Perfect form on the straw man Burke.

I also know Ohio photojournalists that are very successful and incredibly intelligent. I never mentioned that major, nor called it meaningless.

Good point.  Let's try this.  My accounting brethren have often made the point that one thing that sets a profession apart is the creation of a set of standards and ethics for the profession that the members are accountable for maintaining through self discipline.  I can't speak for cosmetologists but it seems to be true for phsyicians, engineers, lawyers, accountants(?) and others.  Although the state licenses each of these jobs, they do it based on the professional standards not necessarily laws.  There are no state law firm inspectors that I know of.

The greatest fear of the accounting profession has always been that a scandal would engender more and more regulation and less self-determination.  Much of the legislation following the Enron and WorldCom collapses did exactly that. Sarbanes-Oxley put the fear of god in all of us includeing those who bolted for industry employement.
Here is the Wikipedia version for lazy readers like me.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sarbanes%E2%80%93Oxley_Act

ZING. Well, I suppose it was wrong for me to say that you can't research broadcast journalism. What I should have said is that virtually no one will fund it. Which is why the total research grants received last year by the communications college was a paltry 200K.

Should mega churches be tax exempt?

There is a difference in the financial structure of the various levels of education and athletics, we talk about taxing the mega wealthy, but where would you draw the line? Taxing every school would hurt many, and the people who would suffer is the SA. I used the mega churches as an example, as some are in an arms race and use their cash for outwardly political causes. But taxing every church would hurt the little guy who is simply trying to serve a congregation.

Both are tricky issues.

No, and no.

Edit: To stay on topic, Let me say that I like football.

Agreed!

It's not a question of size, but a question of use of income. If a church has $5 billion of income but uses the income on what it's supposed to and administrators and ministers make reasonable salaries, then it's not a problem. For the NCAA, the problem is that what the money is supposed to be spent on and what it actually is spent on aren't perceived to be equivalent. What it looks like is that the NCAA makes a ridiculous amount of money and gives a ridiculous amount of that money to top-tier administrators and coaches. Can the NCAA prove it really is about supporting education and that the salaries paid are reasonable? Maybe, but they haven't convinced me yet.

You don't think some of these Mega Church leaders are not living lavish lifestyles?  and cashing unreasonable salaries?

https://endtimespropheticwords.wordpress.com/tag/megachurch/

Quick check, I have found at least 5 people making 500,000+, the CFO of the Crystal Cathedral just had their salary lowered by the bankruptcy court to $300,000, almost a 50% cut over the $595,000 they were making before bankruptcy. 

Not at all true. For some reason, you're trying to leave mathematics, physics, chemistry, biology, psychology (and, arguably, communications) outside of the realm of liberal arts.

From Merriam-Webster: "liberal arts" = "college or university studies (as language, philosophy, literature, abstract science) intended to provide chiefly general knowledge and to develop general intellectual capacities (as reason and judgment) as opposed to professional or vocational skills."

From Dictionary.com: "liberal arts" = "1. the academic course of instruction at a college intended to provide general knowledge and comprising the arts, humanities, natural sciences, and social sciences, as opposed to professional or technical subjects. 2. (during the Middle Ages) studies comprising the quadrivium and trivium, including arithmetic, geometry, astronomy, music, grammar, rhetoric and logic."

From Encyclopedia Brittanica: " ... In modern colleges and universities the liberal arts include the study of literature, languages, philosophy, history, mathematics, and science as the basis of a general, or liberal, education. Sometimes the liberal-arts curriculum is described as comprehending study of three main branches of knowledge: the humanities (literature, language, philosophy, the fine arts and history), the physical and biological sciences and mathematics, and the social sciences."

The idea of intrinsic knowledge and reasoning skills is so pre-1980s as to be incomprehensible to many?

"Yeah, man, you know, I'm going to college to expand my mind, man. I'm going to expand my horizons."

Nobody says that anymore.



The "centers of excellence" are, to call on the philosophy and logic I studied at Ohio, an example of "distraction by semantics." I challenge any bobcatattacker to read that mission statement gobbledygook and decipher what in the heck this "cultural and societal transformation" now perfusing Scripps is supposed to mean within the context of a society that doesn't necessarily want or need to be changed all that much. The Voinovich School's whole carbon tax agenda is an example of the old "appeal to consensus," as in, "that's been settled - now fall in line."

 

Perhaps, but by restricting Internet neutrality via bandwidth rationing, imposing licensure requirements on news blogging and killing the printed page, the same effect can be imposed. Beware of where we may be with that. 

Much of the best journalism (in terms of intrepidly pursuing important content) is now being done by non-professionals. The "golden age" for conventional reportage was when it was considered more of a trade and was less professionalized and done more by non-degree holders. One of the surest ways to foster groupthink is to herd people into professional societies and guilds. Professional membership dues are one of the fastest growing budget items in academe, based on Ohio University data I've perused.

 

Great, maybe we can have a Reanimation Engineering Shock Center like VCU. You know, synthetic blood, zombie warriors, really neat stuff that jibes with the direction we should be heading in as Ohio University. STEM money is often used for evil things. But it's the only metric some people understand.