Academia’s Great Generation War
Overheard at Thanksgiving this year from folks who are, at minimum, 10 years older than me (attributions withheld for obvious and annoying reasons):
“The college students of my generation were probably like the high school students of the generation before. The college students of today are more like middle schoolers.”
“I don’t understand all this uproar about Indians as the team mascot. If I were them I’d take it as a compliment — like that we’re strong as the Indians.”
While there’s a lot to unpack in both of these statements, let’s stick to one basic, glaring similarity: both are symptomatic of the newly reified generational divide that pits Millennials against the world. Somehow, in the midst of the outcry, few critics of my generation seem to have noticed the hackneyed “kids these days” curmudgeonliness that has overrun the current discourse.
Both of the statements above come laden with assumptions about the free-speech-hating sensitivity of the younger generation — college students in particular — and make it nearly impossible to interject without fitting neatly into the wrong role in this absurd paradigm. In other words, the rhetoric of generations is a silencing tactic unto itself. But this isn’t an essay about microaggressions. While disdain for the opinions and practices of young people is par for the course (there’s a new one every decade!), it also didn’t spontaneously occur to my anonymous interlocutors. We can thank a fraught media discourse on free speech for vilifying student activists.
So many folks have already issued takedowns of media-based alarmism around the recent protests at Yale, Mizzou, and Amherst that it’s probably not worth me poorly paraphrasing them here. Still, all of these critiques shed tangential light on a parallel academic narrative taking place in the public eye (if ever so slightly to the left of the big stuff) — the devaluing of young voices and minds.
College isn’t what it used to be, that’s for darn sure — what with the proliferation of adjunct positions, the endangerment of mythic tenure-track professorships, and the blossoming of a corporate administrative model in universities across the land. And this isn’t just a problem for young academic hopefuls (more on them later); it’s an affront to the student body. As schools invest dwindling sums in actual instruction, one wonders where those rising tuition costs are being redistributed. Should anyone be surprised when students push back on decisions to spend tens of thousands of dollars on commencement speakers who do not represent their experience or values (or value)? Given the amount of money that students and their families invest in higher education, perhaps we should be appalled that the new corporate model does not treat students more like shareholders. Alas, no general student board of directors exists, so dissent remains limited to open letters, petitions, and demonstrations, which may or may not have an impact.
With rising expectations and competition in the college admissions process, each passing year ushers in a new crop of freshmen more qualified than the last. Entrepreneurs, journalists, engineers, activists. You might actually be unnerved by the number of minors conducting research in cancer labs these days. I am not the first to have noticed this, and there are many educators out there actively seeking to cultivate youth voices in the media and beyond, yet the most vociferous critics seem to have overlooked this reality. As students’ resumes grow and adjunct salaries shrink, it is, frankly, insulting to refer to the student mind as coddled. With money funneling away from the classroom (which, to be fair, is not the only possible site of learning, but that’s a different essay), students arguably have had to grow more independent — scrappier.
Professors — in forums at least as public as a panel on the future of higher education — complain of being hamstrung by teaching responsibilities which prevent them from becoming fully immersed in their research. The oft-cited “publish or perish” mentality is perhaps as old as academe itself, so professors are not entirely to blame for the feelings of resentment some confess to harboring towards their students. Still: approach with caution the institution that increasingly insists on turning its back on a future generation of scholars in favor of chasing its own tail.
At a recent panel on “The Problematic Future of Higher Education” at the New School, the Q&A portion brought with it the dreaded but expected litany of micro-lectures from scholars and demi-academics with “30-year-long research careers” who never quite seemed to ask a question. Although unkind, the term “academentia” (which I did not coin, but for which I am very grateful) is perhaps the most fitting diagnosis. Meanwhile, current Masters and PhD candidates spent an average of 30 seconds each at the microphone. One PhD candidate was interrupted in the middle of her brief description of the current economy of labor in PhD programs and sped onto her question about the true value of her work. The response amounted to, “no comment.” Another student, who asked the panelists to imagine what a brighter future for higher education might look like — a future to strive and adjust for now — was also dismissed by the panel. Finally, a Masters student asked, “Would you go into academia today?” and after a pause, most of the panelists said, “no.”
As the shifting economics and staid social dynamics of tertiary education threaten young voices on both the student and professional side of academia, I need to ask, again, in what way our minds are coddled. Certainly our mattresses are softer, our lattes foamier, but I would argue that the only people who infantilize us are the ones who treat us like petulant children when we ask for a change in (or even just an examination of) any number of institutional problems — from cultural sensitivity to collective bargaining for grad students.
The present academic climate seems grim, but what’s my generation good for if not idealistic imaginings? I don’t want to end on the suggestion that I hate academia or all academics — to the contrary academia feels more like home to me than anywhere else. It’s remarkable the kind of fight you can uncover within yourself when you start to feel unwelcome in a place that you thought was — wanted to be — your home. Some of my most important mentors are academics whom I hope to call colleagues one day. Professors and university presidents are beginning to leap to the defense of their students, and their advocacy is both welcome and necessary. We need to protect these relationships and potential bonds, not just for jerks like me, but for any student who knocks on a professor’s door hoping to be valued and understood by the person on the other side. (Hoping, frankly, that the person on the other side even has time before darting off to teach a course at another school two hours away.)
When a movement rises from the bottom up, to call it a threat to free speech is to fundamentally misunderstand the order of things. All we can do, in our position as students, is ask — and sometimes we ask for a lot. But at the core of any demand we make of our institutions is the same fundamental ask: do better.
