An “On the Issues” Post from the Campaign for the Future of Higher Education [http://futureofhighered.org] _______________ The push for doing education on the cheap has led to a number of “innovations” nearly always touted as ways to “do more with less.” But the data on these experiments increasingly present a more complicated picture of their…
The following is a link to an article I published about textbooks. I resolve to do something concrete about this problem, and one part of the solution will be abandoning the practice of using textbooks for certain courses. I hope others will follow and offer suggestions. I hope others may already be teaching without “required” textbooks. http://dailycaller.com/2014/08/22/the-trouble-with-textbooks-a-great-american-rip-off/
In an article published in Money [http://time.com/money/3145086/corinthian-colleges-university-bankrupt-financial-trouble/], Matt Krupnick, who writes for the Hechinger Report, highlights “Five Signs Your College Is in Serious Financial Trouble.” Krupnick has clearly written the article in response to the well-publicized issues facing Corinthian College and the City College of San Francisco, though neither of those institutions’ problems are really…
The University of Alaska (UA) faces a $26M budget deficit. Jobs have been cut, departments are being downsized, and departing faculty are being replaced by adjuncts who earn poverty wages and receive no benefits. Student services have been slashed while student fees have increased. Public Radio programming has been axed, as has the University of…
On August 10, the Chicago Tribune has published an editorial titled “How Purdue Is Re-Inventing the American University.” No author is identified. The article title is both misleading and hyperbolic. It is misleading because it focuses entirely on Mitch Daniels and not on any broader initiatives within the university. It is hyperbolic because it does not…
The New York Post recently ran a story by Carl Campanile under this headline: “College Liberals Spurn $10M Gift from the Koch Brothers.” Mitchell Langbert, a faculty member in the Business School at Brooklyn College, had been in extended discussions with the Koch Brothers Foundation about establishing a “financial center” within the Business School. When…
Although the number of administrators and of administrative staff, as well as the levels of administrative compensation, have continued to increase inexorably, those are hardly the only elements of administrative bloat. Paradoxically, although one would think that, at some point, there would be enough administrators to cover almost any administrative need, the “need” to contract…
The Far-Right in North Carolina has received much national attention for passing blatantly anti-progressive legislation–most notably, more restrictive voting laws and dramatic reductions in funding for social safety-net programs. But, beyond the legislation that has generated the greatest controversy across the state and beyond, the Far Right legislature and governor—and the governor’s many appointees—have been…
Today’s Inside Higher Ed features an article about shared governance that focuses on a new book by Larry G. Gerber, Professor Emeritus of History at Auburn University, entitled The Rise and Decline of Faculty Governance: Professionalization and the Modern American University. Gerber is a talented and distinguished historian and a longtime AAUP activist and leader,…