The Career Ladder

My brother sent me a link to an article in The Denver Post to the effect that the University of Denver is shutting down two departments, of Religious Studies and of Electrical and Computer Engineering. I thought this curious in part because DU had closed the entire College of Engineering about 1975, then revived it.(In this part of Colorado, the 'U' goes last in the abbreviation, wherever it appears in the name. The University of Denver is DU, the University of Colorado is CU, and references to UD or UC will not be understood by locals.)The article also said that the faculty had voted to close three other departments: of Gender, Women's, and Sexuality Studies, of Philosophy, and of Socio-Legal Studies. This sounded like The Raft of the Medusa, though of course I don't know what the deliberations might have been. I know nothing of the first and third offered sacrifices, but I had a look at the Department of Philosophy's web page.The ranks stood out. In the usual academic understanding,…