Qualified?

I read a story on The Resurgent this morning and got a chuckle out of it for professional reasons. A little backstory here: the Ohio Board of Regents (OBR), who is in charge of all things educational in the state of Ohio, has a recent rule that to teach a subject at the college level a college professor or instructor must have 18 graduate hours in the subject. (Does this apply at community colleges?) A Ph.D. is no longer the cover-all, the hours must be specifically "in content." This has become a pejorative in the department I teach in because we have lost a faculty member over this, and I am no longer permitted to teach a non-majors geology (they're not even science majors!) class because I only have 9 graduate hours in geology. Never mind that in my area of research I deal with fossils from time to time and have direct experience with the deep-ocean floor; OBR says no!

The article says that Kentucky Senator Rand Paul will be teaching an english class on dystopian literature at George Washington University this fall. I wonder, does Dr. Paul have 18 graduate hours in english? As an ophthalmologist, I doubt it. Does his status as U.S. Senator make him automatically eligible to teach this class? I hope not. In that case why not have President Trump teach Anatomy and Physiology? He apparently has some hands-on experience with the female anatomy right?

My guess is that this is at the invitation of the university's president and I doubt whatever body oversees education in Washington D.C. would step in the way (principles be damned!). I just think it is funny how, once again, the political elite are afforded privileges the rest of America is not. Am I making too much of this? I probably am. It crossed my mind this morning and I wrote about it.

Strive for greater things my friends!

Face Palm!

All I could do was shake my head when I read this. @realDonaldTrump tweeted,

"Canada has made business for our dairy farmers in Wisconsin and other border states very difficult. We will not stand for this. Watch!"

So we are not going to stand up to Mexico RE: the border wall but we are going to punish...Canada?

(I don't have words...)


Strive for greater things my friends!

Politics and Religion

I decided if I was going to start blogging again I would have to change the name of the page. Searching the web for the previous name sent readers to too many sites I don't want to be associated with. So for now we will go with: Politics and Religion.

Strive for greater things my friends!