Faculty in the Networked Public Sphere
BY KELLY HAND “Can social media cause revolution?” Adeline Koh asks this question in her May–June Academe article, “Imagined Communities, Social Media, and the Faculty.” Countering critics who see online engagement with politics and social issues as a form of ineffectual “slacktivism,” she provides a theoretical framework for understanding the potential of social media to…
Reclaiming the Value of the Humanities
BY AARON BARLOW Maybe we can blame it all on Sputnik. Sixty years ago, next year, the Russians panicked the Americans via satellite… literally. Suddenly, research had to be sped up in new ways, and consolidated. Suddenly, the centers of the scholarly world were physicists and others whose thought could have practical application for military…
Higher Ed Jobs Releases First Quarter Report
Faculty Evaluate Evaluations
BY CRAIG VASEY AND LINDA CARROLL This is a guest post by Craig Vasey and Linda Carroll. Craig Vasey is professor of philosophy and chair of the Department of Classics, Philosophy, and Religion at the University of Mary Washington. He is a former member of the AAUP’s national council and current chair of the Committee…
A Hundred Miles Down the Road
From the editorial of the May/June 2016 issue of Academe: At the end of his epic trilogy U.S.A., John Dos Passos writes: “A hundred miles down the road. Head swims, belly tightens, wants crawl over his skin like ants: went to school, books said opportunity, ads promised speed. . . . A hundred miles down the…
How many admins in Colorado's Community College System advocate for adjunct faculty? ZERO!
BY CAPRICE LAWLESS Few Colorado taxpayers, students and hard-working, devoted, adjunct faculty members are aware that there is not one person — among the hundreds of six-figure-earning administrators in the Colorado Community College System (CCCS) — charged with advocating for paying adjunct faculty a living wage. In fact, recent, historic events prove that part of…
UW Colleges Join "No Confidence" Movement
The Faculty Council of the University of Wisconsin Colleges — the 13-campus community college segment of the UW system — today became the latest UW faculty to vote “no confidence” in the administration of UW System President Ray Cross and the Board of Trustees. The colleges join a growing bandwagon of colleagues at Madison, Milwaukee,…
The Commencement Speaker Racket
BY HANK REICHMAN It’s that time of year again, as colleges and universities celebrate their graduates at commencement ceremonies, often by providing a celebrity speaker. And, of course, that means it’s also the time of year when complaints are raised about whether some speakers are appropriate (or, as some would have it, “politically correct”) and…
Book Review: "Slow Professor: Challenging the Culture of Speed in the Academy"
BY AARON BARLOW One of my favorite songs by the novelist/songwriter Richard Fariña (whose life was cut tragically short by a motorcycle accident) is called “Mainline Prosperity Blues.” It ends with this: “They say I could be productive/But I think I’ll just recline right here instead.” The irony, of course, is that Fariña, in his…