Harding and money

So I have a lot of things to say, but I am never sitting at the computer when I am thinking of them. Then when I sit down to write, they all flee my mind. Dr. Wilson commented on this phenomena the other day. It's weird.

It's occurred (that looks like it's spelled wrong...) to me in the past few days how Harding is such a business. I don't know if anyone reading this watches House, but Lana and I have been watching the first season on DVD. During this season, this guy named Vogler contributes $100 million to the hospital and thereafter has control of the hospital, basically. His purpose: to turn the hospital into a business, a money-making research machine and putting away the financial-black-hole hospital. It struck me.

And now I'm seeing the same thing with Harding. Notice the programs that have been favored from on high recently: education, Bible, computer stuff. Why? Think about it. Harding benefits most from large, cheap classes that generate teachers, business people and preachers. They get plenty of tuition money, pay for very little besides professorial salary, minimal equipment and building costs. The free time that these people have can be spent in the many social activities that Harding encourages, which will increase their bond to the Harding experience, which leads to what? Alumni donations.

The physical sciences, though? They're financial black holes. They require material, expensive material, and lots of it. The classes are small, it's inefficient. The students are studious and more reclusive. They don't get as involved, they're more likely to go on to a medical school or graduate school and not care as much about Harding. They aren't going to come back and speak in chapel about how great Harding is, they're not wildly popular (outside the Pryor Science Building) or beloved of the powers that be. They aren't beneficial to the accepted view of what Harding should be, so they get pushed to the side. Meanwhile, the nursing school is cramped and overflowing. The people who embody (in my opinion) Harding's purpose the most are neglected in favor of what?

I'm not ranting - Harding is free to do whatever it wants to do, and I only care a little about what happens here after I'm gone. I'm just commenting on something I think is an apparent trend, and it makes me sad for the Harding that I used to see. So what if Keller wasn't the nicest dorm? They didn't have to fix it up. So what if the Heritage building was so 20th century? I never heard anyone complain. There's another motive here, and I don't like it. I don't want Harding to sell its soul for money, and I'm afraid of what it will turn into.