Education Statistics

When I started this blog two years ago, I wanted to record some of the random musings of my life. I also wanted to keep track of some interesting things I read while working at KF. I have gotten away from the later, but came across the Digest of Education Statistics Annual Report, and thought I'd put some of the important stats up here. So, if you hate statistics and/or education, please wait until the next blog post, which will most likely be about how we are going to let the baby fish out into the main tank to be among the other fish, or how desperate Hillary Clinton is.



College enrollment hit a record level of 18 million in fall 2007. That's almost double the population of the entire state of Michigan. This surge isn't expected to plateau until 2016.

There are 1.3 million faculty members employed in higher education. I hope I will be one of them soon.

During the 2007-2008 academic year, 1.5 million bachelor's degrees will be conferred, compared to 55,000 Ph.D.'s.

Faculty time was broken down by: 58% teaching, 20% research and scholarship, and 22% other (e.g., administration, professional growth).

The average faculty salary for males was $74,167. The average for females was a stunning $61,016.

There are 2,629 4 year degree colleges and universities.

Prices for undergraduate tuition, room, and board at public universities rose by 32 percent in the past ten years.

The most popular bachelor's degree was in business.

The most popular master's degree was in education.

The most popular Ph.D. was in Education.

By that logic, I am very popular. (Bachelors - Marketing, Masters - Education, Ph.D. - Education (hopefully) )

A Visit with The Boss

I couldn't decide whether to title this post "A Visit with The Boss" or "Largest Gathering of Middle-Aged White People Dancing in Their Seats Ever," so I opted for the more politically-correct one.

Nonetheless, Erica and I went to see Bruce "The Boss" Springsteen in concert on Saturday night. Bruce was an hour late, the tickets were $95 a piece for balcony seats, there were no other folks there our age, and IT WAS THE BEST SHOW I'VE EVER SEEN. Seriously. Bruce was incredible. It was no wonder that it was sold out, cramped, and that no one complained that he was almost an hour late. It was worth it when he took the stage and sang "Darlington County." He played every song off his new album, Magic, which is his first studio release with the E Street Band in five years. There's a reason why the E Street Band is regarded as the best band of the last thirty years. A violin, two guitars, Max Weinberg (Conan O'Brein!) on the drums, a sax (THE sax, I should say), an accordion, an two guitars, which all come together to deliver an unrelenting, non-stop show of musical brilliance. Ok, enough on that. Here are some pictures from the show.







This one is from our seats.



Here we are during the concert. Notice the earplugs. It was 150 decibels in that place.

We were easily the youngest people in the crowd, besides a few stray teenagers who were coerced into attending by their parents. A number of boomers talked to us and expressed their surprise and excitement that people as young as us would come see Bruce. "We grew up on this stuff" they said, to which we replied "well, so did we." We might have saved them some shock by driving a spaceship. We have found it's much easier to avoid explaining our musical preferences to fellow concert goers, as we frequently find ourselves in awkward discussions with some strange folks.

And, as I mentioned in the first paragraph, I will contend that this was the single greatest gathering of middle-aged white people gyrating in their seats to ever assemble in the galaxy. Hands down. Erica and I played a game of trying to find someone of a different race before the show -- we found two African Americans and four people who looked to be from India. That was it. There were 60,000 people there.

My Visit to Maryland

I've had these pictures for some time, but just never posted them. I visited the University of Maryland a couple of weeks ago. (I have since accepted their offer of admission.)

The campus itself was beautiful and quite desolate. Except for these fine young men who were staging some sort of play fight scenario. They were quite elaborate in their outfits and plans, and I couldn't discern what they were doing, so I decided to capture the moment on my camera for future analysis.



And this here is Testudo, the iconic turtle who is surrounded by mythology. I don't pretend to know it all -- I just know that you're supposed to rub his head for good luck. His head is worn down from all the attention he receives. I have a feeling I'm going to make a habit out of rubbing his head over the next few years.



One of the many highlights of my visit was being able to reconnect with my good friends Kevin and Kristin. I went to graduate school with Kevin, and hadn't seen him since he left last summer. I stayed with them both nights, and even though I was exhausted when I saw them at night, it was awesome to see the both of them. They'll be getting married this summer, but they already have a small child pictured below.



Erica and I are excited to move to Maryland; it looks like the move will take place the first or second week of July!

Airplane! Airplane!

This past weekend, we played host to Erica's parents. On Saturday, we decided to travel to Dayton to visit the Wright Patterson Air Force Base Museum. It was a lot of fun, although quite exhausting to walk through.



The museum galleries present military aviation history, boasting more than 400 aerospace vehicles -- many rare and one-of-a-kind -- along with thousands of historical items and powerful sensory exhibits that bring history to life and connect the Wright brothers' legacy with today's stealth and precision technology. It was incredible to see the evolution of planes. It was also neat to see the interpretive side of the museum as it relates to the planes' roles in various wars. They have a lot of volunteers on sight to explain things, too.



It was kite building day there, but Erica didn't want to build a kite with me.

Of special significance was seeing the planes that were used to haul hundreds of soldiers to other countries during war time. (Let's just say the accommodations make a 40 person Delta puddle jumper plane look like business class for an international flight.) On the same day we were there, we gave well wishes to my brother, Scott, who left for Afghanistan for his second tour of duty in Operation Enduring Freedom on Saturday. Although he wouldn't be flying in a plane on display at the museum, his thoughts, fears, and anxieties must be the same of the soldiers who traveled in those planes some 60 years ago. You could get a sense--however small--of the emotions surrounding the planes and memorabilia.

On another note, it was interesting to note the artwork depicted on the various planes and bombs. Most of the artwork was in good taste, depicting things like skeletons, American flags, and cartoon characters, but many were very disturbing as they degraded African Americans, people from other countries, and women. Here is an example:



So, if you're ever in the Dayton area, I recommend checking out the museum. But try to avoid kids day. It's hectic!

My Decision to Attend Graduate School (Again)

A lot of people wonder what would possess me to go back to graduate school AGAIN. Well, I have a lot of thoughts on that, but the writer(s) (?) over at stuffwhitepeoplelike.com sum it up best. If you don't know, www.stuffwhitepeoplelike.com is an Internet phenomenon, averaging over 1 million hits per day. Great writing. Here is what they say about graduate school:

Being white means to engage in a day in, day out struggle to prove that you are smarter than other white people. By the time they reach college, most white people are confronted with the fact that they may not be as smart as they imagined.

In coffee shops, bars, and classes white people will engage in conversations about authors and theorists that go nowhere as both parties start rattling off progressively more obscure people until eventually one side recognizes one and claims a victory. By the time they graduate (or a year or two afterwards), white people realize that they will need an edge to succeed in the cut-throat world of modern white society.

That edge is graduate school.

Though professional graduate schools like law and medicine are desirable, the true ivory tower of academia is most coveted as it imparts true, useless knowledge. The best subjects are English, History, Art History, Film, Gender Studies, Studies, Classics, Philosophy, Political Science, Literature, and the ultimate: Comp Lit. MFA’s are also acceptable.

Returning to school is an opportunity to join an elite group of people who have a passion for learning that is so great they are willing to forgo low five-figure publishing and media jobs to follow their dreams of academic glory.

Being in graduate school satisfies many white requirements for happiness. They can believe they are helping the world, complain that the government/university doesn’t support them enough, claim they are poor, feel as though are getting smarter, act superior to other people, enjoy perpetual three day weekends, and sleep in every day of the week!

After acquiring a Masters Degree that will not increase their salary or hiring desirability, many white people will move on to a PhD program where they will go after their dream of becoming a professor. However, by their second year they usually wake up with a hangover and realize: “I’m going to spend six years in graduate school to make $35,000 and live in the middle of nowhere?”

After this crisis, a white person will follow one of two paths. The first involves dropping out and moving to New York, San Francisco or their original home town where they can resume the job that they left to attend graduate school.gradstudents2.jpg

At this point, they can feel superior to graduate school and say things like “A PhD is a testament to perseverance, not intelligence.” They can also impress their friends at parties by referencing Jacques Lacan or Slavoj Žižek in a conversation about American Idol.

The second path involves becoming a professor, moving to a small town and telling everyone how they are awful and uncultured.

It is important to understand that a graduate degree does not make someone smart, so do not feel intimidated. They may have read more, but in no way does that make them smarter, more competent, or more likable than you. The best thing you can do is to act impressed when a white person talks about critical theorists. This helps them reaffirm that what they learned in graduate school was important and that they are smarter than you. This makes white people easier to deal with when you get promoted ahead of them.

Officially a Terp

Well, it is official. I'm a terp.



I officially excepted an admission offer for the College Student Personnel Program at the University of Maryland. My assistantship will be in the Student Union as the Graduate Coordinator for Student Involvement & Leadership Development Programs. If you want to know more about the office, you can check it out here.

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Wow. What to say. It's an incredible offer, and it was very easy to accept it. I visited there last week for "Preview Days", which allowed me to interview for assistantships, meet the faculty, interact with the students, and see the campus. It was an incredible experience. Susan Komives will be my advisor, who is pioneer in student affairs, specifically in leadership education . Erica and I are actively pursuing a house director position in a sorority as well. That should be a lot of fun, and we are await the possibilities.

What has made this decision somewhat strange is that Erica is currently in Boston at a conference, so we had to make this decision over the phone. It was a relatively easy decision as Maryland has been my #1 choice since I labored over those applications a few short months ago. It was just sort of strange to utter the line "Ok, so I'm going to call and accept" over the phone to her knowing that call determines the next 3-4 years of our lives. The decision was also a lot easier because it was fairly close to home (only an hour by plane), so our families would be able to come see us easily. My other offer was on the west coast, and travel would have certainly been an issue.

So here we go. We probably won't be moving out to DC until the end of June/beginning of July. I feel so blessed to have this opportunity; it is a bit surreal to be honest. But, I have a great partner next to me to move into this next area of our lives together.