FIRE Files Four Free Speech Lawsuits
Yesterday, the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education (FIRE) filed four lawsuits charging that three state universities and one community college maintain unconstitutional speech codes and have restricted the free speech of students and faculty members. The institutions named in the lawsuits are Citrus College, in California, and Chicago State, Iowa State, and Ohio Universities. …
Wendy Lecker: How "Disruptive Innovation" Harmed the Children of Hartford
Real Teaching? It Starts With the Students
This morning, a team of my students presented on the value of comedy in society. It was a fine presentation: They even cited a number of studies concluding that laughter is good for one’s health–but included the caveat that the studies were way too small to be considered conclusive. As this is a First Year…
Aaron Hernandez: What Does It Mean When Academics "Like" Something?
One of the advantages, I suppose, of living now is that we can access “academic” items immediately and participate in a “discourse” about these items, supposedly. I am not saying I want us to go back to the times when monks illuminated manuscripts to let future generations know exactly how they felt about many things…
Summer Special: Words with Friends
Not a “Killshot” to Public-Employee Unions, but Not a Complete Reaffirmation of the Status Quo Either
If you have not been following the cases before the Supreme Court in this session, or if you have been but have simply lost track of this important labor case in the midst of the other cases that have attracted much more intense media coverage, the following is the lead to an article disseminated by…
Walk Jog Run . . . We Can Teach That!
Colleagues and I who are more deskbound than individuals who teach P.E. have joked about, I mean entertained the thought of, teaching walk jog run classes. We should be able to do it, even if our advanced degrees are in accounting, biology, or English. A fact that many faculty do not know is that in…
So Everything That We Have Read and Heard Is Wrong?
Writing for the New York Times (June 24, 2014), in a column titled “The Reality of Student Debt Is Different than the Cliches,” David Leonhardt reviews a recent study released by the Brookings Institute. These are the main assertions: (1) Student debt, on average, has actually not increased significantly. (2) Because the earnings of college…