Scanning this Whitehouse press release on Obama's nomination of a new Chairman for the National Endowment for the Arts. Dr. Jane Chu has an impressive resume. And she's a pianist. Love the idea of a musician at the helm. But I can't stop fixating on her PhD. It's not in Musicology. It's not in Sociology. It's not in Philosophy. It's not in Economics. What is her PhD in? Philanthropic Studies.
Philanthropic Studies?!
Say, what?
Here's my dissertation on the subject.
It's important to give to charity and difficult for charitable institutions to convince us to part with our money. Therin lies the rub.
Can I get my PhD now?
I worry about our future when we are so over-specialized as to be giving out degrees in things such as: Medical Records Management or Hospitality Data Management.
And more on topic for this site, do we really need degrees in Dramaturgy? How about a degree in Theatre or Music. Period.
When I was studying Music as an undergraduate, I remember all the graduate students in the department used to sneak downstairs to the basement office of Professor Luise Vosgerchian to cram for their general exams. Luise was the only tenured professor in the department without a PhD. What were her credentials? She'd had an impressive career as a concert pianist and had studied informally with Nadia Boulanger. And she had a brilliant mind. I don't think it was an accident that the one person in the deparment who could help clear the clutter of "academese" from these panicky grad students' brains was first and foremost a practitioner.
I think we urgently need to return to work, to geting our hands dirty by actually doing all these things we spend so much time blogging and tweeting and arguing about. (I include myself in this, by the way.)
