or all of these are true:

  • You’ve had a class taught by an unprepared, overworked TA/grad student.
  • You have been or are a grad student who thought you were going to be studying philosphy, history, chemistry, english etc., only to find yourself thrown in front of a bunch of sullen undergrads. And to top it off you were given absolutely no prep/training/guidance in how to teach them.
  • You have had a class taught by someone who could barely speak english.
  • You have had a class taught by an overworked adjunct professor who is unaccessible utside of class.  (Common, give him/her a break.  Your adjuncts are working two, three jobs or more to make up for the non-livable wage the Corporate U is paying them.)

Administrators at the Corporate U are much more interested in those fun public/private partnerships, than hiring faculty that actually care about and want to teach.  Simpson can hardly wait to build a hotel/covention center for you.  Now that will further the acadmic mission, won’t it?

Six years, $4 million and 250 pages later, and, oops, the plan is to close down the Libraries, merge and rename what’s left as “Informal Learning Environments”.  But don’t you worry, ““Everything is still in the early stages of planning”.

So all you widgets that are upset because you won’t be around in 2020, 2030, 2200, or whenever “The Plan” will finally be hatched and want to see some focus on the now,  you are ..