My school will be undergoing accreditation this year from two august accrediting agencies. Our administrators have dictated that we shall all use a standard syllabus. I just finished mine. 3 pages of meaningless boilerplate designed to save us from whiny students. By the time you load it up with all the ADA, plagiarism, absentee, grade change, grade appeal, library support, blah, blah, blah... there's hardly room for the course content.

I've been teaching business classes, at the college level, for over 20 years. I'm damn good at my job. I've been told that as a BUSINESS prof, who actually runs BUSINESS, that sells services to other BUSINESSES, I need to publish more ACADEMIC papers. (Tediously boring esoteric articles read only by the five people who reviewed it -- and your spouse-equivalent.) In academic circles, the Journal of Oblique Gluteal Economics is more important than the Wall Street Journal.

When the accrediting agencies show up for their boondoggle, the big question will be about "library support". If one of my MBA's goes into a library, it better be for a novel. By the time anything in business makes it into book form, it's as useful as Aztec banking manuals. Hey if it's anthropology, then libraries makes a difference.

Now we are expected to give a "proctored exam" in every course -- to avoid cheating. I haven't given an exam in 20 years. I haven't taken one since I left school either. Gee, if you gather your own data, bring it to my statistics class, analyze it, and formalize for your boss, -- how the hell can you cheat?

As we lose ground to India, China and the rest of the Orient, we should all feel good that professional academics have decided that other academics are doing things the approved standardized way. 50% of your primary school budget goes to liability insurance and the 1/2% of the students with "special needs". What's left for everybody else? Mediocrity.