Recent news about a former provost who allegedly touched inappropriately, repeatedly inappropriately, colleagues, got me thinking about a serious and pervasive practice in higher education. This was after some initial sophomoric snickering and thoughts I am sure even the most “serious” academic would have after reading about this case. Letters of recommendation are written to assist…
A new study, The Innovative University: What College Presidents Think About Change in American Higher Education, sponsored by Blackboard and The Chronicle of Higher Education, has this to say about disruption: Well over half of all presidents believe that at least a moderate amount of disruption is needed in higher education. Years ago disruption to higher-education’s business model…
Last week’s appalling California Superior Court decision in Vergara v. California, which overturned California statutes guaranteeing due process protections for K-12 teachers with more than two years experience (so-called “teacher tenure”) and layoff by seniority, has engendered considerable concern among instructors in higher education. To what extent does this decision threaten the protections of the…
The following is the text of the report of Committee A on Academic Freedom and Tenure to the AAUP Annual Meeting, delivered by Committee Chair and AAUP First Vice-President Hank Reichman on June 14. The Committee’s official and complete report will appear as part of the annual Bulletin of the AAUP, published annually in the…
As colleges and universities struggle to formulate effective policies for dealing with sexual assaults on campus, the media have often focused on the campus culture that blurs the lines between sexual license and sexual imposition. But the same insensitivity to distinctions is also pervasive in our media, often to an outrageous extent. The following is…
Three years ago, my newly appointed dean asked if I would take on responsibility for New York City College of Technology’s Associate degree in Liberal Arts and Arts with a primary focus on overseeing advisement. What I have learned about our students since then is astonishing–astonishing, that is, in the ignorance it highlights, in the…
By now it is a cliché, the math or science professor whom no one can understand. If one complains one might be accused of being culturally insensitive or racist. Or told to be open-minded and listen more carefully (I suppose the mind and ear are connected). Or worse, and commonly, “Well, we couldn’t find…
Guild, Nicholas M. The Summer Soldier. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1978. Guild has taught at Clemson University and Ohio State University. He has written almost a dozen novels, many dealing with espionage. For The Summer Soldier, Guild received the Ohioana Book Award. The novel focuses on a retired C.I.A. operative who returns home one…
This is not so much in response to Mary Flanagan’s essay, “The Classroom as Arcade,” recently published by Inside Higher Ed, which features a vivid observation of a student in class who “check[ed] out from a class he likes” to play a role-playing game on an electronic device while others “openly engaged with their Facebook pages,”…