Last week the AAUP and the Council of University of California Faculty Associations (CUCFA) issued a statement protesting remarks made by University of California Regent Richard Blum, which threatened negative political consequences for the University if it did not approve a policy on alleged anti-semitic speech acceptable to him and his wife, U.S. Senator Dianne…
Michael Behrent, the president of the Appalachian State University chapter of the AAUP, and John Steen, Program Coordinator of Scholars for North Carolina’s Future (with contribution from Jim Carmichael, professor at UNC Greensboro and president of the AAUP’s North Carolina Conference) have an op-ed today in The News & Observer or Raleigh, NC entitled “Outrageous move to foster runaway…
This is a guest post by Kamala Visweswaran. She is a professor of ethnic studies at the University of California–San Diego. She is the editor of Everyday Occupations: Experiencing Militarism in South Asia and the Middle East (University of Pennsylvannia Press, 2013). My current Academe article, “Palestinian Universities and Everyday Life Under Occupation,” is not an article that describes causes, but rather the consequences of…
In last week’s iteration of his syndicated column, Robert Reich takes on college rankings. After noting that the Obama administration has decided to give up on the idea of providing some sort of federal rankings to U.S. colleges and universities, Reich describes the most widely promoted college guide, that produced by U.S. News and World…
Kevin Carey, writing in The New York Times last July, said this of American colleges and universities: “These organizations are not coherent academic enterprises with consistent standards of classroom excellence. When it comes to exerting influence over teaching and learning, they’re Easter eggs. They barely exist.” This is humbug. It’s an attempt to channel the…
This is a guest post by Donald Earl Collins. He is adjunct associate professor of history at University of Maryland University College. He previously taught at Howard University in the Department of Afro-American Studies and has written on topics such as multiculturalism, education, and African American identity. I come at the issue of the future of HBCUs, the topic of my article “Three Things…
A bit more than a year ago a California Superior Court, ruling in Vergara v. California, overturned California statutes guaranteeing due process protections for K-12 teachers with more than two years experience (so-called “teacher tenure”) and layoff by seniority. At the time I posted several items on the case, first here, then here, here, and…
Back to School in Higher Ed: Who Needs Faculty? Although 50 years of research has shown that faculty/student interaction is crucial to student success, recent trends and newly-adopted practices in higher education actually decrease the possibilities for faculty to interact with students in the amounts and the ways that matter most. This paper examines the price…
This is a guest post by Mihran Aroian and Michelle L. Damiani, contributors to the September-October 2015 issue of Academe. Mihran Aroian is a lecturer in the Management Department of the McCombs School of Business at the University of Texas at Austin and was the first faculty member in residence in the Office of the Dean of Students, Student Judicial Services. Raymond…
I don’t know how much I can add to this item from the political blog Talking Points Memo (the headline says it all): “Police in Texas Arrest Muslim Teen Who Brought Homemade Clock to School.” Read it and weep! UPDATE: President Obama has invited the teenage scientist to the White House for Astronomy Night, to…