In his influential “‘Good-bye, Teacher… ‘” Fred Keller lists five aspects of his Personalized System of Instruction that differentiate it from more conventional methodologies: (1) The go-at-your-own-pace feature, which permits a student to move through the course at a speed commensurate with his ability and other demands upon his time. (2) The unit-perfection requirement for…
The decision last month of the Iowa Board of Regents to name former IBM senior vice president J. Bruce Harreld as the University of Iowa’s next president, despite widespread opposition to his candidacy among faculty and others, has brought renewed attention to presidential searches. This past weekend at the request of the UI AAUP chapter…
This past weekend the Executive Committee of the Texas Conference of the AAUP issued the following statement: The Executive Committee of the Texas Conference of the American Association of University Professors continues to oppose the ‘campus carry’ laws. College campuses are marketplaces of ideas, and a rigorous academic exchange of ideas is chilled by weapons…
The following paragraphs are from an article Lois Meyer and Ricardo Rosa published by Truthout on October 15: “The weakening of the public sphere in US education, painful as it is, is minor compared to recent developments in Mexico. For nearly two years, tens of thousands of Mexican teachers have mobilized against so-called ‘education reforms,’…
Akron, Ohio – October 16, 2015. Akron-AAUP is organizing an event in conjunction with the “State of the University” address Tuesday, Oct. 20, 2015, 1:00 pm, E.J. Thomas Performing Arts Hall. Akron-AAUP has created the event to remind the administration and the community that the faculty of The University of Akron care deeply about…
“The shepherd always tries to persuade the sheep that their interests and his own are the same.” *** Faculties in the Connecticut State University system are facing an unprecedented attack on tenure and collective bargaining. In the current negotiations for a new contract with the American Association of University professors (AAUP), the Board of Regents…
What follows is a joint statement release on October 14 by the AAUP chapter and the other unions at Eastern Michigan University: I am speaking today about the Board’s misguided, shortsighted, and unfortunate decision to make the presidential search a closed and secret search, ensuring that the campus community will not have any significant input…
This article by Logan Lane and Kristina Aiad-Toss was published by The Buchtelite, the “editorially independent student voice at the University of Akron since 1889”: Students Will Not Be Silenced Protesters Interrupt Board of Trustees Meeting “’[We] will not be silenced!’ protesters shouted at the Board of Trustees meeting on Wednesday morning in the…
Close to the start of “An Essay on Criticism,” Alexander Pope writes, “’Tis with our Judgments as our Watches, none/Go just alike, yet each believes his own.” The cornerstone of education, I have come to believe, is development of judgment–but with recognition that it is not uniform. Judgment is an elusive quality, impervious to quantification.…
On October 1, I posted an entry on this blog reporting on the efforts of two AAUP/AAUP-CBC affiliate unions, the California Faculty Association (CFA) and the Professional Staff Congress (PSC), to win fair contracts for their members. CFA members will begin voting on Monday to decide whether to authorize a faculty strike in the California…