In my more apocalyptic* moments, I imagine that my career future will be something like this

(*And yes, I know. The more church-taught part of me is screaming "Apocalyptic means 'unveiling' or 'revealing,' not 'the end of the world'!")

Antioch College, in Yellow Springs, Ohio, closed down last year for lack of funds.

So some of the professors formed an institute. Where they now teach in basements and such. Students pay $1500 a semester to attend. (Students have to find their own lodging and food; there are no dorms, no cafeteria plans, no fancy-flashy "wellness centers" with workout equipment).

The odd thing is, I don't know if I'd find that situation more sad or more bracing. Certainly it would be sad to lose the security of a tenured position - and it would be horrifying to lose my health and dental insurance. (I wonder if a fatty like me could even GET private health insurance, these days?).

But on the other hand, there's something kind of romantic about it - the college-in-exile, a group of faculty and students who CARE so damn much about education that they're willing to keep going, even though the doors of their institution have been locked and the lights have been turned out.

And I have to admit, there are some things about the teaching-in-a-basement that have appeal: no committee meetings! no pressure to crank out publications or get grants! most of the petty politicking is probably gone! No rah-rah go sports teams and don't-forget-to-wear-the-school-colors, because there are no more sports teams...

And yet, I don't know what it would feel like, teaching with the equivalent of a tip-jar on my front desk, being unmoored from any campus, and (as the article points out) teaching classes that other schools might not accept in transfer. (That would be the biggest sticking point.)

Still, as I said, in some of my more "what are we coming to" moods, I wonder if someday I will find myself sitting at an intersection with a cardboard sign that says "Will teach you to identify prairie plants in return for food."

And while I like the whole "apprenticeship" idea, or the thought of a small cadre of very dedicated students following a faculty member and supporting him or her (rather than writing a big check to a university on a quarterly basis...), while the whole Socratic thing has appeal, I doubt it would work in real life.

And if for some reason the universities begin to tank (yeah, they probably said Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae could never fail...), I don't quite know what I'd do. I'd probably go into a fear-reaction and find myself waiting tables or some other stopgap (which I would HATE; I think for a person with my personality waiting tables would probably be only one circle of Hell above working retail). But I'd like to think the option of becoming some kind of peripatetic (but,please, not TOO peripatetic) teacher in sort of an "underground" setting has some appeal.

And yeah, I have a copy of "The Wee Free Men" on my bookshelf, yet to be read (supposedly it features a world where the "professors" are a roving band of teachers, mostly disrespected by the rest of the people, and forced to wander about looking for teaching gigs, and trying to earn enough to keep body and soul together.)