First several higher-ed items: Concordia U Public Safety Director Fired for Masturbating in Office No Phones, Please. This Is a Communications Class Other Items: 1,900 Killed in Syria during Peace Talks 2nd Order Mistake Leads to Drive-Thru Shooting at Grand Rapids’ McDonald’s Ariana Grande Will Not Be Charged In Donut-Licking Incident Border Patrol in…
Education Dive [http://www.educationdive.com/] is a very good source of news about innovations and initiatives in digital education, but it does have a very pronounced bias in favor of the pedagogical potential of digital technologies. Sometimes that bias leads to analyses that border on the absolutely ludicrous. Each item from Education Dive includes a bulletted summary…
December 10, 2015 Colleagues, The BGSU Administration and the BGSU Faculty Association are aware that several faculty members have been mentioned in communications by external groups regarding recent Ohio legislative measures. In addition, we are also aware of allegations that several faculty may have violated University policy regarding use of the BGSU email system. We…
I recently did a post on an Ohio gun group’s criticism of BGSU faculty and staff who contacted their legislators to oppose campus-carry legislation that has passed the Ohio House and is now being considered by the Ohio Senate: https://academeblog.org/2015/12/01/ohio-gun-group-castigates-bgsu-faculty-for-expressing-opposition-to-campus-carry-legislation/ In a very related story, the editor of the local newspaper, the Bowling Green Sentinel-Tribune,…
I recently re-posted a piece by Paul Garver on the detention of labor activists in China. Paul edits the Talking Union blog of the Democratic Socialists of America, and I included the re-post of his piece in a somewhat broader article on labor activism in China: https://academeblog.org/2015/12/10/supporting-the-emerging-chinese-labor-movement-on-international-human-rights-day/. That post was then re-posted on the Facebook…
This is an addendum to Aaron’s critique of Ranii Neutill’s piece on Salon, “Sixteen Years in Academia Made Me an A-Hole.” Before I was in graduate school and found a library job in the summer to supplement my grad-teaching stipend, I must have had 30 to 40 jobs–everything from being a dishwasher, a soda-jerk, and a…
On December 4, this announcement was sent out from Arne Duncan at the Department of Education: “If you’re like me, you probably dread an overdue notice, whether it’s for registering your car or returning a library book. For nearly a decade, our national K-12 education law has been overdue for revision, and parents, teachers and…
The “right-to-work” states are indicated in red, and the pro-labor states in white: Compare that map with this map indicating the state unemployment rates reported on December 18, 2015: In the Ohio House, legislation has been introduced to impose “right-to-work” restrictions on private-sector unions, with the primary argument for the measure being the…
Use of a proprietary database that purports to show the publications, citations, books and grants awarded to a professor provides far too limited a perspective on faculty achievement and creates the potential for career-ending errors, according to David M. Hughes, professor of anthropology and president of the faculty union AAUP-AFT at Rutgers. The same data…
Writing for Bold Progressives, Marissa Barrow has highlighted the attention being given to legislative proposals to allow students to graduate from colleges and universities without debt: “Legislators in 10 states nationwide will be introducing debt-free college legislation, making debt-free college a central 2016 campaign issue from the top to bottom of the ticket. “This state-level…