Guest blogger Jerry Harp teaches at Lewis & Clark college. Judging from recent reports, one might think that trigger warnings—alerts about classroom material involving pedophilia, rape, and other disturbing topics—are the latest threat to civilization. To their credit, the warnings about trigger warnings are not entirely without merit, in that we do indeed need to…
This guest post is by J. Michael Rifenburg of the University of North Georgia: The NCAA was founded out of a need to provide more safety for students playing extracurricular sports, particularly football. A century later, safety issues may end the NCAA’s long run of lucrative dominance and governance of all thing intercollegiate athletics. According…
BY JEFFREY R. WILSON This is a guest post by Jeffrey R. Wilson, a Preceptor in Expository Writing at Harvard University, where he teaches the “Why Shakespeare?” section of the university’s freshman writing course. My essay in the May/June 2016 online version of Academe, “What Shakespeare Says about Sending Our Children Off to College,” is meant to…
BY CRAIG VASEY AND LINDA CARROLL This is a guest post by Craig Vasey and Linda Carroll. Craig Vasey is professor of philosophy and chair of the Department of Classics, Philosophy, and Religion at the University of Mary Washington. He is a former member of the AAUP’s national council and current chair of the Committee…
BY DAVID J. SIEGEL AND DANIEL M. CARCHIDI This is a guest post by the co-authors of “The Meaning of MOOC-topia” in the May–June issue of Academe. David J. Siegel is associate professor in the Department of Educational Leadership at East Carolina University. Daniel M. Carchidi is associate director of IT academic technology at the University of New Hampshire. Back…
Guest blogger Roberto J. González is an alumnus of UC Berkeley. He is chair of San José State University’s anthropology department and author of several books including Militarizing Culture: Essays on the Warfare State (2010) and Zapotec Science: Farming and Food in the Northern Sierra of Oaxaca (2001). His position on academic boycotts differs from that of…
BY GALEN LEONHARDY Guest blogger Galen Leonhardy is an AAUP member living and teaching in Illinois. One light illuminated the office, a soft-white bulb within the yellowed burlap-upholstered confines atop a standing lamp. Five of us gathered in one place. To my left and behind me stood our vice president of instruction and acting president,…
BY HOWARD V. HENDRIX This is a guest post by Howard V. Hendrix, who teaches literature and writing at California State University, Fresno. He is the author of six novels and many short stories, poems, and essays. His novelette, The Infinite Manqué, was recently published in the May 2016 issue of Analog magazine. “Professor, how can…
BY TOM MCBRIDE Guest blogger Tom McBride is professor emeritus at Beloit College in Wisconsin. In Chicago there’s a sports talk radio station with a couple of afternoon hosts who insist that their callers think critically about the topic at hand. When Patrick Kane, the Chicago Blackhawks hockey star, was accused of sexual assault, callers would…
BY ZACHARY R. WOOD Guest blogger Zachary R. Wood is a student at Williams College. Yesterday, Ferentz Lafargue wrote an op-ed for The Washington Post, arguing that student objection to bringing speakers with offensive views to campus is a sign of strength. In the piece, Lafargue makes several points with which I concur: “Students whose families…