damn whippersnappers!

The Globe has an interesting article today by Marcella Bombardieri about how aging faculty members might be affecting the university hiring system. The thrust of the piece is that professors who refuse to retire may be "plugging the pipeline" for young academics hoping for one of the rare plum professorial gigs, resulting in a conflict between the wisdom of elders and the fresh new ideas younger academics might bring.
But the article doesn't mention the bigger problem that leads to the Geezer Vs. Whippersnapper battle - if someone retires, the university doesn't always have the funds or the inclination to fill an open space with young blood.
The discussion board related to the article suggests that the "plugged pipeline" comes from somewhere else. One poster by the handle of "SomervilleSlug" called the issue a "red herring" because more and more tenure-track positions are being replaced by adjunct faculty.
Bombardieri herself wrote a recent piece about how "more than half the faculty at Boston University, Northeastern, Tufts, and Harvard are part-time or are not on the tenure track." If that's the case, then the problem isn't geezers defiantly clutching their desks with one hand while beating off the whippersnappers with a stick. The problem is administrations that cut costs by hiring people on the cheap (adjuncts and lecturers get paid less and, in many instances, don't get any benefits to speak of). That doesn't mean that the adjuncts and lecturers are any less intelligent than the professors, but it does mean that these teachers - many of whom teach more classes, depending on the school - don't get the perks that go with being full-time faculty.
In a city filled with universities and their associated full-time and part-time professors, the "plugged pipeline" could have a serious impact on Boston's economy. It's hard to get by on an adjunct or lecturer's salary, and Bombardieri's articles make clear that a problem is brewing in terms of academic job quality in this city. Good college teachers will leave for more affordable places, and eventually students - and the parents who foot the bill - will catch on that schools are raising the cost of education without paying the people who do the teaching.

being old IS funny

Friends ready with a few timely geezer jokesBy Emmet MearaSaturday, December 16, 2006 - Bangor Daily News
I don’t even like Roslindale Leo, Natick Jerome or Moneybags John. Yet they are my dearest, most valued friends.
Leo had been a thorn in my side since, on the night I met him, he invited me to fight on the lawn. And it was my lawn. He ended that night vomiting on the same lawn, an act witnessed by my sainted mother (she actually asked if he would like a tuna sandwich.) Years later, as I lay dying (I recovered) in a Gloucester hospital, Leo asked my (soon-to-be-ex) wife if she wanted to go to a New Year’s Eve party. When she demurred, he said, "He will never know."
Nice guy. In ensuing years, he tried several times to kill me on canoe trips, tipping the craft into ice-filled waters, hitting me over the head with a log and ignoring each bit of advice.
At least you can pick your friends.
I had no choice with Jerome. He came along with the Twomey-Meara clan, disguised as a cousin. Jerome’s claim to fame is that he went back to college and got a music degree, at prestigious Berklee College, at age 55. Then, as testament to this milestone, he never played his guitar again.
He is also known for the night during his rock band days when he played a guitar solo while standing back-to-back with the gorgeous lead singer. His (soon-to-be-ex) wife leaped upon the stage, wrestled the sticks from the drummer and started beating the gorgeous lead singer. Jerome, a trouper, kept right on playing. But, since the gorgeous lead singer was married to the bandleader, Jerome lost the gig, and later, the wife, who took the house and furniture with her. Jerome was left alone, with only folding chairs from the neighborhood funeral parlor for company.
Moneybags John came into my life when he married the (almost) beauty queen from next door in Tenants Harbor. He is a marathoner, perilously thin and takes great pleasure in remarking on my expanding girth and shrinking financial resources. He loves it that my Florida land purchase set off a national, if not international, crash in real estate. John carries a calculator to determine up-to-the-minute calculations on his financial worth and eventual Social Security windfall. Certainly, no one celebrated his open-heart surgery last year, but the event did cut down on the "Emmet is fat" jokes.
John was a naval officer. I could tell how well-trained he was during my brief sailboat ownership when I approached a Rockland dock and threw him a line. I was no naval officer and admittedly failed to secure the line to the boat. But when I looked up, the Navy vet was standing there holding it, instead of lashing it to the dock. We both fell down laughing, praying to God that no one witnessed the feeble act.
The point here (there is one) is that this dastardly trio was born before I was, some of them by several months.
I was born on Dec. 22, along with one Meara Van Der Zee, destined for a career in Hollywood.
That means that I can send them "old" jokes all year long with the understanding that I am still young, at least compared to them.
Now, the days are dwindling down to a precious few. They have already experienced the pain that is age 66 and the tide is turning. Their e-mails grow more and more bitter. The same jokes are now bouncing back.
That’s not funny.
Now that I am next in line, I wonder why I ever had anything to do with this trio in the first place.
Wait till next year.