I have never been a fan of student evaluations, even when I have received perfect scores, whatever that means, and I have never, ever, ever, given any incentives for students to complete their “student evaluations.” No, this will not be a revelation on how I was born-again and now my teaching life focuses immaturely on…
I don’t know if the world needs another review of Become a Part-Time Professor: Live and teach anywhere you like, but I am now following in the footsteps of my truly esteemed colleagues Aaron Barlow and Hank Reichman, reviewing it after having downloaded this “book” and thumbed my way through the dumb thing on my smartphone…
July 3 and I am minding my own business, just checking email before Independence Day, and I have an email from someone named Ashley Minton, Ashley.Minton@cengage.com, with a cc: to someone named Rachael Pigg-Wisner (Wisner) at rachael.wisner@cengage.com. Yes, the sender’s email contains two caps, and the carbon-copied recipient’s email is all lower-case. The email subject…
Colleagues and I who are more deskbound than individuals who teach P.E. have joked about, I mean entertained the thought of, teaching walk jog run classes. We should be able to do it, even if our advanced degrees are in accounting, biology, or English. A fact that many faculty do not know is that in…
Even if the name “Redskins” is offensive, one can at least argue that the image featured in the team logo is rather dignified. The same cannot be said for the Cleveland Indians mascot’s appearance or name– Chief Wahoo: Interestingly, Chief Wahoo’s skin color less resembles that of a Native American than that of a very…
This post was written by Jeff Bryant for the blog of the Campaign for America’s Future [http://ourfuture.org/] which has become a driving force behind the New Populist Movement. The group’s report, Organizing to Take Back America: The New Populist Movement, is available at: http://y.ourfuture.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/03/New-Populist-Movement-Organizing.pdf. Prepared by Riger Hickey, the co-director of the Campaign for America’s…
Thus far, the most vocal and sustained criticism of the Common Core Standards being relentlessly promoted by Arne Duncan and the other “reformers” in the Department of Education has come from Progressives—that is, President Obama’s own supporters. Of course, the objection is that the administration has wholly and enthusiastically embraced what was a Republican idea—for…
In an “Other Views” column in the Chicago Sun Times a couple of weeks ago, Adam Heenan wrote: Most of my lessons prioritize what is relevant to the content and valuable to my students. But this is changing across the country, with pressure either to align current curricula to the standards, or to design different activities that…
Recent news about a former provost who allegedly touched inappropriately, repeatedly inappropriately, colleagues, got me thinking about a serious and pervasive practice in higher education. This was after some initial sophomoric snickering and thoughts I am sure even the most “serious” academic would have after reading about this case. Letters of recommendation are written to assist…