Page 2: Crisis? What Crisis?

Higher education in America is in crisis—or is it?

If the pages of the Chronicle of Higher Education are a worthy barometer of our “crises,” then we are indubitably “in crisis.” According to their search engine, there are over 6,000 articles on the Chronicle’s website dealing with our various crises, with the “debt crisis” and the “humanities crisis” topping the list with about 725 articles on each topic. But is the proliferation of higher ed “crisis” journalism because we are truly in “crisis” or because “crisis rhetoric” sells papers?

Perhaps a false dilemma, but still a fair question to ask because for the academic barker, few terms are as effective in attracting our attention as “crisis.” Though other rhetorically supercharged terms such as “birth” and “death,” “new” and “old,” garner our attention and are commonplaces of academic journalism, nothing seems to get our blood boiling faster than the use of the term “crisis” in association with anything higher ed. Or, perhaps, is it that nothing raises our anxiety level more than identifying our “crises”?

Some psychologist or narratologist can probably explain the attraction of crises better than I can. All I know is that everywhere I turn today in the house of higher education all I hear about are our crises. Tenure, debt, funding, job, and humanities top the list of high profile higher ed crises and I’m sure that with your help the list would expand.

Still, shouldn’t we be asking whether all of these things really are “crises”—or whether they are something else? Perhaps I’m throwing in the crisis towel too fast, but aren’t we just a little fast and loose with this term, or do 6,000 articles in one journal alone dealing with higher ed’s crises seem reasonable to you?

It might very well be argued that the rhetoric of academic barkers regularly features the noun “crisis” in its depictions of higher education not to announce a crucial or decisive point or situation but simply to voice displeasure with the ongoing state and direction of higher education. Many times a situation dubbed a “crisis” is less a “turning point” than a standing and stable condition, albeit an unliked or unfortunate one. But calling a standing state of affairs “unfortunate” or “unliked” does not have the rhetorical weight or darkness of “crisis”—does not instill terror in the academic heart anything like designated it a “crisis.” A series of “unfortunate situations” warrants a drink, whereas a series of “crises” tells us it’s time to get drunk.

Maybe I’m being too sensitive to the power of words and old-fashioned when it comes to semantics, but dubbing something a “crisis” indicates that it is truly a “turning point.” Having your home burn down and losing all of your earthly possessions is a “crisis.” More students choosing to major in business rather than the humanities over the past decade is unfortunate, but not a crisis. There are worse majors and at least these folks are in college—which is half the educational battle anyway.

If, however, this turnabout in business versus humanities majors occurred suddenly and unexpectedly, then we might consider it a crisis. But when the turnabout is the result of a gradual transformation in undergraduate major selection, it does not warrant the crisis appellation. In fact, from the perspective of our colleagues in the business school, calling it a crisis is an affront to their academic integrity. The humanities might be dubbed “in crisis” if at some point in the near past they were one way, but now they are another way—and the new way is unliked. It makes no sense however to say that they are in “crisis” when in point of fact they have been in their current situation for a decade or more. To call them in crisis under such conditions is irresponsible—or worse.

So, the temporal focalization of crisis is important. If philosophy departments are now closing at a higher rate than they are opening, and this is a relatively recent phenomena, then we can responsibly call this a crisis...