Thursday, July 11, 2013

Petraeus' CUNY Course Is A Joke

Seriously:


David Petraeus’s course description for his high-flying gig next year at CUNY is now online. The course is called “Are We on the Threshold of the North American Decade.” That sounds like a question to me, but there’s no question mark. (Though a commenter at Crooked Timber makes a good point: “Maybe it’s an exclamation. Like ‘Have we got a show for you tonight!’”)
Here’s the course description:
In this interdisciplinary seminar, students will examine in depth and then synthesize the history and trends in diverse public policy topics with a view towards recommendations for America’s leadership role in the emerging global economy.
Which prompted Yasmin Nair to suggest this alternative course title: “Can you believe that CUNY is seriously paying me this much money for this shit.” (No question mark.)
And Kieran Healy to say this:
Time was, a professional bullshitter like Tom Friedman would pretend to be a military commander like David Petraeus. Now it’s the other way around.
The man whose course description reads thus also has the gall to include in his course prerequisite this: “Excellent writing and presentation skills are a must.”

$150,000 grand for this "seminar" - and remember, it was supposed to be $200,000 before the story got some press and CUNY lowered Petraeus' pay.

This being a member of the elite, nice work if you can get it.

2 comments:

  1. What a guy like me doing in a course like this!?

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    Replies
    1. I bet they'll do some heavy vetting of that class list. They're going to want to make sure details about the class do not go public.

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