You may have missed this item published by Inside Higher Ed in late July. Written by Colleen Flaherty, the article confirms Aaron Barlow’s earlier post to this blog that bias against hillbillies may be one of the last widely accepted and largely unchallenged biases in this country. Here are the first two paragraphs of Flaherty’s…
The Oakland College Has Been Very Progressive on the Rights of Transgender Students but Not on Collective-Bargaining Rights or Adjunct-Faculty Rights In a very recent post, I commented on Mills College’s becoming the first single-gender institution to admit transgender students [https://academeblog.org/2014/08/26/mills-college-becomes-the-first-single-gender-college-to-admit-transgender-students/]. The college’s progressivism on that issue, however, seems to stand in fairly stark…
If you want to engage your students in a thoughtful debate about public discourse in the age of Facebook and Twitter, you can of course use the ten or twelve excellent posts that John K. Wilson, Hank Reichman, Michael Berube, and others have made to this blog on the Steven Salaita case. If you would like…
On August 27, the Denver Business Journal ran an article on proposed legislation that will dramatically overhaul the application for federal student aid. The article opens with the following two paragraphs: “Several Colorado universities are getting behind a recent bipartisan bill zeroing in on speeding up the financial aid application process. “The bill—proposed by Sens.…
Here is the opening of a recent item from The Hill [http://thehill.com/homenews/house/319443-immigration-advocates-claim-resounding-win-for-their-side-in-quiet-august]: “Advocates for comprehensive immigration reform are claiming victory in the August recess. Their argument? They won because they didn’t lose. “With legislation stalled in the Republican-controlled House, the push to overhaul the immigration system has not dominated the national headlines or evening news…
Uris, Leon. Topaz. New York: McGraw Hill, 1967. Leon Uris’s great subjects were the experience of combat in the Second World War, the post-war pursuit of war criminals, and the establishment of the Israeli state. Topaz is set during the same general time period and treats many of the themes that recur throughout Uris’…
Here is a link to Poorer by Degrees, a new short documentary by Jennifer Shuberth, a former faculty member at Portland State University: http://vimeo.com/95828754. The documentary questions the premise that our economic growth requires a dramatic increase in the number of college graduates. Indeed, it suggests that the increased emphasis on completing degrees may actually…
Some time ago, Aaron Barlow wrote a post titled “To My Tenured Colleagues” in which he asked those with tenure to treat the adjunct faculty at their institutions as full and genuine colleagues. It was a great post, one which I fully endorsed. But it occasioned a veritable flood of complaints from adjunct faculty about…
Ohio State University has gotten national media attention for something other than Gordon Gee’s excessive compensation and the football team’s diminished prospects following quarterback Braxton Miller’s season-ending injury. The university’s police department has recently acquired a Mine-Resistant Ambush Protection Vehicle through a program that distributes surplus military equipment and supplies not only to local police…
On August 16, the Lafayette Journal-Gazette ran this small item [http://www.jconline.com/story/news/college/2014/08/16/ipfw-faculty-unhappy-daniels-comments/14181695/]: “Some Indiana University-Purdue University Fort Wayne faculty members are unhappy with comments Purdue University President Mitch Daniels made about the role of regional colleges. “The Journal Gazette reports the former governor told a public radio host that higher-education advocates in Fort Wayne are mistaken…