Patricia Arquette is being slammed from both the Left and the Right for her comments during and after her acceptance speech for the Academy Award for Best Actress in a Supporting Role. From the Left, the criticism has come largely from other disadvantaged groups who feel that her focus was too narrowly on women’s issues,…
A few days ago, a University of North Carolina Board of Governors’ working group recommended shutting down three centers on university campuses, including Chapel Hill’s Center on Poverty, Work and Opportunity — even though the center is self-funding. Critics of the decision, including John Charles “Jack” Boger, dean of the UNC-Chapel Hill School of Law,…
AAUP chapters across the country will be tabling, holding teach-ins, lobby days, films screenings, or other activities as part of National Adjunct Walkout Day this Wednesday, February 25. The day, a grassroots effort, is planned to highlight adjunct faculty labor issues and to insist on fair wages and better working conditions. Participating chapters include Aurora…
Now is the time of the year that most college and university boards of trustees meet to set in place what the comprehensive fee – tuition, fees, room and board – will be for next year. It’s a telling moment for higher education. The emerging trends drawn from hundreds of institutional decisions will provide a…
Paul Krugman opens his column today in The New York Times by saying, “I sometimes mock ‘very serious people’ — politicians and pundits who solemnly repeat conventional wisdom that sounds tough-minded and realistic.” These are the people at the Lippmann end of the John Dewey/Walter Lippmann polarity, the elite who believe they have the knowledge and skills to present the…
The first item is from the Huffington Post. Written by Andy McDonald, it is a fill-in-the-blanks template for the acceptance speeches made by those who win Academy Awards. It is available at: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2015/02/18/oscar-acceptance-speech-mad-lib-photo_n_6708368.html?ncid=newsltushpmg00000003 It goes a long way toward clarifying why the red-carpet interviews have become almost as interesting as, if not more interesting than,…
Those of you who are regular readers of this blog know that I have hardly been reluctant to address issues that have arisen at my own university. So I was not surprised when I received several e-mails asking how—not if—I was going to address the latest incident that has brought Wright State national attention that it…
The following chart shows total household debt in the United States, broken down into its major components, in the fourth quarter of 2014: In effect, although total household debt increased from $11.71 trillion to $11.83 trillion from the third to the fourth quarters of last year, student-loan debt remained a relatively flat percentage of that…
Much of what is coming from the Far Right these days could come straight out of George Orwell or Jonathan Swift. An Oklahoma legislative committee has just voted to forward to the legislature a bill eliminating the funding for Advanced Placement history courses. In fact, the overwhelming demonstration of support for that bill both within…
The uproar about Lee Bebout’s course, English 401, “U.S. Race Theory & the Problem of Whiteness” at Arizona State University, provides the rationale for that course and, I hope, many more like it. Bebout’s course comes, after all, as white people in the United States are, perhaps, finally looking seriously at something they have long turned away from:…