Three years ago, I became the editor of Academe. This is my last issue. Editing the magazine has been enormously rewarding.
Though I’m a pessimist, I often remain cheerful. Even when I think the glass is two-thirds empty, I can find ways to enjoy whatever juice is left in the bottom. Still, I’m shocked by how much worse off higher education is now than it was when I became editor. By almost every measure. Of all of the things that dismay and exercise me, of the multitude of scandals and crises in higher education, one subsumes them all.