Why the Little Catholic Colleges Are Closing

 

I'm still so bummed about Cardinal Stritch University closing. I keep thinking about all those people who are going to lose their jobs. Travalon said he was texting with his old high school teacher, who taught in Catholic schools for years, and he said the reason all these little Catholic colleges are struggling is because of Act 10, the law passed back in 2011 that said state workers can't collectively bargain. (You may remember all my blog posts about the protests.) So this is the law of unintended consequences: Walker may have been trying to screw over state workers, but after that there was no salary advantage for teachers to have a Master's degree, and these little colleges got a lot of their income from teachers getting Master's degrees or continuing studies credits. I don't know if that's the whole story, since apparently the population of young people is plunging so that public high schools are consolidating, but I'm sure it didn't help.

Today I worked from home, as usual for a Tuesday, and while on my lunchtime walk, I ran into the mother of a famous late comedian who lives in our neighborhood. I often see her and one of her other sons at St. Peter's, and she said, "Didn't I see you at St. Peter's on Sunday?" So we got to talking about different parishes, and her daughter often goes to our usual Mass downtown, so I wonder if I've seen her many times? A deacon says our church will only have Mass in Spanish after the mergers, and St. Patrick's won't even have weekend Masses, only weekdays at noon, so we would have to go down to St. James if we stay in that parish. No thanks! That's a lot further away for us. Maybe we will become official at St. Peter's if this all comes to pass, although Travalon has said he also likes St. Bernard's, and that's not too far away, so we could check them out.

Travalon sent me a couple of photos: his Florida panther Pounce gazing out at the marsh, and Stanley the mascot for the Florida Panthers hockey team celebrating their win. (They won again tonight, which makes Travalon happy now that the Bucks and also the Sacramento Kings are out in basketball.)

And here are some photos he took this morning from the dock. First, this male blue-winged teal looks so tiny next to a Canada goose.

And this male scaup looks a lot smaller than the male mallard.

Here is the mallard.

And here is the scaup. We only saw one scaup, which seems odd. There were more than one mallard, and coot, and teal, and goose.

I hope this little guy finds his friends. How lonely to be the only scaup in the neighborhood!

Famous Hat