Pearson Knows Where the Revenues Are in Undergraduate Education
In the mid-1990s, Pearson, which, to that point, had been a media conglomerate, set out to become the world’s largest publisher of textbooks. Within a decade, it bought up most of the most recognizable imprints—and most of those that it didn’t buy up have been bought up by its major competitor, McGraw-Hill. In the early…
Trying to Reduce Higher-Ed Costs without Addressing Administrative Bloat Is Only Making Things Worse
John T. McNay, a professor of history at UC-Blue Ash, is president of the Ohio Conference of the American Association of University Professors. The following op-ed appeared in the Cincinnati Enquirer on September 28 and is available at: http://www.cincinnati.com/story/opinion/contributors/2014/09/28/opinion-bloat-driving-uc-miami-costs/16410479/ We appreciate the column by David Hodge, president of Miami University, and Santa Ono, president…
America Re-Imagined, in Retrospect: Fifty Notable American Novels about the “West”: 9-11.
Clark, Walter van Tilburg. The Track of the Cat. New York: Random House, 1949. Walter van Tilburg Clark had one of the more puzzling careers in recent American letters. His first novel, The Ox-Bow Incident, was widely praised, and its successful adaptation to film brought even more attention to it. His second novel, The…
Shamelessness, Not Moxie
Jon Husted, who has done more than any secretary of state outside of Florida and North Carolina to restrict voting opportunities, is running ads touting his efforts to insure that all military personnel have had the opportunity to vote. Husted’s efforts to restrict early voting and to disqualify provisional ballots just ahead of the 2012…
What every student should know about the modern university
Guest blogger Michael Behrent is an associate professor of history at Appalachian State University and President of the ASU Chapter of the AAUP. This was first published as a letter-to-the-editor of The Appalachian. College is one of the most thrilling times of your life: a time to learn, discover yourself, and forge lifelong relationships. If this is…
Sometimes It's All About What We Leave Out
In his New York Times column today, David Brooks examines a Lewis Mumford essay from 1940. Brooks also writes of “Those who threaten civilization — Stalin then, Putin and ISIS now” and he says that Mumford was examining “liberals’ tendency, in 1940, to hang back in the central conflict of the age, the fight against totalitarianism.” There’s a…
Salaita: Campus Faculty Association on Investigation and Censure
The Campus Faculty Association of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign was an early advocate of an American Association of University Professors investigation of the university’s administration. Throughout the Steven Salaita viewpoint-cleansing assault on academic freedom, CFA has sustained an impressive advocacy in support of academic freedom and shared governance. One of the benefits in being engaged in AAUP matters, is the…
Jewish Studies Scholars Denounce AMCHA Blacklist
Three weeks ago I posted to this blog a piece I titled “And Now There’s a Blacklist?” In that post I reported that an organization called the AMCHA Initiative, which claims it is “dedicated to investigating, documenting, educating about, and combating antisemitism at institutions of higher education in America,” had published what was “perilously close”…
Nude Adult Models, William Bennett, Common Core, Rotten Teachers, Apples, Robert Frost
I had originally begun politely with a news hook quoting William J. Bennett on the common core, and will return to it, but as things are in our society, I think the following will give the common core more publicity: As reported by Eric Owens, education editor of The Daily Caller, in “Common Core is…