The Search for Home: CONTRACT SIGNED!!!

I KNOW how scary this place looks right now... and I need help!!

We finally got the contract back signed today and are scheduled to close in a month if all inspections go well. (!!!! craziness!!!) :)

If anyone has ideas for me on the front of this house, I'd LOVE them. (please! please!!) Here are some details: the siding is vertical cedar, the window screens/ storms you see in the top windows are dark brown vinyl. (I'm not very happy with that but know we won't have it in our budget to get new ones.-- is painting an option??) The cable cord you see will be going. yuck.

The windows themselves are aluminum & I actually like them.

We'll be painting (haven't decided upon colors yet so I'm up for suggestions) and I'm thinking about pulling out a dark rich gray from the stones and going white with the trim. (Now, you KNOW how much I want a white house- but do you think that would be totally weird with the stone??) My husband is planning on adding a pergola along the front right side sort of as a porch but with a patio underfoot. Basically like what you see below (similar color too! :) but extending along the whole front right side of the house:

Kind of like this (below) but in all-white:

Eventually I'd like to add some more Craftsman elements to it and it would definitely need some more rooflines but that is SOOOOOO far in the future it's not even funny. (And a tin roof!!)

Anyway, we're SO excited but I'm staying a but grounded because things have been so strange with this whole deal and I won't be able to totally relax about it until we close. I know how talented & creative you all are & I'm really in need of your ideas so please send them on!!!!
xoxo,
lauren

The Evolution of a Room: The Extra Bedroom

I was looking through some old pictures on my computer & I came across some before & afters of the extra bedroom in our old townhome. It was just so interesting to see the progression of the room over the 3 and a half years we lived there. [Warning: these come from my pre-design-obsessed days so please bear with me!!! ;) ] Here is what it looked like when we first moved in. (I painted it white because it was a terrible brown-beige):

It was my office and also the room we cared about least. At the time I was working for my family business (a company that manufactures locomotive components) doing PR. I put the chaise lounge we already had in there and we purchased a little black desk with a hutch on top from Luckett's for around $270. The rest of the things were trash-picked, garage-sale items or thrift store finds that we just sort of would come accross. The mirror below, was given to me by a friend of my grandmother's, an award-winning teen author (Bebe Faas Rice) and I painted over the blue wood for white. It was inset with black glass. (That now too is painted)



Here's the black desk & hutch we found. I wasn't in love with it but was in dire need of a desk & it was sturdy & I liked the lines (and price!!). I filled it with moss balls (leftover from our wedding) and other accessories to be switched in & out on a whim.



I used 1 iron rod with white panels to save on not having to buy 2 panels & because it also saved space. (The chair seriously KILLS me now but I found it to be taken out for trash & didn't have one so I quickly brought it in & painted it white :) ... I LOVE trash-picking.


After living there for a bit... and not being happy with the room, I decided it was time to actually do something with it. I chose this gray-beige and used blue accents with greenery. It was an odd color-combo but it worked. I loved the jolts of blue and it gave me some place to put the blue items I owned that didn't work anywhere else. I actually found a lot of comfort in the room as it was in this stage. It had an earthy quality & was sunny enough to handle such a thick color.


I used this folding table (below) as an extra workspace for projects. I recovered the seat of the file cabinet bench (ikea) in a blue & white stripe because I was in a serious nautical mood. (Notice the striped pillow on the chaise too--- I couldn't find large enough stripes in a fabric I liked so I cut strips of blue fabric & sewed it together with a natural twill.) I had plans of replacing the handles on the closet door to a nickel but we never got there. :)

Below are some of the blue bottles I'd accumulated. I like pretty little things in window sills in the warmer months. It just reminds me of simpler times for some reason. My grandmother often has a little vase of flowers on the window sill in her kitchen.. maybe that's why???

And here's the chaise lounge with (a much skinnier!!!) Ashby:

Below is one of my mushrooms prints ($1!!) scored from Goodwill. (I lost them over this Christmas when I hid them away to put up my feather wreath & have now forgotten where I stashed them!! arg!!) hahaha I love the white against the walls and also the little glass knobs on the drapery tiebacks.

And finally, when the little addition came to our family, the room was once again transformed. By this time I had my business up and running and had a much clearer vision for the room:

I won't go into much detail about the nursery since I've posted on it before & if you're interested you can read all about it here. But as you can see, the chaise stayed, as did my striped pillow. I stuck with coastal (STILL not over it ;) and the baby got a ship painting & a porthole mirror.

One thing I want you to check out is the carpeting change. We originially ripped out the old carpeting (it was yuck!!) an attempted to sand down the plywood & stained it with an ebony stain. I know how crazy that sounds but I saw it in a resturant & it totally worked. (And we were really trying not to spend!!!) Well, it didn't work for my house. Our dog is white & the floors never looked clean!!! Anyway, we recarpeted and I LOVE this carpet. (Shaw's "sisal touch" in fawn) It looks very much like sisal but is a fairly soft burber.

Anyway, I just thought it was so interesting (and funny!! :) to see how rooms evolve and how we evolve as decorators/ homeowners. I think it's really important for people to be okay with not having it all completed at once. In the real world we often have tight budgets & can't have it all right away so it's vital that we learn to work with what we've got. It's also important to spend wisely & really get to know yourself and your style before you start spending. Fortunately I didn't have a budget for decorating when I first started out or I could have done some serious damage!! eeeeek

I hope everyone had a great weekend & just a quick update on the house--- they have verbally said they will accept our offer but haven't signed the papers yet. (what is going on?!!)

xoxo,

lauren

The Last Historians?

Chris Beneke

In January of this year, Stanley Fish caused something of a stir (again) with a blog entry titled The Last Professor, in which he discussed Frank Donoghue’s sharp and gloomy book: The Last Professors: The Corporate University and the Fate of the Humanities. At the conclusion, Fish observes that he “timed it just right, for it seems that I have had a career that would not have been available to me had I entered the world 50 years later. Just lucky, I guess.” Here was a nice occasion for Fish to emphasize his own humility and for humanities professors to reacquaint themselves with the sensation of excruciating professional angst. Donoghue’s argument, as you might guess from the title, is that the modern non-profit university is increasingly run on a corporate model with teachers hired for short-term contracts and institutional goals defined by explicitly professional ends (on the student side of things) and financial success (on the administrative side). The picture he paints of the humanities job market is bleak. The picture he paints of the conditions of adjunct faculty is bleaker still. Donoghue takes pains to emphasize that the tension between the corporate world and the academic study of the humanities is as old as the tenured, research-oriented humanities professoriate itself. Moreover, he denies that we’re in a “crisis.” This is a long-term trend, he contends, rather than a short-term anomaly. Still, Donoghue makes it abundantly clear that he believes the academic study of humanities subjects to be on the tail end of a long slide toward irrelevance.

What should academic historians make of such a scary report—and what can they do to alter the dismal trajectory that Donoghue charts? The Last Professors offers few concrete recommendations, aside from his wise injunction to stop defending tenure on the grounds of academic freedom because that strategy only “exacerbate[s] the divide between the dwindling number of tenured professors and the growing rank of adjuncts.” And so, with The Last Professors in mind, but with no pretensions to originality or expertise, I offer the following unsolicited recommendations:

First, we need to forthrightly and repeatedly stress the value of the humanities in general, and the work of history in particular. That means, too, that we should think hard and maybe even talk a bit more about the larger value of the humanities in general, and the work of history in particular. And please, let’s try to avoid making the process look like an extended graduate seminar.

Second, we need to make sure that what we do with our students in the classroom and on-line is as conducive to their learning and thinking as it is distinctive. If you’ve seen the lectures at Academic Earth or listened to the lectures at iTunes University, you will have already realized that much of a history professor’s traditional teaching responsibilities can now be easily replicated and widely distributed. Making sure that we bring the latest research into the classroom in an engaging way will help to justify our scholarship, as well as our teaching.

Third, we should ensure that pay, benefits, and respect are more fairly distributed to all of the professionals in our field. For a group that votes overwhelmingly Democratic , tenured and tenure-track professors (as a whole) pay inexcusably little attention to their colleagues who do quite similar work on short-term contracts and for much less pay. Equity and enlightened self-interest both demand that the most privileged among us attend seriously to the conditions of those who now teach sixty-five percent of our classes.

Fourth, we must be engaged with popular works of history that both non-historians and historians will actually read and discuss. We should even be prepared to write such books ourselves.

Fifth, we need to stop pretending that all the work in our discipline is, or should be, of intrinsic interest to the rest of the world. To this point, we could substitute more rigorous teacher training for grad school research commitments and alter tenure and PhD requirements so that a series of article-length essays may be accorded the same worth as a four-hundred page dissertation. We should also reward good public history as generously as we reward good intra-academic scholarship.

Frank Donoghue’s dismal trends may indeed have originated long ago and his dark prophecies may take years to fulfill. But if we’re to avoid being the last generation of history professors, we will need to act quickly.

Reviews in the Chicago Tribune

Two reviews of interest appeared today in the Chicago Tribune. THS past president Eric Arnesen assesses a book on Levittown and civil rights and Katrin Schultheiss reviews a volume on Swiss-born architect Le Corbusier. Both Arnesen and Schulteiss also have essays in the April issue of Historically Speaking: Schultheiss, "The Ends of the Earth and the “Heroic Age” of Polar Exploration: A Review Essay" and Arnesen, "Reconsidering the 'Long Civil Rights Movement.'" (The latter is part of a feature, Civil Rights Historiography: Two Perspectives, which also includes David Chappell's piece, "The Lost Decade of Civil Rights.")

Le Corbusier: A Life by Nicholas Fox Weber Katrin Schultheiss, Chicago Tribune, 28 March 2009

Americans may be forgiven for not being intimately familiar with the work of the Swiss-born architect Le Corbusier. Unlike his contemporaries Walter Gropius and Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, he spent little time in the United States and designed only one significant American building, the Carpenter Center at Harvard University. His other major project in the United States, a failed bid to design the new United Nations headquarters in 1947, remained a source of deep resentment until his death in 1965. Read on>>>

Levittown: Two Families, One Tycoon, and the Fight for Civil Rights in America's Legendary Suburb by David Kushner
Eric Arnesen, Chicago Tribune, 28 March 2009

More than a half-century before our current disaster in the housing market, the United States confronted a very different sort of housing crisis. During the Great Depression of the 1930s and the economic boom of World War II, few private homes had been constructed. With demobilization after World War II, vast numbers of military veterans and their families, flush with cash and GI Bill-backed mortgages, were desperate for housing. A generation was ready to move, but a severe housing shortage initially thwarted their desires. Read on>>>

The Importance of Studying Ordinary Lives: An Interview with Laurel Thatcher Ulrich

The forthcoming issue of Historically Speaking (April 2009) includes an interview with Laurel Thatcher Ulrich, 300th Anniversary University Professor at Harvard University and president of the American Historical Association. Ulrich is the author of a number of influential books and essays on colonial history, material culture, social history, and women’s history. Her Well-Behaved Women Seldom Make History (Random House, 2007) examines the appeal of that phrase and describes the life and work of women who “turned to history as a way of making sense of their own lives.” The following is brief excerpt from the interview.

Randall Stephens: In Well-Behaved Women Seldom Make History you write: “History is a conversation and sometimes a shouting match between present and past, though often the voices we most want to hear are barely audible.” What have those barely audible voices said to us, and why do they matter?

Laurel Thatcher Ulrich: What does Martha Ballard’s diary tell us that the papers of George Washington don’t about the same historical period? In my view, plenty. For instance, Martha Ballard’s diary turns on its head the conventional narrative of the rise of modern medicine, which charts the progress from primitive lay healers to scientific healers, championing the superiority of the latter. But when you compare Martha Ballard’s diary with the records of 19th-century physicians, you get two different pictures of childbirth. The physicians’ account books reveal a succession of dangerous cases. Yet when I go to Martha Ballard’s diary, I realize that dangerous cases were rare. Doctors and their tools were making childbirth more dangerous, not less so.

Another example: economic history. The conventional narrative says that late 18th- and early 19th-century America was in the throes of a consumer revolution. And, indeed, storekeepers’ accounts from Martha Ballard’s time and place portray an economy in which local inhabitants exchanged lumber for the manufactured goods brought in on ships. But Martha’s diary reveals that she and others were constantly spinning and weaving, making their own clothes. According to storekeepers’ accounts, a consumer revolution wiped out local production. Yet an ordinary woman’s diary shows that local production was still very important, as well as interwoven with the commercial marketplace. By studying Martha Ballard’s diary, you can understand the difference between a calico dress, which Martha’s daughter had, and all the other clothing and bedding that was made at home.

One more example: If you studied that period through legal records, you would think that the society has gone from policing private behavior, à la Puritan New England, to dealing only with economic behavior. That is the classic picture we got from historians who worked on court records. But go through Martha Ballard’s diary and you’ll see in action the old 1680 law about the midwife taking testimony at the height of labor in order to hold someone accountable for paternity. So I don’t think anonymous people need to be included in the historical record just because of fairness or justice. Studying them carefully makes for more accurate history.

My Style Today: In a Picture

Alek of the new & super-stylish blog From the Right Bank to the Left Coast tagged me and a few other bloggers to do a post feauring 1 photo (only 1!!!) that sums up our style. [WARNING: I will use the word "love" way too much in this post!!!]

I chose this image of Chaffee Braithwaite's living room (featured in Cottage Living- I've posted on it before). But I love everything about it: It's light & airy, natural, textural, there's lots of white , gray & an ethereal quality to it... The room is focused on the outdoors & nature. The coffee table (not sure of the material) has a beautiful texture & I love its strong clean lines. Of course I love all the slipcovered white upholstery & my sofa at home is almost exactly like the sofa pictured. (LOVE shelter sofas for hanging. lounging & cuddling!)

The wheatgrass on the coffee table along with the branches on the desk over looking the window probably make this space for me. I'm working on some wheat grass for a client right now.

I also can't think of a place I've ever seen a ghost chair where it made more sense than this: You can see that beautiful view straight on through the chair. (My opinion on ghost chairs is that there should be a reason for using them, like in this case.)

I also love the casual vibe in the room: The books piled next to the chair, the throw "tossed" on the chair... I like that the throw on the chair could be replaced with virtually any color and it could change the feel of the room. (I'd probably have some pillows on the sofa too)

I also love the draperies right up there under the crown molding with the small rings on a white rod. They blend right into the walls [color: Benjamin Moore "Revere Pewter"] and it works perfectly here because the focus is on the gardens outside, not the draperies. The lamp is prefection to me & reminds me of my own glass lamps. And finally, I love the sisal carpet. [Fiberworks Island's Color Collection from Jobson's Carpet ] It brings in more of that natural feeling I love.

SO- now I'm tagging YOU to choose just 1 picture that sums up your style. You can either put a link to it in the comments section or you can put a link to your post. Can't wait to see what you come up with!! :)

I'm off to one of my best friend's wedding in NY this weekend so I'll be back Monday!!! Have a great weekend & I also wanted to let you know that the house people came back & might be considering our offer now!!! So we'll see!!! :)

xoxo,

lauren

Richardson's Rules of Order, Part II: Tips for Taking Notes in a College History Course

Heather Cox Richardson (Umass Amherst) offers up more from her handbook for history students. Note taking is a craft that takes practice and reflection to perfect. Richardson gives some cues here for how to take good notes, pitfalls to avoid, and the purpose of the whole process.

College history courses are designed not simply to cover a bunch of facts, but rather to interpret the meaning of those facts. Every instructor will have certain main points (or skills) that s/he wants you to understand before you finish the course. Usually, these themes will NOT be in the reading assignments for the class. Rather, the teacher will explain the themes through lectures. Assignments will reinforce those themes (sometimes by attacking them), and it is your job to put the different parts of the course together into a coherent whole.

Note taking, then, will be different than it was in high school. First of all, don’t get so frantic about scribbling everything down that you miss the point of the lecture. I notice that when I put up a power point slide that has words on it, students often seem to copy it down mindlessly without listening to my explanation of why these particular points are important to the larger story. My heart sinks, also, when I’ve given an important lecture that encapsulates how, say, the quest for political dominance in the 1850s led to the Civil War, and someone comes up after class to ask not for clarification or more information, but to ask how to spell the name of some obscure reporter I mentioned in passing. Avoid these forest-for-the-trees mistakes.

What you want in your notes is the general thesis of each lecture, its relevance to the larger theme of the class, and the points the teacher made to support that thesis. If you miss the details of some Supreme Court decision because you were too busy listening to jot them down, you can undoubtedly remember enough to look it up in your books, or on-line, or to ask another student for that information. Since the themes of a course are unique to each professor, it makes far more sense to get the themes and miss the details than to get the details and miss the themes.

You will, occasionally, run across a teacher who doesn’t seem to have any theme or thesis to his or her material, and is just going through it headlong, a bit at a time. This offers you a challenge, but also much more scope for your own interpretation. If the teacher doesn’t tell you why Andrew Johnson is important to American history, think it through for yourself. Why should you care about him? What do his life and his era say about yours? As you develop your answers to such questions after every lecture, you’ll come up with your own ideas about why the material is important. Far from being an empty exercise designed only to get you through a class, this will help you think about your own beliefs and interests, and may well help steer you toward a future career as you figure out what you really care about. (I speak from experience on this one!)

See also, Richardson's Rules of Order, Part I: Why Study History?

Entryway Plans

I was putting together a little entryway design together for a client & thought I'd share. Below is the mirror I chose, which looks beautiful in both traditional & contemporary settings:


Here's the demilune console: (which I LOVE & have ordered from Ballard but isn't available until May 28th!!! I have been scouring for something like it & haven't been happy with what I've found. Any ideas anyone??) She needs lots of storage for her dogs' leashes, their "plastic baggies" for walks, and for the jumble of things that naturally collects near the front entry.



I've purchased a mix of garden cloches in 3 sizes & will be putting potted plants in them for the top of the table. My client has a much greener thumb than I do & will hopefully be able to keep them alive! :)

Below is the lamp in a dark bronze finish. It's got a more contemporary feel to pull in the modern art that will be filling the large stairway across from the console table. (16 paintings framed in shadowboxes done by the client's brother- I can't wait to show you pics of this!!!)

And here's the little entryway design all together: (Click on it to see it larger)

( The image is a PDF saved as JPEG & I can't get it to show up any larger on blogspot. Does anyone know how to make it larger??)

Also, I just wanted to thank Camila from High-Heeled Foot in the Door SO MUCH for being such a sweet (crazily sweet!!) friend. I was feeling a bit down about the whole house situation yeterday & there was a knock at my door. There were flowers!!! She sent me a beautiful bouquet of hydrangea, snapdragons, roses & carnations!! Really, if you haven't gotten to know her yet, you must go check out her fun, stylish & witty blog, where her sweet, exuberant personality just shines through the pages/ screen.

Anyway, thanks everyone so much for all the kind wishes, advice & support. I feel silly for getting so emotionally involved in a HOUSE when there are real issues going on in this world & we've got so much to be thankful for. I'll get over this & just wanted to say thanks.

xoxo,

lauren

A student's reaction to the Obama Gender Agenda

This entire post is submitted by one of my students. I have not written or contributed to it at all [- EHI]

Here is an article that I found interesting from the National Women's Day 2009 website, that was in the week 7 of our weekly guides for this course.


How will women fare under Obama?

Barack Obama has stacked competent women around him at all levels of the administration, not just at the top level but also at the second and third layers.

Three of the fifteen members in his Cabinet are women, or not quite 20%. Obama is used to having strong women around him. Most of these positions are in the national security and economic issues arenas so are key positions.
- Hillary Rodham-Clinton, Secretary of State
- Hilda Solis, Secretary-Designate, Department of Labor
- Janet Napolitani, Secretary, Department of Homeland Security

And there are further powerful women in critical roles:
- Christina Romer, Chair, Council of Economic Advisors
- Susan Rice, United States Ambassador to the United Nations
- Lisa Jackson, Administrator of Environmental Protection Agency

So exactly what can women expect from the Obama Administration. What will the US Gender Agenda really look like? Well the Obama Adminstration has set a clear agenda for women and it is as follows.

Healthcare:
- Fixing the Nation's Health Care System
- Empowering women to prevent HIV/AIDS
- Supporting research into women's health
- Fighting Cancer
- Reducing health risks due to mercury pollution
- Supporting stem cell research

Reproductive choice:
- Supporting a woman's right to choose
- Preventing unintended pregnancy

Preventing violence against women:
- Reducing domestic violence and strengthening domestic violence laws
- Fighting gender violence abroad

Economic issues:
- Fighting for pay equity and encouraging retirement saving
- Expanding paid sick days
- Investing in women-owned small businesses
- Protecting social security

National security:
- Caring for women veterans

Poverty:
- Renewing efforts to tackle underlying problems causing poverty
− Raising the minimum wage and helping low-income workers

Education:
- Protecting title tax
- Expanding early childhood education and improving schools
Making college more affordable


I found this website very empowering for women. I believe that Obama is going to be a wonderful, helpful, intelligent, empowering President. From this website, along with everything else that I have seen from him or heard of him, he seems to want to help the underprivileged and minorities. President Obama himself is a minority, so I think that is why he is so apt to want to help minorities, and even those in need. He does not seem to have ever been in poverty himself, but he can empathize with those who have been there. I think that his expectations and efforts are extremely commendable. If President Obama actually comes through with all of his plans, I believe that the US will definitely become a better place to live.

In regards to the issues mentioned on this particular website, I personally cannot wait for his plans for the US Gender Agenda to pass. Health care in the U.S. is a very touchy, long, difficult subject to get into, because there are so many different viewpoints on how to correct the health care system so that everyone can obtain it, even if not equally. I believe that the whole Obama administration has their hands full when it comes to fixing the Nation's Health Care System. I say good luck on that one. I currently do not have health care myself. My daughter has the Public Aid card, but I cannot afford health insurance myself. My job only offers health care for full time employees, but does not ever want to give anyone 40 hours a week to make anyone full time. It's a catch 22, and I know that it is like that at a lot of jobs. Also, I am not married, so I cannot go on my husband's insurance. I honestly hope that the Obama administration does come up with the perfect idea to make everyone happy, or at least content, with the nation's health care system.

Also in regards to women's issues, the Obama administration states that they will prevent unintended pregnancies and support a women's right to chose. Being a woman, I believe that these are two very important and overlooked issues in most presidential campaigns. Dealing with giving support to a women's right to chose is a very touchy subject, but needs to be addressed by presidential candidates. So does pregnancy. In today's society there are so many teenage pregnancies and other issues dealing with unintended pregnancies. I believe that there should be more affordable birth control, more education dealing with birth control, more sex education, and more education to explain all the options available for pregnant women. I really hope that the issues will be discussed and addressed by the Obama administration in the aspect of preventing unintended pregnancies and supporting a women's right to chose.

Another issue that I found in this website that the Obama administration is going to tackle and is of extreme importance in today's society is poverty. I believe that President Obama and his administration is serious when they state that they want to raise minimum wage to help low-income workers, and renew efforts to tackle underlying problems causing poverty. That issue should be the main focus, to renew efforts to tackle underlying problems that cause poverty. A lot of presidents and people before Obama have just taken the “band-aid” approach to tackling the issue of poverty. They always pushed it under the rug and let it be, or tried to help people after they have been in poverty for long periods of time. I believe that it is time we have someone in office that actually has the mentality to look at the root of the problem instead of trying to cover up or fix it after it is too late. If Obama is actually serious about looking at the underlying problems that cause poverty, then I believe he will definitely be able to educate people, and hopefully try different tactics to get people out of poverty and help them stay out. Hopefully, he will reform the Public Aid and Welfare systems to only help those in need, but to also help them obtain and maintain employment, while also helping with education about birth control and child care, as well as social security and retirement. There are many issues that poverty presents for our nation, and I am very glad that we finally elected such a powerful, intelligent, empathetic, and wonderful President as Barack Obama.

Minimum Wage Policy

This suggestion at the change.gov website inspired a student reaction:

Raise the Minimum Wage to $9.50 an Hour by 2011:
Barack Obama and Joe Biden believe that people who work full-time should not live in poverty. Even though the minimum wage will rise to $7.25 an hour by 2009, the minimum wage's real purchasing power will still be below what it was in 1968. As president, Obama will further raise the minimum wage to $9.50 an hour by 2011, index it to inflation and increase the Earned Income Tax Credit to make sure that full-time workers can earn a living wage that allows them to raise their families and pay for basic needs such as food, transportation, and housing -- things so many people take for granted.

Here is the student's reaction:

I believe that raising the minimum wage is an excellent idea and way overdue. I agree that people working full-time should not have to live in poverty. The current minimum wage is way below the poverty line. In an article in (wps.ablongman.com) the poverty line for a family of four in 2001 was $18,267 a year. Which is $8.75 an hour if working full time? I believe that people want more than just enough to get by on. The American Dream is more than “just enough.” If an individual works in a full time position and still can not afford their basic needs, it leads to hopelessness. In my opinion, individuals who feel hopeless are more likely to give up, live off of the in-kind benefits, resort to illegal activities, or give in to the escape of alcohol and drugs, all of which contribute to poverty.

I hope that the minimum wage will indeed be indexed to inflation, and not just be raised to the $9.50 an hour amount and then forgotten for several years or shelved by the next administration.

This reminds me of a couple passages from "The Wealth of Nations" by Adam Smith (1776). I'll quote them here. First, this:

It is not, however, difficult to foresee which of the two parties must, upon all ordinary occasions, have the advantage in the dispute, and force the other into a compliance with their terms. The masters, being fewer in number, can combine much more easily; and the law, besides, authorizes, or at least does not prohibit their combinations, while it prohibits those of the workmen. We have no acts of parliament against combining to lower the price of work; but many against combining to raise it. In all such disputes the masters can hold out much longer. A landlord, a farmer, a master manufacturer, or merchant, though they did not employ a single workman, could generally live a year or two upon the stocks, which they have already acquired. Many workmen could not subsist a week, few could subsist a month, and scarce any a year without employment. In the long run the workman may be as necessary to his master as his master is to him, but the necessity is not so immediate.

We rarely hear, it has been said, of the combinations of masters, though frequently of those of workmen. But whoever imagines, upon this account, that masters rarely combine, is as ignorant of the world as of the subject. Masters are always and every where in a sort of tacit, but constant and uniform combination, not to raise the wages of labor above their actual rate. To violate this combination is everywhere a most unpopular action, and a sort of reproach to a master among his neighbors and equals. We seldom, indeed, hear of this combination, because it is the usual, and one may say, the natural state of things, which nobody ever hears of...

And secondly, and most significantly, there was this:

A man must always live by his work, and his wages must at least be sufficient to maintain him. They must even upon most occasions be somewhat more; otherwise it would be impossible for him to bring up a family, and the race of such workmen could not last beyond the first generation. Mr. Cantillon seems, upon this account, to suppose that the lowest species of common laborers must every where earn at least double their own maintenance, in order that one with another they may be enabled to bring up two children; the labor of the wife, on account of her necessary attendance on the children, being supposed no more than sufficient to provide for herself. But one-half the children born, it is computed, die before the age of manhood. The poorest laborers, therefore, according to this account, must, one with another, attempt to rear at least four children, in order that two may have an equal chance of living to that age. But the necessary maintenance of four children, it is supposed, may be nearly equal to that of one man. The labor of an able-bodied slave, the same author adds, is computed to be worth double his maintenance; and that of the meanest laborer, he thinks, cannot be worth less than that of an able-bodied slave. Thus far at least seems certain, that, in order to bring up a family, the labor of the husband and wife together must, even in the lowest species of common labor, be able to earn something more than what is precisely necessary for their own maintenance; but in what proportion, whether in that above mentioned, or in any other, I shall not take upon me to determine.

So, what does it cost to maintain oneself and also bring up a child? In our city in 2009 you would need at least $500 per month for the smallest apartment with utilities. I believe an adult and child could eat well enough on a budget of $200 per month. If we're merely talking about survival, food and shelter are all they would need, but I suppose a bike, enough money for some bus passes and an occasional taxi ride, some money for clothing, and that sort of thing would perhaps create a need for another $200 or so. So, something just under $1,000 per month would be enough for survival. In a typical month a person might work 160 hours. To earn $1,000 per month working full time, they would need to be earning $6.25. In fact, the federal minimum wage is $6.55, but will go up to $7.25 in July. Here in Illinois the state minimum wage went up to $7.75 in July of 2008, and it will go up to $8.00 in July of 2009.

So, it looks to me as if we have minimum wages that are at the level that Cantillon and Smith thought were "natural" and "necessary" for workers.

If you think we ought to be more generous, and mandate a minimum wage that allows a single income-earner to raise a household with one adult and three children out of poverty, then you must consider the 2009 poverty threshold for a family of three (which is $18,310), and divide by a reasonable number of hours to expect a person to work in a year of full-time labor (a reasonable 1,850 hours would require a minimum wage of $9.90, and a more toil-and-work-diligently American full-time standard of 2,000 hours per year would require a wage of $9.16).

Are there any studies that indicate that people lose jobs when we set a minimum wage? That is a standard argument against minimum wages. Well, there are some studies that show the opposite influences (raising minimum wages increases employment). Here is a list of ten articles that, judging by the abstracts and other information I could gather, seem to have evidence about minimum wages:

The Effect of Minimum Wage on Youth Employment and Unemployment in Taiwan
Author: Chuang, Yih-chyi
Source: Hitotsubashi Journal of Economics v47, n2 (December 2006): 155-67

Minimum Wages and Poverty with Income-Sharing
Author: Fields, Gary S.; Kanbur, Ravi
Source: Journal of Economic Inequality v5, n2 (August 2007): 135-47

On the Empirics of Minimum Wages and Employment: Evidence for the Austrian Industry
Author: Ragacs, Christian
Source: Applied Economics Letters v15, n1-3 (January-February 2008): 61-64

Do Minimum Wages Have a Negative Impact on Employment in the United States?
Author: Bazen, Stephen
Source: Economie Publique n17 (2005): 41-58

Minimum Wages and Employment
Author: Neumark, David; Wascher, William L.
Source: Foundations and Trends in Microeconomics v3, n1-2 (2007): 1-186

Minimum Wage Effects on Labor Market Outcomes under Search, Matching, and Endogenous Contact Rates
Author: Flinn, Christopher J.
Source: Econometrica v74, n4 (July 2006): 1013-62

Minimum Wages, Inequality and Unemployment
Author: Adam, Antonis; Moutos, Thomas
Source: Economics Letters v92, n2 (August 2006): 170-76

The Minimum Wage Can Harm Workers by Reducing Unemployment
Author: Lee, Dwight R.
Source: Journal of Labor Research v25, n4 (Fall 2004): 657-66

Minimum Wage Policy and Employment Effects: Evidence from Brazil
Author: Lemos, Sara
Source: Economia: Journal of the Latin American and Caribbean Economic Association v5, n1 (Fall 2004): 219-52

Minimum Wage Impacts on Youth Employment Transitions, 1993-1999
Author: Campolieti, Michele; Fang, Tony; Gunderson, Morley
Source: Canadian Journal of Economics v38, n1 (February 2005): 81-104

Reaction to post at change.gov about Rev. Warren

A student included this post from the change.gov website for their policy proposal analysis exercise:

I am so very saddened by the choice of Rick Warren to deliver the inaugural invocation. I cannot fathom your insensitivity on this matter. I have been such a strong supporter of you and for you to disrespect gays and lesbians in the way you have is a slap in the face to all those supporting human rights. My wife was disabled and very active in the disability right movement yet she believed that to oppression of one group is to oppress of all. I fear that this is a continuation of all our oppression

Would you have chosen someone that advocates segregation to deliver the invocation, or someone that denies the holocaust, or someone who strongly advocates the cloistering of all people with disabilities? Yet you have someone like Rick Warren with his open and strong anti gay views to deliver the opening remarks at your inauguration.

I am shocked and saddened Mr. Obama. I hopped for so much more from you.

Carl Doering

The student wrote this response:

I would have to say that I agree with the poster. I really think that it is a slap in the face to all of Obama’s gay and lesbian supporters. If he would have chosen someone else who was denying the holocaust or was a person who discriminated another group, all hell would have broke lose. By Obama choosing who he did to deliver the inaugural invocation, it made a lot of people question how much equality he really wanted. Or maybe he does want equality, just not for gays and lesbians? Who knows, only time will tell us. We will have to watch and see how everything unfolds. I still am a big Obama supporter and I think he will do just fine.

Here is some of my response to the student:

Okay, let’s look at this policy.

Carl Doering is suggesting that Obama ought to have a policy of supporting the rights of persons to have the state recognize same-sex marriages. And, as a corollary of that policy, Doering is suggesting that Obama should only allow ministers who agree with that policy to give inaugural invocations. You are agreeing, and suggesting that by allowing a person who was a vocal and powerful opponent of equal rights for homosexuals (Warren endorsed Proposition 8) Obama has made a policy blunder.

See http://www.saddlebackfamily.com/blogs/newsandviews/

Rick Warren is one of those persons who bases his ethical beliefs and ideas about what is right and wrong on the New Testament of the Bible, which includes some letters supposedly written by the Apostle Paul in which male homosexual behaviors seem pretty clearly to be condemned. There are many Americans who share Rick Warren’s beliefs, and I notice that Warren bases his public opposition to gay marriage and his support for Proposition Eight on the idea that “majority rules.” He points out that “most Americans” say marriage is, by definition, an institution that joins a man and woman. Warren also says that only 2% of Americans are homosexual (a reasonable estimate), and he says that such a small minority shouldn’t be allowed to push their views on the great majority of Americans (he ignores the fact that a much larger minority of us want the 2% to be allowed to marry persons of the same sex with government recognition).

Carl Doering is suggesting that Obama’s choice of Warren is an insult to many of Obama’s supporters. Mr. Doering compares the invitation of Rev. Warren to a hypothetical invitation to a racial segregationist, a holocaust denier, or a person who rejects the values of “least restrictive environment” and “inclusion” in terms of how we as a society treat persons with disabilities.

What is the underlying ethical expectation here? What value or state of goodness are you and Mr. Doering suggesting Obama has violated? It seems that Mr. Doering is concerned that Obama has violated expectations of loyalty, and has betrayed persons who had a reasonable expectation that Obama would not invite persons with conservative religious views based on Biblical (or Qur’anic) scriptures to give a prayer or invocation at the inauguration. Mr. Doering and you evidently also make a distinction between the odious view that people of different racial phenotypes or ethnic heritages ought to be kept apart, and the widely accepted view that politicians ought to maintain a sort of ideological purity, and avoid any inclusion of political leaders with morally reprehensible views in situations that would seem to offer honor, respect, or collaboration with those misguided leaders. For example, should Obama shake the hand of Hu Jin Tao of China when meeting him at international gatherings, when the Chinese government represented by Hu has enforced a tyrannical rule over Tibetans and supported the genocidal government in Sudan?

A series of questions rises to mind:

1) Many Republican leaders, and quite a few Democrats, share Rev. Warren’s views about marriage. Some Republicans, including Senator John McCain supported Proposition 8. So did the Roman Catholic Church, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, The Union of Orthodox Jewish Congregations of America, and so forth. So, should Obama have ruled out Catholics, Mormans, Orthodox Jews, etc. from being allowed to give an invocation at the inauguration? Should he have politically vetted the person giving an invocation to make sure their politics were okay, and they had no history of supporting conservative Republican positions?

2) The president serves in two roles: the President is both the leader over the executive branch of the government and the head of state. In places such as England and Canada these roles are split, with the monarch acting as the head of the state (figurehead for the nation) and a prime minister acting as the head of the government. As Obama fills his role as an occupant of an office that takes on certain ceremonial and institutional roles as a symbol of our nation, should he apply his role as the head of government to apply political standards to his decisions as head of state? Is the inauguration an aspect of the president’s head of state duties more than a manifestation of head-of-government responsibilities?

3) Clearly Americans have reached a near consensus on issues such as racial segregation (about 85% to 90% favor integration in principle, if not in practice). Almost all of us know the truth that the German Nazi party and European supporters of it’s military regime on the European Continent conspired and acted to destroy (kill) the Jewish, Gypsy, Communist, Pacifist, Disabled, Mentally Ill, and Homosexual populations of Europe. Almost all of us think that public resources should enable persons with disabilities to be included in mainstream American life and not excluded or given unnecessary socially-imposed handicaps. On these issues a speaker who was vocal in opposing the American near-consensus would be odd. Yet, a majority of Americans seem to share Rev. Warren’s position. Those of us who disagree with Proposition 8 may be offended by such opinions, but while a majority of our fellow citizens hold to those views, is it appropriate for us to claim that their views are as out-of-date and morally wrong as those 19th century apologists for slavery who said it was sanctioned in the Bible? The opponents against gay marriage seem to be making a claim that their religions give them a monopoly on the definition of a term, “marriage,” and they are not mounting successful efforts comparable to Proposition 8 to force the government to stop recognizing same-sex domestic partnerships or civil unions (I’m sure they might like to, but those wouldn’t have sufficient political popularity outside of places like Utah and Oklahoma). It is only the government recognition of this term “marriage” that has these people riled up, am I right?

4) Do you think that since some religions accept same-sex marriage and some clergy conduct marriage ceremonies between same-sex couples, that the government must therefore recognize those marriages? Isn’t this a matter related to the First Amendment prohibiting the establishment of state religions? And if so, isn’t it a matter to be settled by courts, and isn’t it the case that courts will eventually reflect changing standards in the general population? How is this different from our government’s refusal to allow plural marriages or bigamy, when such marital relations are permitted in some religious traditions?

5) As a matter of policy, a political leader should to some degree try to achieve purity, and show ideological loyalty to supporters. That is, a politician needs to have certain ideals, moral standards, and sentiments that they use to guide their behaviors and political acts. Also as a matter of policy, a political leader needs to create positive working relationships with the opposition. As Saul Alinsky suggested, we should have no permanent friends and no permanent enemies. Everyone can be a collaborator when we have aligned interests, and even a close ally can become an opponant on a particular issue. Are there many people who would oppose Obama on issues such as gay rights and women’s reproductive choice, but might support Obama on increasing spending for medical research, cutting the defense budget, and helping us reduce our dependence on fossil fuels by introducing a cap-and-trade carbon emission limit that would double energy costs? It might make good political policy sense to reach out to our opponents on gay marriage if we can win them into a supportive relationship with us on other issues where they are so far neither friends nor foes.

6) Was inviting Rick Warren to give his invocation really likely to have benefits in terms of winning over the middle ground of potentially supportive Evangelicals and serious Christians who mildly support Republicans, and were those benefits greater than the losses of support from Obama’s anti-Proposition-8 base?

Incidentally, another question is whether Rev. Warren was able to give a good invocation. Here is the text of his prayer (taken from the official Catholic Church website www.catholic.org):

Almighty God, our Father, everything we see and everything we can’t see exists because of you alone. It all comes from you, it all belongs to you, it all exists for your glory. History is your story. The Scripture tells us, ‘Hear, oh Israel, the Lord is our God, the Lord is one’ and you are the compassionate and merciful one and you are loving to everyone you have made.

Now today we rejoice not only in America’s peaceful transfer of power for the 44th time, we celebrate a hinge-point of history with the inauguration of our first African American President of the United States. We are so grateful to live in this land, a land of unequaled possibility, where the son of an African Immigrant can rise to the highest level of our leadership. And we know today that Dr. King and a great cloud of witnesses are shouting in heaven.

Give to our new president, Barack Obama, the wisdom to lead us with humility, the courage to lead us with integrity, the compassion to lead us with generosity. Bless and protect him, his family, Vice President Biden, the Cabinet and every one of our freely elected leaders.

Help us, oh God, to remember that we are Americans, united not by race or religion or by blood, but to our commitment to freedom and justice for all. When we focus on ourselves, when we fight each other, when we forget you, forgive us.

When we presume that our greatness and our prosperity is ours alone, forgive us. When we fail to treat our fellow human beings and all the earth with the respect that they deserve, forgive us. And as we face these difficult days ahead, may we have a new birth of clarity in our aims, responsibility in our actions, humility in our approaches and civility in our attitudes—even when we differ.

Help us to share, to serve, and to seek the common good of all. May all people of good will today join together to work for a more just, a more healthy, and a more prosperous nation and a peaceful planet.


And may we never forget that one day, all nations, all people will stand accountable before You. We now commit our new president and his wife, Michelle, and his daughters, Malia and Sasha, into your loving care.

I humbly ask this in the name of the One who changed my life—Yeshua, Esa, Jesus, Jesus—who taught us to pray:

Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be they name. Thy kingdom come, thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread, and forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us. And lead us not into temptation but deliver us from evil, for thine is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever. Amen.

Incidentally, another good invocation (Recessional) is this one by Rudyard Kipling, which seems appropriate:

God of our fathers, known of old,
Lord of our far-flung battle-line,
Beneath whose awful Hand we hold
Dominion over palm and pine
Lord God of Hosts, be with us yet,
Lest we forget lest we forget!

The tumult and the shouting dies;
The Captains and the Kings depart:
Still stands Thine ancient sacrifice,
An humble and a contrite heart.
Lord God of Hosts, be with us yet,
Lest we forget lest we forget!

Far-called, our navies melt away;
On dune and headland sinks the fire:
Lo, all our pomp of yesterday
Is one with Nineveh and Tyre!
Judge of the Nations, spare us yet,
Lest we forget lest we forget!

If, drunk with sight of power, we loose
Wild tongues that have not Thee in awe,
Such boastings as the Gentiles use,
Or lesser breeds without the Law
Lord God of Hosts, be with us yet,
Lest we forget lest we forget!

For heathen heart that puts her trust
In reeking tube and iron shard,
All valiant dust that builds on dust,
And guarding, calls not Thee to guard,
For frantic boast and foolish word
Thy mercy on Thy People, Lord!

Nina Griscom

Ok, deep breath. Here are some gorgeous images of Nina Griscom's country home featured in Elle Decor. I fell in love with this house when I saw it. Her style in this house is perfect to me: a natural mix of traditional & modern... lots of sculptural elements, interesting things, whites & naturals... just love it. Below is the living room:

Below is the sitting area at the back of the living room. Nina admits that the gorgeous wooden chaise is not comfortable & it's there purely for its looks. How gorgeous is this part of the room?!! I checked out the price on her horned chair ($5000 eesh!!- sold at her store) and decided I could live without it.

Here's a view of the living room from the dininig room:

Below is the dining room. It's full of my favorite things: the huge urns, the wine rack... I'm on and off about the chandlier- love it for the photo & for certain seasons but am not sure I could live with it all the time. How beautiful is the table setting?!! The horn candlesticks?!!! LOVE. And check out the chalk board placeholders. Such a whimsical mix of nature & luxury.

The halways in this home are treated as beautifully as the rooms. This is something that can be tough to do in small spaces & lucky for Nina, this was not an issue. They're just so airy & interesting. LOVE the shelves below. Cheaper versions are definitely on my shopping list. (Endless seasonal accessorizing opportunities!!!)

Below, the sphere on the slavaged pedestal makes this study. Picture reading a book on the windows seat in there on a lazy afternoon...

How great are these floating shelves (below)?
The walls in her library are made from dried tobacco leaves applied by hand to wood panels. Amazing, huh?!
Below, the master bedroom is simple & luxurious. How pretty are the Greek key benches at the bottom of the bed?
Below, the guest bedroom. I really love this room: the seagrass rug, the mini zebra hide, the facing geese, the caning = so perfect. And the color on the walls?!!! Anyone have any ideas (Maria, if you're reading?!!! you usually know!!)

Well, have a beautiful day. I have a house to get over. :(
xoxo,
lauren

The Search for Home: Rejected

Well, got a phone call from my realtor today and they didn't take our counter-offer. And guess what else? Now they're not even willing to go as low as they said they would before.

wow.

I promise I'll put up a real post up soon.
xoxo,
lauren

NCHE Conference Held in Boston

Randall Stephens

The National Council for History Education (NCHE) held its annual conference in Boston a couple weeks ago. By all appearances it was a terrific success. Approximately 800 educators--high school teachers, college professors, publishers, and administrators--gathered to promote the serious study and practice of history. Keynote lecturers included Lewis Lapham, David McCullough, Pauline Maier, and Sharon Leon. Participants fanned out across the city, touring historic sites and taking in the ambience. The theme for the conference this year centered on revolutions in historical perspective. Hence, presentations included:

Tories, Timid, or True Blue? Encouraging Historical Thinking Using Historic Sites

A Local Revolution: Researching Oral History, Artifacts and Local History to Create Community

Museums Understanding the Iranian Revolution: Historical Roots and Global Implications

Revolutions of 1968: Ushering in a Better World of Transnational Connections? A Look at Mexico City, New York, Paris, and Prague

Many academic historians might not know about this organization. I wasn't aware of it until several years ago. But it's been around in one form or another since 1988. State branches are extending its work as well. The NCHE is well placed to link "history in the schools with many activities sponsored by state and local organizations." The organization provides "a communications network for all advocates of history education, whether in schools, colleges, museums, historical councils, or community groups." Unlike Gilder Lehrman and other institutes, the NCHE focuses on American and world history, from ancient to modern.

With thousands of members across the country, the council does much good work for the profession and deserves greater attention from academic historians.

Fair Wages and College Educations

A week or so ago when I was watching President Obama talk about the recession on virtually every television network there was one thing he said that truly struck me and made me think of a conversation we’d had in class weeks prior. He spoke about how important it was to get people jobs as janitors, auto-mechanics, in factories – typically “blue collar” jobs. In class the question had been posed as to whether or not people in those jobs deserved the same pay scale as people with master’s degrees or beyond. I believe depending on the job, people with skilled trades deserve to be paid the same amount of money as someone who spent years in college. For the most part, these people have been to some sort of trade school or are comfortable doing a job that no one else wants to do. Janitors for instance – I wouldn’t want to have their job for anything in the world. And President Obama made a good point that without those people our country wouldn’t have grown to what it is today. America was founded on hard work and while some people with high educational status work incredibly hard day to day – for the most part those who work what would be considered medial jobs work harder than someone working in a fortune 500 company. Without someone working in a factory we wouldn’t have things like cars, computers, or even food. Sometimes the people at the bottom are the most important.

Let’s see, I think about two-thirds of Americans over 25 have some post-secondary education or training, maybe with a few courses at a community college, or a certification program at a beautician school, or training in a skilled trade apprenticeship program. About a third of Americans over 25 have a bachelor’s degree (it’s actually less, but the cohort that is growing up now will see the 1/3rd mark of college graduations). I think it’s about 6% or 7% of the population that has either a master’s degree, a post-college professional degree, or a doctorate, with the doctorates being about 2% of the population. In other words, two-thirds of our population works without a college or graduate school diploma. So, it does make sense for our president to talk about the jobs where people can earn a living without having a college degree. That is, after all, the condition for most of us.
Wages are set by a combination of factors, with supply and demand being pretty important. Collective bargaining and unions can drive up wages, as can policies that set minimum wages. Employers can also keep wages down, especially in times of high unemployment. Other factors that relate to how well a job pays include:
Responsibility needed. Greater responsibility requires higher pay.
Dirtiness and danger: the more awful a job is the fewer who will want to do it, and so the pay will increase, and there may also be a bit of sympathy as well, and those who set pay may think a person risking their life or putting up with terrible working conditions deserves a bit of hardship pay.
Training needs: Lots of training will generally command higher wages, while a job anyone right off the street can do will get lower wages.
Skills and strengths needed. If only the strongest or most dexterous 10% or the smartest or most clever 10% of the population will even be able to do the job because it requires extraordinary aptitude in some ability, then your labor supply is reduced and the wages generally will be higher.
Difficulty of the work. Easy work is easy to do, and wages are lower, while more demanding tasks generally require a higher pay incentive.
Tendency of the work to be dominated by men or women. Work that women generally do gets paid less, all else being equal, compared to work that men do. Men’s work is seen as more deserving of a living wage, since men are out to provide for their families, while women are just out to get a bit of extra income. Of course we’re not supposed to think this way, but I believe this is the explanation for why nurses, social workers, and elementary school teachers make so much less than engineers, mechanics, computer programmers, and so forth. We need to overcome this assumption that men are the providers and women aren’t, and that takes some conscious questioning of our gender roles and expectations.
A job that requires extraordinary personal attributes, advanced and lengthy training, and is generally difficult, dangerous, and unpleasant should command the highest salary, while work that is easy, pleasant, and requires no special aptitude, training, trustworthiness, or experience will generally command the lowest salaries. A college education is to some degree a proxy for intelligence and responsibility. People who are flighty and less committed are unlikely to graduate, as are people with sub-normal intelligence. But, college training also changes people in ways that make them generally better in their social skills and problem-solving abilities. There are actually some fairly good studies that compare equivalent groups of people who graduate college and those who don’t attend, and these studies suggest that college educations have an independent and significant influence on many aspects of life that are greater than the admissions standards and selectivity of college admission alone.
But yes, our economy is now structured in such a way that we need a vast army of service workers and laborers who need no vocational training in college. College educations may be useful to many of these people in terms of making them better citizens, happier marriage partners, wiser parents, and better-informed consumers. Probably just about anyone with both intelligence and commitment/ambition at average levels or higher could make it through some form of college education and benefit from it, even if there was no vocational or direct financial advantage.
A serious problem comes when we think of college education as merely a vocational training system. I think about one-fifth to one-quarter of college educations ought to be directly vocational, although perhaps as more than half of the courses one takes in the final two years ought to have a connection to one’s career if one wants to work in a specialized field such as engineering, natural sciences, computer programming, finance, medicine, law, social work, education, and so forth. College is also a system of producing an elite leadership segment of the general population in a democracy. Those with college educations ought to be leaders in consuming news about their communities and governments, and then getting involved in influencing policies and conditions in their communities and governments. So, college works as a system to help a democracy remain healthy. We need critical thinkers and people who know how to make themselves well-informed so we don’t lapse into a dictatorship or elect too many idiots into powerful offices.
College also helps people with personal growth and development, so that after completing their education they are better friends, marriage partners, parents, neighbors, and so forth. College generally enriches a society by improving the people within the society, so that you can have better experiences in your interactions with people you meet. College also plays a role in helping people become very good at a few basic skills related to writing and reading, understanding science, and generally communicating. Finally, college is supposed to help people become familiar with a core set of values and ideas that have contributed to the institutions of a society. In this way college indoctrinates people with certain values such as tolerance, openness, inquisitiveness, and civic engagement. At the same time, college graduates are taught to question and doubt, and this helps foster counter-cultures and experiments in alternatives.
So, university educations perform many roles, and it would be a mistake to think of college education as a way to help individuals increase their earning potential. College in our democratic society is mainly concerned with creating a better society, with advances in social organization as well as science and technology, and a flourishing mental and aesthetic life. I see no reason why college graduates should necessarily be expected to make much more than persons who prefer to stick to vocational education in a lucrative career.
In fact, powerful people often set wages for reasons that have very little to do with the actual jobs or the value of the work done. We can see this with the bonus pay packages given to people in certain financial companies. Their work may require significant responsibility and some training and intelligence above average, but their labors are certainly not worth the thousands of dollars per hour they earn when one averages out their salaries and bonuses out over their hours of actual work. They earn this money simply because they or their friends or associates in similar lines of work are responsible for setting their salaries. A similar thing happens in business or university administrations. Supervisors, vice-presidents, directors, deans, and chancellors clearly need to have more responsibility and experience than other faculty or workers, and their jobs are difficult and somewhat unpleasant. So, they should earn more than faculty or front-line workers. It seems fair that administrators could earn double what faculty or front-line workers earn. But in fact, when administrators set their own salaries, they inflate their estimations of how valuable administrative work is, and they tend to set their salaries at three or four times the wages of front-line workers and faculty, and in some sectors of the economy the administrators and directors have such a sense of entitlement that they set their own wages at ten times or a hundred times the salaries or wages of the people who work under them.