Some Thoughts on What College Presidents Think
Inside Higher Education recently released a summary of its fifth annual survey of College and University Presidents, in advance of the annual meeting of the American Council on Education, the cross-sector presidential national higher education association. Gallup Education conducted the survey with responses from public, private, nonprofit and for-profit higher education institutions. The results are…
Faculty Coalition against the Exploitation of College Athletes
A group of faculty from across the United States has formed an organization called College Athletes Rights and Empowerment Faculty Coalition (CARE-FC). The group has released a statement. Here are the introductory paragraphs: “The multibillion-dollar college-sport industry is built on the work of an unnamed and unrecognized labor force, the majority of who are racial…
Where’s Putin?
In a variation off of the Today Show’s annual segment “Where in the World Is Matt Lauer?”, which is itself a take-off on the children’s game-book series Where’s Waldo?, Vladimir Putin disappeared from public view for about a week. NBC News almost playfully asked in its headline: “Where in the World is Russian President Vladimir…
Rick Scott, a Political Descendant of Bartleby the Scrivener, Prefers Not to (Talk about It)
Here is a current map of Florida: Here, in contrast is a map of what will be left of Florida if the polar ice caps continue to melt: So the revelations over this past week that Florida Governor Rick Scott has prohibited state employees from using the term “climate change” are fairly astounding on multiple…
Happy Pi Day!
Epistocracy– the Alternative to Democracy Being Promoted by Those in Koch-Funded Academic Positions
Here are the opening paragraphs of an article written by Natalie Schulhof for the Fourth Estate, the student newspaper at George Mason University: “Garett Jones, associate economics professor at George Mason University, says that there should be less democracy in the United States, according to a talk he gave on Feb. 24. “Jones says that…
The Case for the Public Intellectual as Gadfly
Andrew Bacevich, political-science professor at Boston University, has posted a new essay, “Rationalizing Lunacy: The Intellectual as Servant of the State.” It’s a look back at the role of the public intellectual within the U.S. federal government since the time of the New Deal, focusing particularly on their impact on foreign policy, the Vietnam War in specific…
A Somewhat Different Viewpoint on the Institutional Response to the Racist Exhibitionism at the University of Oklahoma
Blurred Lines and Word Crimes
American copyright laws are absurd. Weird Al Yankovic, in “Word Crimes,” can parody Robin Thicke’s (with Pharrell) “Blurred Lines” but Thicke and Pharrell cannot base their own song on songs of the past without an explicit financial relationship. In other words, their creativity is controlled by money, as was affirmed by a jury yesterday: As…