One impact of the great recession has been resurgence in demand by cities and towns that colleges and universities pay a greater portion of the region’s tax bill. Municipal authorities make valid arguments to support these demands. They point to the percentage of taxable land taken off the tax rolls by higher education institutions. They…
Asked to explain his opposition to extending unemployment benefits to the long-term unemployed, Texas Congressman Pete Sessions asserted: “I believe it is immoral for this country to have as a policy extending long-term unemployments [sic] to people rather than us working on creation of jobs. A job is the most important attribute, I believe, in…
In several instances in the recent past, mentally disturbed individuals in China have gone of rampages that have left more than one person dead and a larger number wounded. In all of these instances, these individuals have been armed not with guns but with knives–or, in one instance, an ax–and the toll in human lives…
In American political discourse, there is a failure to distinguish between persuasion and argument that extends to the media coverage of politics and that distorts, sometimes grossly, the public understanding of and response to the issues of the day. Any student in a composition course that covers persuasion and argument learns that argument is a…
In a terrific essay explaining “Why We’re On Strike,” University of Illinois-Chicago professors Lennard Davis and Walter Benn Michaels wrote this about their institution’s flawed shared governance system: “To call shared governance real governance is like saying your dog has an equal say in how your household is run because sometimes when he whines he…
It has been some time since I’ve reported on the fight to save City College of San Francisco (CCSF). As readers will recall, last summer the Accrediting Commission for Community and Junior Colleges (ACCJC) announced that it would terminate CCSF’s accreditation as of July 2014. (See my original post of July 8 and subsequent posts…
More than 120 scientific papers have been removed from electronic databases of such papers published by Springer and the Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers. The papers contain fraudulent research findings—but not exactly of the kind that you might expect. Apparently, the papers were generated using a program called SCIgen, or some knock-off. Developed by…
Earlier today the PSC received the decision by Judge Anil Singh on CUNY’s motion to dismiss the lawsuit contesting the original Pathways resolution passed by the Board of Trustees in 2011. Judge Singh decided in favor of CUNY’s motion to dismiss. We are disappointed in the decision, but we are fully prepared to appeal. We maintain that…
Yesterday, I came across a news item that reported that, according to Norse mythology, the world was supposed to have ended on Saturday. Yes, Ragnarok, or the Twilight of the Gods, had been predicted but apparently not loudly or widely enough, and the waiting for the end came and went without my even being aware…