In an earlier post, “The Koch Brothers Gifts to Higher Ed Come with Many Strings Attached” [https://academeblog.org/2014/08/18/the-koch-brothers-gifts-to-higher-ed-come-with-many-strings-attached/], I discussed the decision by Brooklyn College to decline a gift from the Koch Brothers Foundation. To all appearances, it is one of the few colleges to have made such a decision. A former colleague once said that…
An announcement from the Campaign for the Future of Higher Education [http://futureofhighered.org] _______________ We invite you to join us for the Eighth National Gathering of the Campaign for the Future of Higher Education: Building Common Ground Inside and Outside the Academy HOSTED BY: California Faculty Association (CFA) DATES: January 16-18, 2015 LOCATION: Manhattan Beach Marriott, Manhattan…
Henry, Will. Chiricahua. New York: Lippincott, 1972. Henry Wilson Allen wrote Westerns under the pseudonyms Clay Fisher and Will Henry. The novels written as Clay Fisher tend to be more like conventional Westerns, featuring heroes and villains confronting each other in somewhat generic Western settings, with a romance hanging in the balance and providing…
Given yesterday’s election results, here are some observations and recommendations that I would like to offer to the leadership of the Democratic party—locally, statewide, and nationally: 1. Deluging registered Democrats with fund-raising appeals is ultimately counterproductive. I am on the lists for five dozen or so Democratic and progressive organizations, and at a certain point,…
Many of our institutions are paying consultants very large sums to improve their “branding.” My own institution, Wright State University, has budgeted $2.3 million for this purpose. And I believe that that funding has been designated simply for a “branding” plan and not for conducting a actual “branding” campaign. So who knows what the price…
An “On the Issues” Post from the Campaign for the Future of Higher Education [http://futureofhighered.org] _______________ In “I Used to be a Good Teacher,” Alice Umber contrasts her experiences teaching as a tenure-track professor and then as a contingent, “adjunct” faculty member. Her piece should be required reading for college students and parents, for administrators…
On October 25, the BBC reported that, according to the World Health Organization’s best estimates, there were over 10,000 Ebola cases in West Africa. At least 4,922 people had died from the disease, with all but 27 of those deaths occurring in three countries: Liberia, with 2,705 deaths; Sierra Leone, with 1,281 deaths; and Guinea,…
Hansen, Ron. The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford. New York: Knopf, 1983. After treating the history of the Dalton gang in his first novel, Desperadoes (1979), Hansen explored the final days in the life of America’s most famous outlaw, Jesse James. The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert…
The Princeton Review’s list of the 20 most LGBT-friendly colleges and universities in the U.S.: 1. Emerson College (Boston, Mass.) 2. Warren Wilson College (Asheville, N.C.) 3. New College of Florida (Sarasota, Fla.) 4. Stanford University (Stanford, Calif.) 5. University of Wisconsin-Madison (Madison, Wis.) 6. Oberlin College (Oberlin, Ohio) 7. Franklin W. Olin College of…
