Jen and Jon Johnson

This post by Guy Kawasaki is right on for what is wrong with the modern liberal arts education and is the reason that people who go to business school and learn nothing get great jobs. A good liberal education should teach students to adapt to their surroundings wherever they are. A century ago it was important to quote Kant and understand Thoreau in order to be seen as educated because these were the educational currency of the times. Today it is much more important to be able to learn fast and adapt to change because once you get your foot in the door this is the only thing that will keep you there. Education in the 21^st century will need to focus on fast paced skill acquisition and social adaptation, two areas for which extra-curricular education is particularly well suited. Student Affairs administrators need to prepare students not keep the jobs that their degree gets them.

Well it is official, my thesis is finally done and I have my Masters Degree in Educational Administration. Much thanks to my very supportive wife and Joanna who advised me throughout the project. I will probably get around to posting the paper here at some point when I get around to revising this site yet again.

You should really read this article. It quite clearly shows what can happen to a student in a school without an impartial judicial process. This is a dental student, probably 20-25 years old who is being suspended from school for one year because of a few posts in his non school supported personal blog. In today’s p2p free sharing world many people have begun posting everything that comes to mind. I heard from my sister the other day that people at Dominican University often use Live Journal as a way to hash out difficulties and repair friendships in a low risk environment. This kind of free sharing lays at the foundation of what the internet has become. The web is no longer a strictly academic environment, but has become instead a place where ideas (bad and good) can be shared with an audience with virtually no stage fright.
This over reaction by the administration at Marquette is comparable requiring women to wear skirts or banning rock music, and should not be tolerated by the student body.