Expand Tenure, Don’t Weaken It
When Clark Ross sent me “Toward a New Consensus for Tenure in the Twenty-First Century” for possible inclusion in Academe, I was immediately interested. Not only was I seeing the ramping up of attacks on tenure but I have always felt the system too weak, if anything. My family moved every couple of years as I…
Trying to Do the Right Thing on Sexual Assaults May Be Tantamount to Trying to Do the Impossible
Barnard College has been in the news because of its decision to follow the precedents set by Mills College and Smith College and to admit transgender students who identify as female. But a recent memo of understanding between the college and the New York Police Department will almost certainly have much broader ramifications for the…
Higher Ed Salaries According to Forbes: Or, a Lesson in How Averages Depend on What One Is Averaging
Forbes has just published an article by Kathryn Dill titled “The Ten Best- and Worst-Paying Education Jobs.” Here is the explanation of the methodology: “To determine the Best- And Worst-Paying Education Jobs, Forbes consulted the most recent Occupational Employment and Wages data collected by the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS), which reflects May 2014 salary and employment data,…
Statement of UW–Madison Research Award Winners on Tenure and Governance
The following statement was published yesterday (June 3) and as of this morning had acquired 361 signatures [UPDATE: As of the next morning (June 5) the number of signatories had climbed to 459. The additional names, however, have not been added to the list that follows the text of the statement]: We write as fortunate…
Administrative Staffing 1987-2011, A Statistical Profile by Institution, Part 6: California (Part 2)
The federal data that will be presented in this series of posts was analyzed by the New England Center for Investigative Reporting (NCIR) in collaboration with the American Institutes for Research. The NECIR story on the data and its implications, written by Jon Marcus, who is currently an editor at the Hechinger Report, is available…
Michelle Obama’s Commencement Address at Oberlin College
UW Has Put Wisconsin on the Map
On Tuesday the Wisconsin State Journal published an op-ed piece by John Wiley, who was Chancellor of the University of Wisconsin, Madison, from 2001 to 2008. Wiley pointed out that “In 1900, Wisconsin was one of only 14 research universities that came together to form the now prestigious Association of American Universities (AAU is now…






