Earlier today on this blog, Arianne Shahvisi has offered a very cogent analysis of why the criticism of Saida Grundy has served a very entrenched political and cultural perspective and why the administrative response to it represents an egregious exercise in silencing what is legitimate criticism of that perspective and, worse, even an implicit endorsement…
Earlier this month, two items appeared on the same day on the Chronicle of Higher Education’s website. The first article was written by Charles Huckabee and concerns the decision by Smith College to consider and admit transgender applicants who identify as female. Several years ago, Smith had generated controversy first by rejecting a transgender applicant…
The New York Times has run a follow-up to its investigative report on the business practices of Axact, a Pakistani corporation that has advertised itself as the “largest software exporter” in the country but that has generated millions in annual revenues by selling diplomas and degrees from several hundred elite-sounding secondary schools and postsecondary institutions…
About a week ago, the Chronicle of Higher Education’s Wired Campus blog included a short post by Casey Fabris titled “A MOOC Hopes to Sink Its Teeth Into a New Audience: TV Fans.” The post focuses on a four-week MOOC based on the FX television series The Strain, which follows the spread of a disease with the…
This is a guest post by John McNay, a contributor to the May–June issue of Academe. McNay is a professor of history at the University of Cincinnati–Blue Ash. A specialist on the Cold War, he has published books and articles on that period, but his most recent book is Collective Bargaining and the Battle of Ohio: The…
Guest blogger Arianne Shahvisi is an assistant professor of philosophy at the American University of Beirut, and has recently written commentary for the New Statesman, Jacobin, Open Democracy, and Truthout, centered on issues surrounding race, class, gender, and borders. Last month, Saida Grundy, an incoming sociology faculty member at Boston University, tweeted a set of remarks…
The following is the Executive Summary of a report issued by the California Faculty Association, which represents all faculty in the 23-campus California State University system. The report is the fourth and final one in a series. To see the entire series go to http://www.calfac.org/race-to-the-bottom Over the last decade, the administration of the California State…
In a recent op-ed published in the New York Times, Joe Nocera examines the increasing tension between the priorities of faculty and of alumni donors who want to create a nationally prominent athletics program at Rutgers University. Here are several paragraphs from the middle of the column, which is titled, “At Rutgers, It’s Books vs.…
The Center on Budget and Policy Priorities has released a new report titled Years of Cuts Threaten to Put College Out of Reach for More Students. Prepared by Michael Mitchell and Michael Leachman, the report shows that the decline in state support for public colleges and universities was exacerbated by the Great Recession of 2008,…
The Huffington Post has just published “One Venn Diagram That Every College Graduate Should Give a Good Long Look”: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2015/05/14/college-graduate-venn-diagram_n_7286722.html. It provides a humorous look at the sometimes difficult transition from the quasi-adulthood of one’s college years to full adulthood in the much more demanding workaday world. Although the Venn Diagram is humorous and undoubtedly…