The Delphi Project: Producing Resources to Create a High Quality Place to Teach, Learn, and Work

This is a guest post by Adrianna Kezar and Dan Maxey. Changes in the composition of the American professoriate toward a mostly contingent workforce are raising important questions about poor working conditions for non-tenure-track faculty and connections between these conditions and student learning outcomes.  Numerous studies have found the negative working conditions of these faculty have…

Answering the Perception Problem

A trustee once told me that perception is reality in higher education.  The comment didn’t require a response but I wish I had made one.  What I should have said is that the truth trumps perception in a world where principle and fairness should always matter most.  In fact, the best leaders are not those…

The Gates Foundation and Three Composition MOOCs.

MOOCs (Massive Open Online Courses) have been getting a lot of attention lately.  The idea of free access to higher education via  online classes challenges our traditional assumptions about good undergraduate pedagogy–that small class sizes and significant face-to-face time with professors are crucial to learning.  As a parent with two kids at private universities, I find…