15 Comments
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William Krebs's avatar

Hah! Sonoma State is for those Calfornians who aren't willing to go all the way to Humboldt State.

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Joseph Shaffer's avatar

I'm surprised that janitorial staff, kitchen staff, and maintenance staff aren't the first cuts to be made--that's usually the way this goes, the folks at the bottom of the pay-scale get axed first and the legions of administrators (deans, associate deans, assistant deans, department heads, associate department heads, assistant department heads) never seem to disappear and, in fact, metastasize even as academic departments (history--who needs that?!) shrink. That kind of top-heavy makes Dolly Parton look anorexic. . . .

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Steve's avatar

legions of administrators (deans, associate deans, assistant deans, department heads, associate department heads, assistant department heads)

Could that be the reason Why in the last 20+ years college tuition's have Sky Rocketed? NAH that's just crazy talk on my part.

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Marty Keller's avatar

In the long run, reality always wins--but we can do a lot of damage before it crosses the victory line.

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The One's avatar

I don't know how I would have made it this far without my minor in Aestheticism!

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Rascal Nick Of's avatar

This brings to mind a couple things ive been pondering lately. It seems serendipitous that its quite likeky just about of all the great human-produced art has been done, at the around the same time that artificial intelligence art is becoming ubiquitous. I really do wonder if there will be any more truly great and worthwhile art that can even be produced by humans from this point forward. Similarly, humanities (“soft science”) scholarship seems to have run its course as well. I mean “Spanish Studies”? Aside from an ability to competently teach the linguistic history (which AI can apparently do a serviceable job of already) what else important and useful new knowledge (also aside from useless Marxist deconstruction) is there to know about it that you cant learn from a bunch of youtube videos? Seems like the singularity is fast approaching. Or the End Times…

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David Schnare's avatar

Baccalaureate degrees in earth and environmental sciences are worthless. Leave those subjects to MPH and MSPH programs. On the other hand, geology and physics are core academics. Cutting them means the school is truly broken.

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Michael Lee's avatar

At Sonoma State degree in physics is only useful if you intend to become a high school teacher.

The UC system is where you need to have been accepted to if you intend to pursue a career that requires a deep understanding of physics, and that will require a masters or a doctorate to be truly useful. There are plenty of undergrad physics majors graduating from top tier public and private institutions to fill all of the graduate degree slots.

This may be snobby, but Cal State grads need not apply... and since geology is only a small part of a general interest science course in middle school or high school, I'm not even sure what a geo degree from Sonoma State preps you for.

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David Schnare's avatar

Michael, I view geo and physics as one of the scientific alternatives for a quality liberal arts education. Maybe Sonoma State is not a liberal arts school, but if it is, these courses teach the basics of applying the scientific method, something all well educated adults should understand.

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RAM's avatar

Caliifornia has decayed and decaying infrastructure.

Many Californians, including former university staff, have an unhealthy weight problem.

So let's get the two together to fix stuff.

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Unwoke in Idaho's avatar

I think Tim identifies as a woman. He just hasn’t gotten around to the choppadickfromme, hormone taking, name changing phase yet.

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The Gora's avatar

My eyes see "Sonoma" but my mind sees Aldous Huxley's "Soma".

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Steve's avatar

A Small question. What is the tuition there, how much do the faculty make?

"35 percent decline in enrollment since 2015"

Anyone there ever ask the question WHY? College is A Business. If you've been losing customers for TEN YEARS, you might want to ask WHY. Actually you should asked this 8 years ago.

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Michael Smith's avatar

A few bucks a month for satellite radio will get you direct Joni Mitchell source material - cut out the Wandling middleman.

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