The following thread comes from Appalnet, the Appalachian Studies listserv (slightly edited), May, 2014: Colleagues, if you read the following on your institutional discussion board in reference to a complaint about a barefoot student, how would you respond to the professor? “My approach would be to assure this student that going barefoot is not against…
We are, I hope, going to be hearing a lot about this study (follow the links to download the report itself) over the next few weeks. We already are, to some degree. The study, from Gallup, Purdue University, and the Lumina Foundation, concludes that: if graduates recalled having a professor who cared about them as a…
Henry Giroux, in his new Neoliberalism’s War on Higher Education, credits the phrase of the title here to sixties radicals. I don’t remember it myself, but it certainly fits the time. College students were feeling empowered even as they were under attack; colleges and universities were places for change, for innovation, and the students felt…
This is a news release from the Department of Education. My own institution, Wright State University, is not on the list, but a member of our executive committee observed: “It’s great that we’re not on it, but unfortunately this is still a problem on our campus. We also have no rape crisis center either on…
In his new book, Neoliberalism’s War on Higher Education, Henry Giroux writes that, “as public intellectuals, academics can do more.” We know that, of course, but it never hurts to hear it again, especially as the crisis in American education–and, following necessarily, in American society–grows. But what does it mean to be a public intellectual? What, in other…
When I read what Northwestern football coach Pat Fitzgerald emailed his team recently, all I could think of was my father: “Understand that by voting to have a union, you would be transferring your trust from those you know — me, your coaches and the administrators here — to what you don’t know — a…
John Romano, writing in the Tampa Bay Times over the weekend, reviews the connection between Charles Koch and Florida State University, a problematic connection (and not the only one of its type) that has been under scrutiny for at least three years now: The relationship at FSU drew howls of protest in 2011 when a couple of professors…
Since posting on David Brooks’ “When the Circus Descends” yesterday, Stephen Sondheim’s great song “Send in the Clowns” has been going through my head, especially these lines: I thought that you’d want what I want.Sorry, my dear.But where are the clowns?Quick, send in the clowns.Don’t bother, they’re here. What frustrates me so is that all…
Backseat driving in the clown car: that’s what pundits are about, today. In The New York Times, David Brooks tries to turn that around, making out that is those who disagree with him who have the red noses and squeeze horns. He mounts a defense of Common Core State Standards (CCSS) based on the idea that…
No matter the measure you use–education, income, heritage, race, family size, job type, language–Americans are moving to greater segregation than we have ever before experienced. This is a no-brainer; it has been the pattern for decades, and it becomes more dominant each year. We must be satisfied with it, for we are doing nothing, absolutely…