Our Ivory Tower is Made of Dirt
by Jeanne aka JStor on March 10, 2009
You’d think this was an innocent article:
Ivory Tower Unswayed by Crashing Economy
Here’s my complaint in a nutshell: I got upset when I saw that THE Heterodox program (ours, at the New School) wasn’t mentioned and immediately thought: WTF? (and then) What do we do about this? And I started a fury of emails on our dept’s email list. Which led some great debating and brainstorming:
- Facebook profile
- Video
- Conference
- Update the HET website & start an Econ Dept website
- Write a letter to the NY Times to express our discontent
The debate went even further: Was it better to mentor the next generation of economists that can impact the world or do we put in the efforts to make our school, students, & faculty known publicly?
And my first thought: This is great! I love it when we all work together! Here’s what we moved forward on:
- Facebook page: check.
- A number of emails sent to the NY Times: check.
- Next: ?
And then second thoughts creeped in:
Who will take the lead on this? Who will volunteer to coordinate a conference? Who can expand the HET website that we all fell in love in our first semesters? Who will dedicate the human-hours to make this all work out? Where is our army of love?
The Answer: No one and no where. Students think the faculty should initiate it, while the faculty think the opposite. Students and faculty alike are stretched to the max, between classes, working, and writing. No one is motivated or pro-active enough to make change and progress. Instead we’ll all sit back, whinge, & refresh our emails for the 100th time today.
So over 25 emails (not to mention the nasty ones I got off-list), a slew of great ideas, some action, one blog post, and no real action. So maybe it’s raining & our Ivory Tower is dissolving.
PS: Yeah, I know, you’re thinking: What about Jeanne? What the eff does she do? Well, I volunteer for this blog & for the New School Economics Review, & I cause fury on email lists. And not to mention I organized the 2006 ESU Conference. That said, I will volunteer some time for a conference.
Tags: Econonerd, Heterodox Economics
