BY HARVEY J. GRAFF Professors, lecturers, graduate teaching assistants, and especially presidents and provosts often repeat the word “literacy.” But they almost never pause to define or constructively criticize it. Why does it matter? That is a question I ask each of us to ponder. The Norwegian scholar Johan Galtung put it aptly: “What would…
BY HANK REICHMAN Ohio State University professor emeritus Harvey Graff, who occasionally posts to this blog, has a smart and entertaining piece today in the Washington Monthly on “The Banality of University Slogans.” You know, the kind of mindless “branding” pablum like, “Here, everything is possible!” It brought to mind the time when my university,…
BY AARON BARLOW There’s another way: We don’t need to be conforming to artificial numerical scales (based on testing, grades or whatever) or to universal “outcomes” for teaching in order to improve or pedagogy and remain vigorous. All we teachers need to do is turn to each other. We were hired based on a demonstrated…
BY JASON ELIAS Faculty members at the University of New Mexico have been talking to their colleagues for the past two years about the possibility of organizing a union to strengthen their voice on campus. A clear majority of the 1,600 faculty members support this move, and the United Academics of the University of New…
BY JOHN K. WILSON The National Association of Scholars today issued its 11th annual “Beach Books” report critiquing common reading programs. The NAS press release is shockingly titled, “Study Finds College Common Reading Programs Indoctrinate Students.” And it declares, “American colleges and universities run common reading programs designed to indoctrinate students with progressive propaganda….” Exactly how…
BY AARON BARLOW Maybe it was just too perfect a topic for my classes today. Certainly, though, I couldn’t resist. It had everything. It had: Topicality that would keep students interested; Relationship to our university system (City University of New York); Room for discussion of student value, something particularly important for first-year college students; Relevance,…
BY AARON BARLOW Writing in InsideHigherEd, Rebecca Gould claims that mandatory retirement at 65 would be “a good first step toward dismantling hierarchies and opening opportunities for many more young scholars.” The assumption, of course, is that young scholars are of more value than older ones. And that older scholars don’t need opportunities. Oh, and that senior academics…
BY AARON BARLOW From a novel called The Spiral Road by Jan de Hartog, I learned that a physician’s diagnosis doesn’t depend as much on knowledge of medicine as it does on knowledge of the patient. I was a high-school student at the time and on a de Hartog kick–but I’ve never forgotten that lesson and still…
BY KELLY HAND The AAUP’s national office is quieter than usual because many of our staff are at the University of New Hampshire in Durham for the AAUP/AAUP-CBC Summer Institute, which begins today. Over two hundred faculty and academic activists will gather for four days of workshops and special programs to build their skills as…