As the midsection of the country descends once again into a deep freeze, I thought that some reference to stories that emerged during the first “polar vortex” might help to keep things in perspective. Several weeks ago, two stories from Chicago seemed especially illustrative of just how cold it was, though it turned out that…
This is a guest post by Ellen Schrecker, a professor of history emerita at Yeshiva University. She also is a former editor of Academe and served on the AAUP’s Committee A on Academic Freedom and Tenure. Her article, “One Historian’s Perspective on Academic Freedom and the AAUP,” is in the January-February issue of Academe. Since I no longer edit…
One of the recurring themes making the higher education circuit these days is that “Paris is burning . . . and higher education’s leadership – including trustees, faculty, and most presidents – is pretending that nothing is happening.” There is truth to this argument. The facts support the claims by many thoughtful educators that better…
Now that the media has moved past the brief furor caused Duck Dynasty patriarch Phil Robertson, it seems appropriate to examine that controversy in a less emotionally charged context. Some might complain that such a discussion is simply an attempt to revive the controversy, but I would argue that one of the major consequences of…
An (apparently) non-academic writer, Sarah Kendzior, has an article in the new “Vitae” project of The Chronicle of Higher Education called “What’s the Point of Academic Publishing?” Is hers a good question? I am not sure, for I am not sure what “academic publishing” means. Not any longer. Today, I believe it is becoming something of a…
On the ingenious end of the scale, the state of Wisconsin has begun spraying cheese brine onto its roadways to keep them ice-free during the long winter months. Cheese brine is essentially salty water used during and then leftover from the cheese-making process. If it is not recycled into some non-cheese-related use, it goes into…
Inside Higher Ed today posted an article by Colleen Flaherty called “Congress Takes Note.” It deals with a new report, “The Just-In-Time Professor: A Staff Report Summarizing eForum Responses on the Working Conditions of Contingent Faculty in Higher Education” from the U.S. “House Committee on Education and the Workforce Democratic Staff.” Its conclusions are all what we have known for…
The most disturbing consequence of the contemporary belief that any sort of ‘progress’ in education stems from individual initiative and can be proven by testing is the devaluation of the teacher. Problem is, we don’t learn on our own; learning always involves community. Language itself builds from–and builds–community, and learning is dependent on language. And…
This is a guest post by Rebecca Gould, a professor at Yale-NUS College in Singapore. Her article, “Aaron Swartz’s Legacy.” appears in the January-February issue of Academe. Aaron Swartz is gone but his legacy lives on. In my article for the current issue of Academe, I offered a few reasons why his brief life, including…
This guest post was written by Leemon McHenry, a lecturer in philosophy at California State University, Northridge. His article, “Of Brahmins and Dalits in the Academic Caste System” (co-written with Paul Sharkey), appears in the January-February 2014 issue of Academe. In “Of Brahmins and Dalits in the Academic Caste System,” (Academe, Jan-Feb 2014) Sharkey and I blame the corporatization…