MOOCs 4.0: Clearing the Way for Huckster 4.0?

I just read an article on the Huffington Post blog titled “MOOC 4.0: The Next Revolution in Learning and Leadership.” The article is written by Otto Scharmer. Here is his Wikipedia biography, which has apparently been taken largely from his own website: “Claus Otto Scharmer (born 1961) is an American economist, Senior Lecturer at the Massachusetts Institute…

Excellent Universities Begin with Excellent Faculty

The following article was published originally on the website of the AAUP chapter at the University of Akron, though it appears that the university will soon have a new name—and the article concerns that “rebranding.” The article is reprinted here with the permission of the chapter leadership. ________________________ On Friday, May 15, President Scarborough unveiled…

Politics and Profanity

Each year, there is a “roast” of the governor of New Jersey attending by politicians, journalists, and lobbyists. This year’s roast was held at the Hamilton banquet hall and was attended by about 350 people. When it was Chris Christie’s turn to speak, here is a sampling of what he had to say: About Bridgegate,…

Sometimes English Seems like a Foreign Language

Today’s HuffPost Hill news brief has this headline: “Buzzkill McPartyfoul Transitions to Skadden.” I believe that this is the news item that explains the headline: “WALL STREET FATCATS FOILED BY SCRAPPY STREET BAND – From the internal Skadden Arps email obtained by Above the Law this week: ‘As many of you are aware, a group of musicians have…

Affluence and Influence Are Always Relative

Curbed.com is a website specializing in interior design, décor, and real estate. You can receive a daily newsletter that typically features an expensive residence with some sort of unusual overall design or notable features or some intriguing aspects to its history. Yesterday, that daily newsletter featured this Long Island residence:   Here is the description…

Income Inequality in “College Towns”

Last November, Business Insider published a list of the 18 metro areas in the U.S. with the highest levels of income inequality. The rankings were based on the following methodology: “The Census Bureau makes annual estimates of a standard measure of inequality for US metropolitan areas. The Gini index is a measure, ranging between 0…

When Nick Pappas Looks in the Mirror, He Should See Saida Grundy

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…

A Coincidentally Ironic Juxtaposition of News Items

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…