When Polarization Becomes the Snake That Swallows Itself

  The following quotations appeared in different parts of CNN’s daily Politics newsletter:   “Politics: Trump used to back Hillary, who endorsed Gore, who ran with Lieberman, who endorsed McCain, who picked Palin, who endorsed Trump.” –Tweet by the New York Times‘ Nick Confessore, on the circle of American politics.   “It is hard for me to watch…

Overcoming Unconscious Bias on Campus

  Protests by and on behalf of students of color on campuses such as Yale University and the University of Missouri have highlighted the need for greater diversity among faculty. While some colleges and universities, including Yale, have committed millions of dollars to diversity initiatives, the obstacles to recruiting and retaining faculty from historically underrepresented…

Regarding the Artist

Years ago, before I even thought about teaching as a full-time and permanent career, I spent a few semesters working for an online “university.” I won’t call what I did “teaching.” After all, the institution didn’t. I was a “facilitator” responsible for a section or two of the required Composition course. It had been designed…

The Neologist’s Notebook: 1

Yesterday, in her speech endorsing the presidential candidacy of Donald Trump, Sarah Palin referred to our need to resist inserting ourselves military into all of the many “squirmishes” occurring around the world. Yesterday, on ESPN’s Around the Horn, Woody Paige referred to the controversy surrounding the fans’ election of a hockey enforcer as an all-star…

A Crisis in Civic Education?

The American Council of Trustees and Alumni (ACTA), a conservative group that has advocated increased activism by college and university trustees and a “return” to “traditional” curricula in Western Civilization and American military, constitutional, and diplomatic history (let’s put aside for now that, given the recent behavior of most trustee boards, these two goals may…

Dos & Don’ts for Faculty and the Media

This is a guest post by Greg Loving and Jeff Cramerding, authors of the article, “Five Rules for Dealing with the Media,” in the new January-February 2016 issue of Academe. Greg Loving is associate professor of philosophy at University of Cincinnati Clermont College and president of the UC AAUP chapter. Jeff Cramerding serves as director of contract…