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Can someone explain what Vice-President and Climbing wall mean in the context of higher education? If I had to guess, a Vice-President might be someone who mon

Can someone explain what Vice-President and Climbing wall mean in the context of higher education? If I had to guess, a Vice-President might be someone who monitors a room full of students or checks their tests, and a Climbing wall might be a hard assignment meant to get rid of less interested students. This might be a really dumb question. In that case, sorry.

deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
acatnamedjoe 5y ago
I took both literally: a vice-president is a member of senior management who does KPIs and meetings and stuff but doesn't teach, and a climbing wall is an expensive sports facility that appeals to prospective students but has no academic merit. Both antithetical to the traditional priorities of a liberal arts institution, but both increasingly common in higher education. Could be wrong though.
iskander 5y ago
It's a joke about how universities have become administratively bloated and primarily function as a very expensive resort community for 18-22 year olds. To "compete" with each other, universities hire increase numbers of administrators whose job is to build out a more complete "college experience", including fancier gyms catering to modern exercise trends (aka climbing walls).
- LudwigNagasena 5y ago
  > universities have become administratively bloated and primarily function as a very expensive resort community for 18-22 year olds The worse thing is that people seem to really enjoy it. Every time I have a discussion on it with someone I inevitably hear arguments like “it was such a formative experience”, “university is not only for studying” and so on. It’s really crazy that a huge part of the population is convinced that pouring thousands of money into an overpriced 4 year holiday should be a societal norm.
  - ModernMech 5y ago
    On the flip side, if people are invariably reporting that it changed their life and shaped their perspective of the world, who are you to say that the money was wasted or the experience was overpriced? What exactly is the fair market rate for a formative experience?
    - zhdc1 5y ago
      > On the flip side, if people are invariably reporting that it changed their life and shaped their perspective of the world, who are you to say that the money was wasted or the experience was overpriced? What exactly is the fair market rate for a formative experience? Is there any reason to believe that university is any less formative outside of the states?
      - ModernMech 5y ago
        Your reply to me is a little vague, so I'm going to go ahead and make the argument I think you're making implicitly, and you can tell me if I'm wrong: Universities overseas are less expensive than in the US, yet the experience is the same, therefore US universities are overpriced. That's certainly a valid point. But really what I'm trying to get at here is that calling someone else's experience "overpriced", when the premise is they have self reported that the experience was "formative", is more a statement of one's own values than a fair assessment of the actual experience of that individual. For example for some it's maybe not be overpriced because of scholarships and aid. Or it may not be overpriced because they're rich. Or it may not be overpriced because there are actually very many reasonably priced colleges out there in the USA. Everyone's experience is different, and reducing the entirety of the college experience into "an overpriced 4 year holiday" takes all the nuance out of the issue. And you know what, despite all the disparaging talk here about college being a "holiday" and a "resort", we really do work these kids hard, at least at my institution. These young minds are out there doing incredible work, engaging in the community, creating art, and doing actual research that will change the world one day. I'm not saying these things aren't going on outside of academic institutions, but there is an endless supply of creative energy and intellectual curiosity on college campuses, and that is an important resource for society. I don't know of any other institution that fosters and grows such a concentrated level of achievement at such a young age. Corporations don't do it. Governments don't do it. Local towns don't do it. Churches don't do it. Academia is where people go to explore new ideas and find themselves. Some, especially here on HN, scoff at the idea, but really it leads to magic, and it's hard to deny that.
nxrabl 5y ago
I understood "climbing wall" to be a stand-in for a category of amenities which colleges offer to students to convince them to apply, which are flashy and expensive but don't actually lead to anyone learning anything.
telotortium 5y ago
It's a sarcastic reference to the fact that in the US, as tuition has gone up far past increase in general cost of living in the past few decades, what actually seems to have been purchased with the increased tuition is greatly increasing the number of administrators ("Vice-Presidents") and improving the on-campus dorm comfort, athletic amenities, etc. ("climbing walls"), rather than paying professors more (in fact, they're being paid less and replaced with lower-paid and insecurely employed adjuncts) or actually educating students better or providing a better environment for intellectual inquiry.
- Turing_Machine 5y ago
  > greatly increasing the number of administrators ("Vice-Presidents") I like to call them "Junior Assistant Vice Sub-Deans", and most academic institutions in the United States are infested with them.
tgb 5y ago
I think they're meant literally (actual vice presidents of universities and actually climbing walls in a rock climbing gym) , as examples of the overhead that is present in most universities.
derekjdanserl 5y ago
Vice president is a nondemocratic executive position which is overwhelmingly bureaucratic at best. Vice president positions can be granted for any number of unclear reasons, from granting prestige to a donor’s kin to reforming the business affairs of the institution. Vice presidents are unlikely to hold a commitment to quality education. Climbing wall is the regular dog-eat-dog competitive nature of living and working in a capitalist society.

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]

acatnamedjoe 5y ago

I took both literally: a vice-president is a member of senior management who does KPIs and meetings and stuff but doesn't teach, and a climbing wall is an expensive sports facility that appeals to prospective students but has no academic merit. Both antithetical to the traditional priorities of a liberal arts institution, but both increasingly common in higher education. Could be wrong though.

iskander 5y ago

It's a joke about how universities have become administratively bloated and primarily function as a very expensive resort community for 18-22 year olds. To "compete" with each other, universities hire increase numbers of administrators whose job is to build out a more complete "college experience", including fancier gyms catering to modern exercise trends (aka climbing walls).

LudwigNagasena 5y ago
> universities have become administratively bloated and primarily function as a very expensive resort community for 18-22 year olds The worse thing is that people seem to really enjoy it. Every time I have a discussion on it with someone I inevitably hear arguments like “it was such a formative experience”, “university is not only for studying” and so on. It’s really crazy that a huge part of the population is convinced that pouring thousands of money into an overpriced 4 year holiday should be a societal norm.
- ModernMech 5y ago
  On the flip side, if people are invariably reporting that it changed their life and shaped their perspective of the world, who are you to say that the money was wasted or the experience was overpriced? What exactly is the fair market rate for a formative experience?
  - zhdc1 5y ago
    > On the flip side, if people are invariably reporting that it changed their life and shaped their perspective of the world, who are you to say that the money was wasted or the experience was overpriced? What exactly is the fair market rate for a formative experience? Is there any reason to believe that university is any less formative outside of the states?
    - ModernMech 5y ago
      Your reply to me is a little vague, so I'm going to go ahead and make the argument I think you're making implicitly, and you can tell me if I'm wrong: Universities overseas are less expensive than in the US, yet the experience is the same, therefore US universities are overpriced. That's certainly a valid point. But really what I'm trying to get at here is that calling someone else's experience "overpriced", when the premise is they have self reported that the experience was "formative", is more a statement of one's own values than a fair assessment of the actual experience of that individual. For example for some it's maybe not be overpriced because of scholarships and aid. Or it may not be overpriced because they're rich. Or it may not be overpriced because there are actually very many reasonably priced colleges out there in the USA. Everyone's experience is different, and reducing the entirety of the college experience into "an overpriced 4 year holiday" takes all the nuance out of the issue. And you know what, despite all the disparaging talk here about college being a "holiday" and a "resort", we really do work these kids hard, at least at my institution. These young minds are out there doing incredible work, engaging in the community, creating art, and doing actual research that will change the world one day. I'm not saying these things aren't going on outside of academic institutions, but there is an endless supply of creative energy and intellectual curiosity on college campuses, and that is an important resource for society. I don't know of any other institution that fosters and grows such a concentrated level of achievement at such a young age. Corporations don't do it. Governments don't do it. Local towns don't do it. Churches don't do it. Academia is where people go to explore new ideas and find themselves. Some, especially here on HN, scoff at the idea, but really it leads to magic, and it's hard to deny that.

nxrabl 5y ago

I understood "climbing wall" to be a stand-in for a category of amenities which colleges offer to students to convince them to apply, which are flashy and expensive but don't actually lead to anyone learning anything.

telotortium 5y ago

It's a sarcastic reference to the fact that in the US, as tuition has gone up far past increase in general cost of living in the past few decades, what actually seems to have been purchased with the increased tuition is greatly increasing the number of administrators ("Vice-Presidents") and improving the on-campus dorm comfort, athletic amenities, etc. ("climbing walls"), rather than paying professors more (in fact, they're being paid less and replaced with lower-paid and insecurely employed adjuncts) or actually educating students better or providing a better environment for intellectual inquiry.

Turing_Machine 5y ago
> greatly increasing the number of administrators ("Vice-Presidents") I like to call them "Junior Assistant Vice Sub-Deans", and most academic institutions in the United States are infested with them.

tgb 5y ago

I think they're meant literally (actual vice presidents of universities and actually climbing walls in a rock climbing gym) , as examples of the overhead that is present in most universities.

derekjdanserl 5y ago

Vice president is a nondemocratic executive position which is overwhelmingly bureaucratic at best. Vice president positions can be granted for any number of unclear reasons, from granting prestige to a donor’s kin to reforming the business affairs of the institution. Vice presidents are unlikely to hold a commitment to quality education. Climbing wall is the regular dog-eat-dog competitive nature of living and working in a capitalist society.