{"id":4193,"date":"2018-10-06T20:22:29","date_gmt":"2018-10-06T20:22:29","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/wordpress.lvc.edu\/wordpress\/lavie\/?p=4193"},"modified":"2018-10-06T20:22:29","modified_gmt":"2018-10-06T20:22:29","slug":"letter-to-editor-alumna-voices-concern-in-light-of-impending-cuts","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wordpress.lvc.edu\/lavie\/2018\/10\/06\/letter-to-editor-alumna-voices-concern-in-light-of-impending-cuts\/","title":{"rendered":"Letter to editor: Alumna reacts to impending cuts"},"content":{"rendered":"

It is certainly not the first time that the purpose of education has been brought into question, and
\nit is indubitably not the last.<\/p>\n

In my years as an undergraduate at LVC, I was fortunate enough to be exposed to an authentic
\neducation: I was challenged to read both classical and modern texts, to revise my
\nunderstanding of the history of the world and myself, and to reflect upon what my role in this
\nworld ought to be. I became a conscious human being, and for this I will remain forever grateful.<\/p>\n

In fact, I even claim that I don\u2019t regret all of the student debt that I incurred for this life lesson
\nbecause its impact has been so utterly profound. (And get this – I even managed to pay it back
\nby the age of 30! Not bad for a religion major.) By now, I wonder if my peers are able to share
\nthe same opinion.<\/p>\n

I started as a religion major in 2005 and added philosophy as a second major by 2006. I
\ngraduated in 2009. Even before I began my studies, the societal choir started to ring in my
\nears, \u201cReligion? What are you going to do with that?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cBut you\u2019re so smart. Why don\u2019t you go into the sciences? That\u2019s where all the money is these
\ndays!\u201d<\/p>\n

Then came the Great Recession of 2008, and we were preparing to graduate the next year.
\nThe youthfulness of my peers began to fade; the excitement with which they once viewed their
\nfutures began to subside and they seemed to start to accept that they had just lived the best
\nyears of their lives. Now that they had their degree, their next step in life was to settle into
\nwhatever decent-paying job they could and start a family, but hey — that\u2019s just the cycle of life.
\nToo bad the job market was shrinking. Sometimes, life is unfortunate.<\/p>\n

And why wouldn\u2019t my peers have felt unfortunate? Most of them were convinced by parents,
\nmentors, and peers that the significance of their life would be realized through whatever job they
\nprepared to do in this economy, by how much money they earned, by what sort of materials
\nthey could afford. Such is the reality of university life in the capitalist child of mother
\nIndustrialization and papa Protestant Ethic.<\/p>\n

Recently, I learned that LVC will be dismantling its Department of Religion and Philosophy. And
\nthat the new prerequisite program, Constellation LVC, no longer requires classes in religion or
\nphilosophy. It leaves me wondering where contemplation and deliberation still reside at LVC.<\/p>\n

Perhaps our world has no place for such indulgences. Instead, we get the following: Produce.
\nConsume. Reproduce. Consume. Repeat.<\/p>\n

How will a land that prides itself on freedom and liberty ever give rise to the passionate zeal
\nneeded in revolutionary minds to revise and remake the world if its education is reserved to
\nproducing workers for its economic vacancies?<\/p>\n

Or maybe that\u2019s all too abstract, too irrelevant. We\u2019ve all got to fend for ourselves, feed our
\nchildren, not reimagine the world. No one wants to pay to go to college and not land a well-paid
\njob afterward. Think practically. Be realistic.<\/p>\n

We are but workers. Laborers. Robotnik. There is no more time for deliberation. Make no
\nmistake — the word scholastic stems from the Greek word for leisure: skholastikos, or to enjoy
\none\u2019s leisure by learning. But we have no more leisure. Time is money. No money? No honey.<\/p>\n

Now get back to work.<\/p>\n

Carissa Devine, ’09<\/p>\n<\/div><\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

It is certainly not the first time that the purpose of education has been brought into question, and it is indubitably not the last. In my years as an undergraduate at LVC, I was fortunate […]<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":4153,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[14],"class_list":{"0":"post-4193","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-campus-news","8":"tag-letters-to-editor"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.lvc.edu\/lavie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4193","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.lvc.edu\/lavie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.lvc.edu\/lavie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.lvc.edu\/lavie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.lvc.edu\/lavie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4193"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.lvc.edu\/lavie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4193\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.lvc.edu\/lavie\/wp-json\/"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.lvc.edu\/lavie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4193"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.lvc.edu\/lavie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4193"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.lvc.edu\/lavie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4193"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}