BY JUAN COLE Juan Cole is Richard P. Mitchell Collegiate Professor of History at the University of Michigan and editor-in-chief of the Informed Comment blog, from which this is reposted with permission. The surgeon general, Jerome Adams, has announced that the coming week will see enormous numbers of coronavirus deaths and hospitalizations, calling it this…
BY DEE ANDREWS In History, we often talk about the 5 “C’s” of historical thinking: context, complexity, change, causality, and contingency. That last — the BIG unexpected event – you may have noticed is what we’re going through right now. So that led me to think of a similar scheme for what we’re facing in…
BY AARON BARLOW We have been using digital technologies as tools in our pedagogical kits, generally speaking, for a couple of decades. The battle for “smart” classrooms is over; we can’t imagine teaching in an environment where we do not have internet access and immediate projection. We use music and video in the classroom as…
POSTED BY MARTIN KICH In all sorts of ways and on all sorts of levels, the coronavirus crisis is making the case for the value of a liberal arts education and of general-education courses. As a professor of English, I could make the case for the value of communication skills and, in particular, of writing…
POSTED BY MARTIN KICH As musicians and other performing artists cope with the abrupt interruption of their professional lives, clips of bands and orchestras performing together while apart have become, delightfully, much more commonplace. But this video, celebrating the 50th anniversary of the recording of The Band’s signature song, “The Weight,” was released last September,…
POSTED BY MARTIN KICH If one showed most Americans this photo, they would have no idea who the woman was: If one added this next photo, a few might guess that she was Eleanor Roosevelt, standing in the background as her husband signed another piece of landmark New Deal legislation: But, much like Eleanor Roosevelt,…
BY RUDY FICHTENBAUM AAUP president Rudy Fichtenbaum issued the following statement of solidarity with essential workers today: We all have been touched by the effects of the coronavirus pandemic. Our system of higher education has been upended in the course of only a few weeks. AAUP members in medical school and health center chapters and…
BY THE AAUP RESEARCH OFFICE For our annual Faculty Compensation Survey, the AAUP collected data from 928 colleges and universities across the United States, including community colleges, small liberal arts colleges, and major research universities. The 2019–20 survey covers almost 380,000 full-time and more than 96,000 part-time faculty members, as well as senior administrators at…
BY JOHN K. WILSON Because so many conferences and events have been cancelled, I wanted to provide some online events and resources dealing with academic freedom and free expression on campus. Below are some suggestions for content about campus free speech issues, including upcoming events, free online resources, recent presentations at conferences, and podcasts. (Note…
BY JONATHAN REES Guest blogger Jonathan Rees teaches at Colorado State University-Pueblo Do you remember Massive Open Online Courses (or MOOCs)? 2012 was supposedly the “Year of the MOOC” because they were going to revolutionize higher education. By teaching at scale, matching a few superstar professors with thousands of students at a time, the argument…