BY JONATHAN REES AND JONATHAN PORITZ A lot of people we know were beating up on an essay by Jeff Selingo in the Washington Post a few weeks ago. [See, for instance, Hank Reichman’s analysis here.] We certainly agree that putting tenure on some kind of clock won’t do anything to save universities money in…
BY BILL BERGMAN Guest blogger Bill Bergman is Instructor of Marketing at the University of Richmond’s Robins School of Business. Students in the college classroom are growing much quieter these days. Technology is robbing them of self-assured verbal skills displayed by previous generations. They also live in dread of giving the wrong answer in class that could tarnish…
BY LARA SCHWARTZ Guest blogger Lara Schwartz teaches law and government at American University School of Public Affairs. This is a cross-post of an essay that originally appeared on Huffington Post. We are sharing this here, with the permission of the author, because the original post generated a great deal of interest when shared on the AAUP Facebook…
BY JOSHUA DOLEZAL Guest blogger Joshua Dolezal is a professor of English at Central College. His scholarship has appeared in journals such as Cather Studies, Literature and Medicine, and Medical Humanities. He is also the author of a memoir, Down from the Mountaintop: From Belief to Belonging (University of Iowa Press, 2014). During my first year at a Christian…
BY AARON BARLOW If you want to teach students to think, you have to challenge them—challenge their beliefs and assumptions. Confirming what they (or their parents, or their communities) already believe does not serve that purpose. You also need to teach students to be honest with themselves and to examine their own beliefs by standards…
BY RUDY FICHTENBAUM This is a guest post by AAUP president Rudy Fichtenbaum, a professor of economics at Wright State University. In her speech at CPAC Secretary DeVos stated: “Now let me ask you: How many of you are college students? The fight against the education establishment extends to you too. The faculty, from adjunct…
BY AARON BARLOW When I was young, Civics was a part of the web of education up to the college level. Everyone, after all, was expected to finish high school—and everyone was expected to have at least a rudimentary understanding of the structures of the political system of the United States and the responsibilities of…
BY MATTHEW BOEDY Guest blogger Dr. Matthew Boedy is in his second year as Assistant Professor of Rhetoric and Composition in the English Department at the University of North Georgia in Gainesville, Ga. He is a member of the AAUP. When I stood in front of my students on the first day of the semester…
BY SUZANE BRICKER This is a guest post by Suzane Bricker, Associate Adjunct Online Professor for the Academic Writing Department at the University of Maryland University College (UMUC) and an editor, writer, and poet. She has also taught at the University of Southern California (USC) and California State University, Fullerton. You can reach her by…
POSTED BY MARTIN KICH Writing for the website of Michigan Radio, an NPR station, Steve Carmody reports on a Michigan State study conducted by Prof. Susan Ravissa. In one of her lecture courses, 127 of the 507 enrolled students agreed to have their use of the Internet tracked during 15 of the 50-minute class periods.…