Wednesday, January 12, 2011

Overcrowded

Things are over-crowded around the college. The classes, the library, the Writing Center, everywhere. And when mammals get into each others' faces and spaces, no good can come of it. Resources are scarce, tempers become short, and the results are not pretty.
I heard a radio report once about an experiment in which rats were loaded up 10 to a small cage made for two or three. They ate each other, and this is perhaps what is about to happen and is indeed beginning to happen on our campuses in California.
There is no doubt that the cuts Brown is about to institute, however dire and awful, must be undertaken. We simply have little choice, but the results will squeeze the state still further. More people, perhaps myself and others like me, will end up out of work. The economy will doubtless, in the short term, spiral downwards still further.
One of my students worked on the problem of overcrowding in the California prison system last semester, and the scope of that problem as well as its effects, were scary to contemplate.
But although most of us are not criminals and not rats, we have more in common with these beings than we might want to admit. Perhaps then that can explain what is happening around us.

4 comments:

marly said...

Down much, Robbi?

Hang in there. Remember, the full professors don't want to teach your courses...

Anonymous said...

We are not as ovecrowed as Fall Semester. Being overcrowded to me, means job security, I am enjoying the crowds of students and proud that, they are at IVC.

Beth

Robbi N. said...

Beth,
I am happy they are at IVC, but the truth is that there isn't room for all of us, and people are getting squeezed.
Marly,
The full professors at my college teach all of the same stuff I teach, plus some. It's a community college, not a 4 year university.

marly said...

Ah, I forget!