On first gloss this title might seem humorous, but my wife and I, who are childless by choice, have over the years been the proud people-companions and caretakers of three to four dachshunds at a time. On numerous occasions we have had to take our animals, called our children both by people who are supportive…
Money, the goal of all goals, today is ruining both education and government. When money becomes, as it has, our only measure of value, structures protecting anything else melt before it. As the “business model” is most keenly attuned to profit, it has become the one model for all of our endeavors. In my first “real” job out…
Seizing a Sculpture “At Canada’s Capilano University, the administration confiscates a professor’s work caricaturing the president on the grounds that it constitutes ‘harassment.’” –INSIDE HIGHER ED I must say the Poodle is looking very presidential. The extended touch of gray shows someone who has had his share of worries, and the sharp, long tooth making…
Testimony of John McNay, President of the Ohio Conference of AAUP, on House Bill 484, before the Ohio State Senate Finance Committee, on May 13, 2014 Chairman Oelslager, Ranking Member Sawyer, and distinguished members of the Senate Finance Committee: my name is John McNay and I am President of the Ohio Conference of the American…
AAUP members should receive their print copies of the May/June issue of Academe over the next few days. In the meantime, they can read it online–as can anyone else (there’s no paywall around here). If you only know us through the blog, you may find the magazine worth your while. More in depth and carefully prepared,…
The motto of Bryan College is “Christ Above All.” The college, which has an enrollment of between 700 and 800, was originally named William Jennings Bryan College, after the thrice unsuccessful presidential candidate who became a special co-counsel for the prosecution in the Scopes Trial. In addition to “Free Silver,” the “Great Commoner,” as Bryan…
I have been thinking a great deal about John Ziker and his coleagues’ detailed study of the work that we, as faculty members, do, and I think that their study supports, directly or at least conceptually, most of the following observations: 1. We work very hard—much harder than most people realize and, in most cases,…
My original post on this singular and provocative study of faculty work is available at: https://academeblog.org/2014/04/29/what-we-do-with-our-time/ I would like to thank the authors again for their work on the study [reported in The Blue Review at: https://thebluereview.org/faculty-time-allocation/] and for then agreeing to answer my follow-up questions. Katie Demps, Matt Genuchi, David Nolin, and John Ziker collectively…
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…
John Ziker, chairman of the Anthropology Department at Boise State University, typically conducts field research in the Taimyr Autonomous Region of north-central Siberia, studying the Ust’-Avam, where people depend on hunting, fishing, and gathering for the majority of their food. But he and his colleagues Katherine Demps, David Nolin, and Matt Genuchi, have now turned their…