When the proponents of austerity and the opponents of “big government” make their case to the public, they emphasize the inefficiencies in public services and the waste of public resources. So the implication is that taxpayers’ money can be saved—and taxes can even be reduced–without actually reducing the public services that taxpayers receive. One of…
In several earlier posts (see the links below), I have chronicled the ridiculous pronouncements of Texas Congressman Louie Gohmert and “rock legend” and NRA spokesman Ted Nugent. At the risk of giving these two bozos much more attention that they deserve, I think that it is important to chronicle the asinine things that they keep…
Former major-leaguer Doug Glanville long ago shifted from glove to pen, and quite successfully. Today, for The New York Times, he writes about Alex Rodriguez, discussing how the quest for numbers misses the real point and beauty of baseball. Two paragraphs stopped me: Now major league baseball is in overdrive, stalking the players who inflated…
As a new president in the 1990s, one of my early tasks was to sign an exchange agreement with a private Russian university. The provost and I completed our business in Moscow and headed through London to visit a second exchange program of long-standing with a British institution. While passing through Heathrow airport, a British…
Let me make something clear: Teaching cannot be reduced to its tools. Let me give you an example, though I doubt anyone reading this really needs one. One of the devices I use in the classroom is the lecture. It allows me to introduce information to students in an organized fashion. I cannot package my…
Cultural Representations of Higher Ed, No. 7 I am working backwards through this list. Here are films 51 to 100. The rankings are my own and in most cases somewhat arbitrary. The descriptions of the films are paraphrases of summaries found in a half-dozen print and online film guides. I compiled the list about a…
Let’s assume for the purposes of this analysis that getting a college degree is good for most Americans. This assumption does not mean that every American needs a college degree to lead a productive life. But in most areas and in many industries a college degree will open the same doors for students that a…
Sometimes we discover that administrators are not the enemies of the faculty but are companions in a single struggle. The following guest post is a repost of a piece by Tim Slekar of Schools Matter @ the Chalk Face. He is Dean of the School of Education at Edgewood College in Madison, WI.: Last week I…
Admissions is hard, grueling and anxiety-filled work today. It is as much an art as a science. The best enrollment leaders must have great gut instincts that allow them to see the relationship among strategic planning, university budgets, friend and fund raising, federal and state regulations, and a common vision set by the president and…