Magical Thinking on Education
Want good schools? Then train teachers well, pay them a competitive wage and give them the resources they need. It’s that simple. Really. Yet, for the past decade-and-a-half, we’ve been trying anything, anything at all, to prove this wrong. Though educational policy disaster has followed upon educational policy disaster, our leaders and our journalists continue…
On the Anniversary of the 1915 Declaration of Principles
The AAUP was founded on January 1 and 2, 1915. Shortly after the founding meeting, the Association’s first president, Columbia University philosophy professor John Dewey, appointed a Committee on Academic Freedom and Academic Tenure, referred to as “the committee of fifteen.” The committee took up investigations of violations of academic freedom at the universities of Utah,…
Branding Undermined by Basic Grammar
The 25 Most-Read Articles of 2015 in Times Higher Education
25. Postdoc blues: how do you know when it is time to give up? They think I’m a rising star, but my hopes of a real career in science are sinking. A melancholy start to our countdown. Like this? Try: PhD students run professors close in Twitter popularity contest 24. World’s top 10 universities led…
Student Press Censorship, 2015
Since 1974 the Student Press Law Center (SPLC) has been the nation’s only legal assistance agency devoted exclusively to educating high school and college journalists about the rights and responsibilities embodied in the First Amendment and supporting the student news media in their struggle to cover important issues free from censorship. The SPLC provides free…
You Do Really Have to Want to Be President
At least partly because of the bad weather, only one Iowa voter showed up at an event for the O’Malley campaign. Here is the description below the photo distributed by CNN’s Politics newsletter: “Martin’s only man: Opposite the former governor is ‘Kenneth,’ as he was identified in a tweet by reporter Sarah Beckman, who also served…
Inside Higher Ed’s “The Best of 2015”
News Articles Failing the Entire Class Professor at Texas A&M at Galveston was so frustrated with students’ performance that he told them he wouldn’t pass anyone and that he was done with them. Administrators had other ideas. Cash Monitoring List Unveiled Education Department releases most of the names of colleges that have had access to…
We Now Know, or, Another Semester Older, Deeper in Debt: Takewaways from the University of Wisconsin Struggle, 2015
The 25 Most Read Posts to the Academe Blog in 2015
Faculty Statement on Narendra Modi Visit to Silicon Valley, Multiple Authors Culling the Iowa Faculty, Aaron Barlow Alice Dreger’s Letter of Resignation at Northwestern, Alice Dreger The Revelations in Phyllis Wise’s Emails, John K. Wilson Marquette to Fire John McAdams for His Blog, John K. Wilson The Troubling Case of Professor Stephen Cohen and the…