Grim Predictions

There is a curious anonymous document being circulated at the APA Central Division, and posted even on its official notice-board (where I found it). It is entitled "The Report of the APA Committee on the Status of the Profession in 2042." In a footnote, it states: "The Committee was not created by the APA in 2013."

Here are some of the Committee's findings:

"In the US, there will be 15-20 Ph. D. programs, each producing 5 Ph. D.s per year."

"There will be 30-50 three year graduate programs, producing MAPhT (MA in Philosophy Teaching) students. The programs will integrate two years of course work of the familiar kind with a year of training in teaching with practice."

"Most remaining colleges will have a philosophy department of three long term faculty with Ph. D.s, one each in history of philosophy, value theory and core analytic (critical thinking and philosophy of science and technology). . . . The department will provide courses for thousands of students online managed/taught by a staff of part-time MAPhTs. The long term faculty will teach the capstone courses, select online material for courses and oversee the hiring and teaching of the part-time faculty." (I love the sly definition of "core analytic.")

"All publication will be self-publication online. Journals will have become extinct except for the top two which will expire as soon as they publish their backlog which grows every year. Status of publications will be determined by Zagat-Phil using a complex algorithm based on the number of ratings, the rating numbers and the pattern of dowloaads, citatios of the paper, and status of citer."

It concludes: "The full report is available at www.roundsquare42.edu." I'll save you the trouble, dear reader, and tell you it doesn't exist (as the edu domain clearly indicates.) And you should thank me because in the absence of a website, I had to transcribe this.