POSTED BY THE AAUP Today the AAUP issued, jointly with Association of American Colleges and Universities (AAC&U), the following statement on the liberal arts disciplines. Beneath the statement there is an online form that allows you to sign on to show your support. In recent years, the disciplines of the liberal arts, once universally regarded as central to…
BY JOHN W. LAWRENCE In an article published in the May/June 2018 issue of Academe entitled Student Evaluations of Teaching Are Not Valid, I briefly reviewed the literature on whether student evaluations of teaching (SET) are good measures of teaching effectiveness. They are not. First, SET scores reflect race, gender, age and other biases of…
BY WENDY BROWN The following is the text of an address delivered at commencement ceremonies for the Department of Political Science at the University of California, Berkeley, on May 14. Wendy Brown is Class of 1936 First Professor of Political Science at UC Berkeley. Her remarks were originally posted at the Remaking the University blog. …
BY BRIAN C. MITCHELL Many public research universities face a dilemma: how to balance a commitment to educate in-state students with the value that out-of-state applicants contribute to the university. As Nick Anderson illustrates recently in the Washington Post, the facts are clear. Public (and private) research universities contribute mightily to a state’s economy, providing a…
BY AARON BARLOW Obama’s Secretary of Education, Arne Duncan, writes, “Our efforts to improve schools have worked well where people have led with courage. To say otherwise is wrong.” As one who has spent 25 of the last 40 years in the classroom, as a secondary-school teacher, an adjunct college instructor and as a full-time…
POSTED BY HANK REICHMAN The following is from the website France 24: The dean and a professor at Montpellier University law school were taken into police custody on Wednesday, suspected of taking part in a violent attack on student protesters last week. The two men have since been suspended from their duties. Student protesters occupied…
POSTED BY HANK REICHMAN The following is from the Washington Post: A high school student was suspended for “disrespect” after he called his congressman’s office and told lawmakers — as he recalls it — to “get off their f‑‑‑— asses” and pass gun-control laws. Rep. Mark Amodei (R-Nev.) has defended his staff member for reporting 17-year-old Noah…
BY HANK REICHMAN Prominent among the cascade of remarkable events in the incredible year of 1968 were a series of student rebellions, the most prominent of which was the uprising at Columbia University in April and May, in which I participated and about which I will have more to post next month. But the first…