Now that I am essentially finished, with only my office to clean out, I am a day from full, formal retirement. I already can feel how different it will be. In fact, the mental responsibilities of teaching had become very stressful for me. Why? Because students today are screwed in two ways: they are over-charged for an education that falls short of what they should be receiving. I tried my best to teach them "old school" but the entire institution of the university has changed so much, my efforts didn't change the larger view. Universities have become corporate entities. Universities have become "practical" -- in fact, "serving the city" is PSU's motto. Say what? What a practical, business-oriented charge for a university! Challenging the city would be better. Shaking up the city. But there is no sense of knowledge for knowledge's sake today, any more than art for art's sake. It has to be practical -- which, in effect, means it has to help "the bottom line."
I tried to keep my class "old school" but I was aware that students, too, had changed, and writing students had become very different from my student colleagues half a century ago.
All this weighed on me and motivated my departure, which is called retirement. I still enjoyed much about teaching, but less about reading student papers as recent years passed on. It definitely is time to go, before I burned out. I did the best job I could do under the circumstances. Meanwhile, students today are still getting screwed, but at least I won't get a front row seat.
