Oxford’s and Cambridge’s Competing Narratives on Start-Ups

POSTED BY MARTIN KICH Writing for Business Insider, Sam Shead has been tracking an escalating dust-up between Oxford and Cambridge Universities over which elite institution provides a better environment for digital start-ups. The two institutions have obviously been competing in academics, athletics, and many other areas for centuries, and this competition over digital start-ups existed…

Open Letter from an American Dreamer

POSTED BY MARTIN KICH The following open letter first appeared on Dreamer Hugo Diaz’s Facebook page. It has subsequently been disseminated by several national and international news sources. After our month of hurricanes, some of the details especially resonate. More broadly, Hugo Diaz presents a very personalized and authentic account of his experience that both…

New DoE Guidelines on Campus Sexual Misconduct

POSTED BY MARTIN KICH Under Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972 and its implementing regulations, an institution that receives federal funds must ensure that no student suffers a deprivation of her or his access to educational opportunities on the basis of sex. The Department of Education intends to engage in rulemaking on the…

More on Harvard and Chelsea Manning

POSTED BY MARTIN KICH Writing for Consortium News, Robert Parry provides an extended contrast between Harvard’s bowing to political pressure by withdrawing a visiting professorship offered to Chelsea Manning and its failure to reconsider a similar appointment given to former CIA Deputy Director Michael Morell,who resigned his own fellowship in protest and denounced Manning as…

Pennsylvania’s Budget Impasse

POSTED BY MARTIN KICH All state budget impasses do not have the same causes, but, at the risk of oversimplification, there are basically two main categories of causes. The first is fiscal irresponsibility that involves overspending on special-interest projects and underfunding of major continuing costs. The second is fiscal irresponsibility that places such a priority…

Choosing Canada

POSTED BY MARTIN KICH In an article for CNBC, Abigail Hess reports on why international students are applying to and enrolling at Canadian colleges and universities instead of U.S. institutions. Hess provides the following statistics: The American Association of Collegiate Registrars and Admissions Officers surveyed over 250 American colleges and universities and found that 39…

Young Freud—Academic Huckster and Hoaxster

POSTED BY MARTIN KICH Reviewing Frederick Crews’ new biography for the Washington Post, Matthew Hutson titles his review “Young Freud, Cruel, Incurious, Deceptive, and in Search of Fame.” Regardless of what one thinks of Freud’s contributions to human thought, science, and the discipline of psychology, the biography paints a portrait of a young man who…

Former Ed Secretaries Address DACA Repeal

POSTED BY MARTIN KICH Dear Speaker Ryan, Majority Leader McConnell, Democratic Leader Pelosi, and Democratic Leader Schumer: We write out of deep concern for approximately two million Dreamers, undocumented immigrants who were brought to the United States as children. Over the past five years, hundreds of thousands of these young people came forward in good…