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…
This week, the AAUP’s Committee on College and University Governance released a draft statement, entitled “Confidentiality and Faculty Representation in Academic Governance”, which in part originated with the following presentation that I have given at several state conference meetings over the past year. A couple of years ago, I served as chair of a committee…
Various talented folks and communities (e.g., the Open Knowledge Foundation and QuestionCopyright.org) believe Creative Commons should retire its NC ND clauses. Students for Free Culture argue the NC clause is “completely antithetical to free culture (it retains a commercial monopoly on the work).” Timothy Vollmer asserts the NC ND clauses should be renamed ““Commercial Rights Reserved” because this license fails…
In my last post, I wrote on the need for a comprehensive redesign of the collegiate business model. The numbers don’t work, the model typically addresses incremental budget adjustments at best, and the bureaucratic “mom and pop” shops who administer the budget at many colleges inhibit broader cooperative partnerships that can hold down costs and…
Sources: National Center for Education Statistics, Bloomberg News, Chronicle of Higher Education, Blumenstyk and Fuller Number of post-secondary institutions newly accredited between 2005 and 2009: 483. Percentage of post-secondary institutions newly accredited between 2005 and 2009 that were private for-profit institutions: 77%. Percentage of total accredited post-secondary institutions in the U.S. that were private for-profit…
In my original post under this title, I pointed out that the proponents of “right to work” never directly address questions about how “right to work” improves workers’ wages, benefits, or working conditions. I rhetorically asked who can possibly believe that a worker–in particular a worker receiving low to average compensation–can negotiate more effectively as…
Stanley Fish’s offering “Higher Education’s Future: Discuss!” in today’s New York Times doesn’t provide anything new–but that’s not his fault. He writes about a panel discussion among four college presidents, ending: Not that I have anything more scintillating to offer. I’ll just wait for the next panel discussion and hope to hear the good news. He…
In “Who Will Hold Colleges Accountable?”, Kevin Carey of the New America Foundation writes in The New York Times: I suspect those courses that will be most valued will be those where students actually learn. Of course. Most of us who teach don’t just suspect that–we know it (as does Carey, I am sure… he’s deliberately understating the obvious).…
Source: National Center for Education Statistics Percentage of those enrolled in public four-year institutions who received financial aid in 2009: 79%. Percentage of those enrolled in private not-for-profit four-year institutions who received financial aid in 2009: 87%. Percentage of those enrolled in private for-profit four-year institutions who received financial aid in 2009: 86%. Percent of…