11723 558d36d6-9c2c-44f9-b566-3c2d6690dd4f In the Basement of the Ivory Tower: Confessions of an Accidental Academic Professor X Professor calibre (0.8.2) [http://calibre-ebook.com] 2011-03-31T07:26:32+00:00 <h3>Product Description</h3><p><strong>A caustic expose of the deeply state of our colleges-America's most expensive Ponzi scheme. </strong> </p><p>What drives a former English major with a creative writing degree, several unpublished novels, three kids, and a straining marriage to take a job as a night teacher at a second-rate college? An unaffordable mortgage. </p><p>As his house starts falling apart in every imaginable way, Professor X grabs first one, then two jobs teaching English 101 and 102-composition and literature-at a small private college and a local community college. He finds himself on the front lines of America's academic crisis. It's quite an education. </p><p>This is the story of what he learns about his struggling pupils, about the college system-a business more bent on its own financial targets than the wellbeing of its students-about the classics he rediscovers, and about himself. Funny, wry, self-deprecating, and a provocative indictment of our failing schools, <em>In the Basement of the Ivory Tower</em> is both a brilliant academic satire and a poignant account of one teacher's seismic frustration-and unlikely salvation-as his real estate woes catapult him into a subprime crisis of an altogether more human nature. </p><h3>About the Author</h3><p><strong>Professor X</strong> has been teaching English composition and literature for a decade at two small colleges somewhere in America. His essay in <em>The Atlantic</em>, chosen by David Brooks for a Sidney Award and much trafficked and debated on the Web, inspired this book. </p> Penguin Group USA 9780670022564 en Non-fiction