Hey profs -- are we in the widget business?

And now, for something completely different, it's Pope Benedict getting the Cod all fired up for another year of the day job. Generally not a fan, but he says something very important about the very real threats to the very notion of higher education in 2011: 

At times one has the idea that the mission of a university professor nowadays is exclusively that of forming competent and efficient professionals capable of satisfying the demand for labor at any given time. One also hears it said that the only thing that matters at the present moment is pure technical ability. This sort of utilitarian approach to education is in fact becoming more widespread, even at the university level, promoted especially by sectors outside the University. All the same, you who, like myself, have had an experience of the University, and now are members of the teaching staff, surely are looking for something more lofty and capable of embracing the full measure of what it is to be human. We know that when mere utility and pure pragmatism become the principal criteria, much is lost and the results can be tragic: from the abuses associated with a science which acknowledges no limits beyond itself, to the political totalitarianism which easily arises when one eliminates any higher reference than the mere calculus of power. The authentic idea of the University, on the other hand, is precisely what saves us from this reductionist and curtailed vision of humanity.

You can read the whole thing here. 

 

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Bill fans should especially cherish every game the team victory. The team's most famous players when the number of Simpson, he is scoring the AFC in 1975 and 1973 the annual MVP, while the other players that Thurman - Thomas, in 1991, the year he was MVP and best offensive player. Although Bill's defense rotten miserable, but the team of Bruce - Smith and bais - Bob was the best defensive player three times the annual election, in which Bruce - Smith in 1990 and was elected twice in 1996.