This is a guest post by Donald Earl Collins. He is adjunct associate professor of history at University of Maryland University College. He previously taught at Howard University in the Department of Afro-American Studies and has written on topics such as multiculturalism, education, and African American identity. I come at the issue of the future of HBCUs, the topic of my article “Three Things…
Bramson, Kate. “Life-Sciences Firm Nabsys Closes, Says Stockholder; DNA-Sequencing Firm Was Seen as Star Startup in State.” Providence Journal [RI] 16 Sep. 2015: A, 8. . . . Nabsys founder and former CEO Dr. Barrett W. Bready on Tuesday would neither confirm nor deny whether the company has closed, but said “a lot” of…
We read a great deal about the internationalization of higher education—which, in many contexts, is simply a catchphrase for the corporate provision of digitalized higher education through conglomerates such as Laureate, Pearson, and McGraw-Hill. But if this one-size-fits-all approach to education has created all sorts of issues in North America and Europe, it is inevitably…
The Ohio Conference provides some financial support to One Ohio Now, a non-partisan group advocating common-sense tax policies that actually meet the needs of our state—that provide sufficient funding of our state’s public institutions, public services, and physical and digital infrastructures. Yesterday, I came across the following news item reporting that a similar group has…
The Glasgow Herald has published a short item with the headline “Educationalists Ready to Learn.” The cynic in me immediately wondered whether “educationalist” was some new corporate coinage created to reframe and to devalue the essential role of “faculty” in higher education. But if the headline writer was influenced by corporatization, that influence has probably…
On the recent list of the Top 200 Universities in the World, the US is the dominant nation, with 49 institutions on the list, ahead of the UK with 30 institutions, the Netherlands with twelve, Germany with 11, Canada, Australia, and Japan with 8 each, China with 7, and France, Sweden and Hong Kong with…
Joint Statement of the UW-Milwaukee AAUP, UW-Whitewater AAUP, and UW-Madison AAUP executive committees to the UW System Tenure Policy Task Force. Milwaukee, Whitewater, and Madison, 17 September 2015 The University of Wisconsin has a one hundred year-long tradition of upholding the principles of academic freedom and shared governance as set forth by the American Association…
This guest post is by Michael J. Clark, Associate Professor of English and Director, Center for Public Humanities at Portland State University. The recent fundraising contretemps at Portland State University has embarrassed the institution, along with its many committed administrators, donors, faculty, and staff. While the failures in the oversight process by university fundraising executives have been chronicled by…
A bit more than a year ago a California Superior Court, ruling in Vergara v. California, overturned California statutes guaranteeing due process protections for K-12 teachers with more than two years experience (so-called “teacher tenure”) and layoff by seniority. At the time I posted several items on the case, first here, then here, here, and…
In their September-October 2015 Academe article, “Increasing Access and Making Practice More Inclusive through Disability Awareness Training,” Carrie E. Rood and Michelle L. Damiani share their experience with creating a training module for new graduate teaching assistants at Syracuse University. They designed the module, called “Disability Awareness and Culture,” in order to educate teaching assistants…