I just got back from a faculty meeting where we discussed what would be some possible new hires in the area of Educational Technology & Educational Psychology. At the same time (as we were discussing this) the House of Representatives rejected a $700 billion plan to bail out the U.S. financial system, putting a roadblock in front of the largest government intervention in the markets since the Great Depression. The Dow was down more than 600 points after the voting ended!
My sense after both these events, the faculty meeting AND the economic news, is that we are rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic as it sinks.
The world of education is going through fundamental changes, most of them having to do with the advent of new technologies. However, I see a lack of understanding of what this means for scholarship and research. And I have a similar opinion of how this whole economic debacle is playing out. We are spending more time quibbling about whether Palin can see Russia from her house than about what this collapse means for all of us.
It is all very sad and depressing.
And the band continued to play until the end.