There's been some big news percolating beneath the scenes that many have probably not noticed. First off, there's the fact that the SUNY system has named as chancellor an engineer who recently served as undersecretary for the U.S. Department of Energy. This is big... largely because it continues the shift away from the past century's emphasis on core liberal arts values — literature, philosophy, social sciences and sciences all seen on a joint high level — for the more recent emphasis on jobs skills and less academic studies as a basis for further education. Which means a further strengthening of the role that community colleges and other less expensive means of secondary education will play in our post high school experiences.

There's much we lament about these big shifts from a big picture, as well as a highly personal level. We come fully out of that liberal arts tradition and its emphasis on the study of culture as a means of educating men and women in older, civil ways. We still herald those days when our state was represented in the U.S. Senate by a professor who had a habit of writing a new, well-respected scholarly book every year or so, who thought not only in full sentences but complete paragraphs and chapters. But the late Pat Moynihan is long gone from today's scene, and there seems little room any more for scholars in our government.

But there's also a sense of something newly robust and right about naming an engineer as head of our state university system, the better to truly engage the idea of reviving working and middle class employment head on. It would be nice to re-institute old systems of apprenticeship and learning factory work on the job. But that's not what our future holds, at least in our advanced nation. Even mining jobs take technical skills that require types of knowledge that need classroom teaching. The stuff we used to be able to handle on an assembly line is now done by machines. Our needs are different.

Combined with things like the BOCES system's P-Tech experiment, where college level study is matched with on-the-job training and mentorship for high school students, SUNY's new hire is strong stuff, it clearly reinforces progress in a way that can benefit more than just those with academic inclinations. We're interested to see how the school system's new direction moves beyond the false start of the START-UP NY program for clearer, more egalitarian horizons involving everyday people, and not just business and economic development incentives.

Talk about a perfect subject for this week's coming May Day, which used to be one of the world's great holidays, America included. And no, we're not talking about pagan Beltane or quaint May Pole dancing traditions here, but those days when workers across the globe celebrated the idea and ideal of unity, or shared concerns beyond national borders. It's what became our Labor Day, here, before THAT holiday was usurped by end-of-summer barbecues. It was a time of picnics and protests, then union parades and much speechifying about those same forces that helped shape our nation's 2016 presidential election. It all reached its zenith before the great world wars arose, first from elitist political tensions layered over nationalistic resentments, and then populist movements run awry, countered by a rare sense of "greatest generation" idealism about what rights all humans shared, including those involving religions, work conditions, and basic humanist beliefs.

One could say that the old May Day ethos, still celebrated in a majority of nations around the world despite recent political trends trumpeted by our global media, got its apotheosis in the United Nations' Declaration of Human Rights, as well as the underlying concept beneath the U.N.'s continuing existence.

Okay, so no big parades for May Day here anymore. Various marches, yes, tied to politics and the enduring ideal of environmental progress. And less news of pagan rituals, beyond daffodil and tulip worship, than there once was hereabouts.

Which leaves us with a suggestion, based on experience. How about a visit, this weekend or next, to the United Nations? Hey, it's still idealistic, it's filled with bright (and beautiful) people from around the globe. It's educational... and best of all, they have a really great cafe!

Happy May Day!