From a HS Teacher to College Profs: Why the Common Core Is Bad

A blogger named “thequotableyeti” provides a high-school teacher’s warning to college professors about the Common Core State Standards (CCSS). Though she or he starts out a little unkindly toward us, the points made are important. After the complaint, the blogger begins with a very good point: The common core purports to make students college and…

Another Sign of the Death of the Traditional Scholarly Journal

When I said “Blind peer review is dead. It just doesn’t know it yet” (it was picked up by Inside Higher Ed),  I was thinking narrowly. At that point, all I really was advocating was for a more fruitful method of peer review, something we can certainly establish (and cheaply) in our current digital environments. Today,…

College Is Making Inequality Worse–Potentially, a Terribly Misleading Headline

On Saturday, Salon ran a terrific article by Suzanne Mettler with this headline: “More Bad News for Millennials: College Is Actually Making Inequality Worse” [http://www.salon.com/2014/03/15/more_bad_news_for_millennials_college_is_actually_making_inequality_worse/]. Given the current attention to the issue of income inequality, the headline does a disservice to what is actually a very complex analysis of the economic impact of enrollment and…

Breaching the Silos-Computer Sciences and the Humanities

It was reported this past week that the Stanford University’s Faculty Senate approved two new joint majors that combine computer science with English or music. The joint majors, part of the CS+X program developed by the computer science department, are expected to be attractive to several audiences, “humanists who want a competitive edge on the…

And the Winner Is . . . .

It’s time.  The college acceptance letters — distributed via the web or in “fat or thin” envelopes — are beginning to trickle out as we move to the formal notification date of April 1.  Those who have applied to American colleges and universities are experiencing some mix of optimism, consternation, anxiety and resignation. Now is…

If Picky Eating Is Now a Disorder, Here’s the Remedy–Eat a Plateful of Sausages and Call Me in the Morning if You Don’t Feel Cured

You wouldn’t know it from looking at me now, but as a child I was a very picky eater. I have an anecdote to illustrate just how picky an eater I was. And if you bear with me long enough, I’ll explain why I think that this discussion may be of broader interest. I grew…

The Largest University in Each State

The website eCollegeFinder provides this map, along with a detailed listing, of the largest universities (not university systems) in each state [https://www.ecollegefinder.org/largest-universities-map.aspx?utm_content=&utm_medium=email&utm_source=Triggermail&nr_email_referer=1]:

We Are Just Not Working Hard Enough

Earlier this month, the Ohio Conference Communication Committee (although I formally chair the committee, our Executive Director, Sara Kilpatrick, now drafts most of the regular communications with our members) distributed the following item. Rosenberger Releases Report from Higher Education Study Committee As we reported to you in September, the Ohio House of Representatives had formed a “Higher Education…