This past week, we received “over the transom” the following e-mail from a non-tenure-eligible full-time faculty member. I am reprinting it with his permission but with all identifying details removed. I think that the e-mail itself conveys the predicament of these faculty more pointedly than any paraphrase and comment that I might provide. _________________________ I…
I received this somewhat lengthy item in my e-mail this evening; perhaps financial desperation is making people more amenable to reading the longer pieces that we have been repeatedly warned that no one bothers to read anymore: First, I am shocked that according to Moneynews.com, one-third of Baby Boomers will survive retirement. I am not…
I should begin by stating that I am in favor of any proposal that provides free higher education at public colleges and universities. In fact, I am in favor of any proposal that reduces the cost to students without compromising the quality of instruction. I think that the president’s proposal will help community colleges because…
This is the first post in what I hope will be a series, in which conference and chapter leaders comment on the issues that they are trying to address and the initiatives that they are trying to organize and to promote. I intend to contact conference or chapter leaders directly to invite them to participate,…
Here is the table summarizing the results from the Young Invincibles report on state support for higher education over this past year: The detailed profiles for each state are available at: http://www.studentimpactproject.org/state_report_cards You can see from the table that four states have received A’s; ten have received B’s; thirteen have received C’s; twelve have received…
In a feature article for University Business, Ioanna Opidee provides an overview of the major trends related to postsecondary teaching that we might expect in 2015. Opidee focuses on what she asserts will be four increasing areas of emphasis: 1. Academic Return on Investment 2. Competencies at the Core 3. Flipped Classrooms and Evolving MOOCs…
On December 9, James McNair, writing for Kentucky Center for Investigative Reporting, has explored the many implications of a pending gift from the Koch Brothers and Poppa John’s CEO John Schnatter to the University of Louisville. The article, the full text of which is available at http://kycir.org/2014/12/09/university-of-louisville-set-to-get-millions-from-charles-koch-foundation-and-papa-johns-ceo/, opens: “Declines in state appropriations and negative financial trends…
When I returned to teaching more than a dozen years ago, I taught a great deal of developmental writing. At that time, the City University of New York (CUNY) used an entrance exam for First Year Composition (FYC) placement whose prompt instructed students to write a persuasive letter, generally addressed to either school (often college) or…