As we move to the last phase of this year’s college admissions cycle, it is useful to look at how selective colleges and universities construct their admission classes. For years, the two fundamental admission building blocks were legacies and athletes. At selective colleges –especially those with active, loyal and engaged alumni – the practice by…
By Robert Jensen Here’s an interesting question for historians: Why do ideologues never seem to be aware of their own ideology? Such is the case with the recent report from the Texas Association of Scholars and the National Association of Scholars’ Center for the Study of the Curriculum, “Recasting History: Are Race, Class, and Gender…
The National Association of Scholars (NAS) today issued a report on the teaching of American history at the University of Texas at Austin and Texas A&M. UT-Austin professor Jeremi Suri wrote a response to the NAS report on the blog of The Alcalde, the University of Texas alumni magazine, which we reprint here.
In Chinua Achebe’s second novel, No Longer At Ease, the main character ends up taking bribes. He excuses himself by arguing to himself that the people given favor are all qualified… the son of the man in the following passage is already on the short list for a scholarship: ‘Please have a seat.’ ‘Thank you.’ He…
Mark Naison, the author of this post, is a Professor of African-American Studies and History at Fordham University and Director of Fordham’s Urban Studies Program. He is the author of three books and over 100 articles on African-American History, urban history, and the history of sports. The post originally appeared on Naison’s blog With a Brooklyn…
No matter the metrics devised, grading is subjective. All grading. How can I say this? Don’t the scales created offer objective data? No. The decision-making in creation of the scales is necessarily subjective itself, making all evaluation using the scales just as subjective. Yet we continue to believe in the objective status of grades. Here…
The other day, an article appeared titled “The Ten Least Stressful Jobs of 2013.” Normally, I wouldn’t pay any attention to such an article (I think rankings of the sort provided are puerile, at best, and extremely uninformative and unhelpful), but this one places “university professor” at the top–and I am quoted in it. The reporter…
In September, I posted to this blog an entry titled “Requiem for the Twinkie,” in which I observed that the venture-capital firms that hold a controlling interest in Hostess Bakeries were attempting to plunder worker pensions as a last step in their wringing all possible profit out of the company that they were purportedly trying…
As a teacher at a college with a student population made up primarily of minorities, immigrants, and/or first-generation college students, an article in today’s New York Times hit home. By Jason DeParle, it is titled “For Poor, Leap to College Often Ends in a Hard Fall.” One of my greatest frustrations, and one I constantly work…