This post was written by Jeff Bryant for the blog of the Campaign for America’s Future [http://ourfuture.org/] which has become a driving force behind the New Populist Movement. The group’s report, Organizing to Take Back America: The New Populist Movement, is available at: http://y.ourfuture.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/03/New-Populist-Movement-Organizing.pdf. Prepared by Riger Hickey, the co-director of the Campaign for America’s…
Full disclosure, up front: I drink Starbucks every day, Sumatra if you must know, but I brew it at home because I like the affordability factor this option provides me. I have always liked the way Starbucks goes the extra mile when it comes to its employees, especially when I consider the working environment it…
John Leo at Minding the Campus discusses the issue of discriminatory policies by registered student organizations and claims, “religious groups should have absolute freedom in the process of picking their leaders.” Actually, he doesn’t really believe that, because that’s what I believe. The whole argument over religious student groups is the demand by some that…
In an “Other Views” column in the Chicago Sun Times a couple of weeks ago, Adam Heenan wrote: Most of my lessons prioritize what is relevant to the content and valuable to my students. But this is changing across the country, with pressure either to align current curricula to the standards, or to design different activities that…
A new study, The Innovative University: What College Presidents Think About Change in American Higher Education, sponsored by Blackboard and The Chronicle of Higher Education, has this to say about disruption: Well over half of all presidents believe that at least a moderate amount of disruption is needed in higher education. Years ago disruption to higher-education’s business model…
Three years ago, my newly appointed dean asked if I would take on responsibility for New York City College of Technology’s Associate degree in Liberal Arts and Arts with a primary focus on overseeing advisement. What I have learned about our students since then is astonishing–astonishing, that is, in the ignorance it highlights, in the…
Although the increases in the compensation by college and university presidents represent a negligible percentage of their institutions’ budgets, they do very clearly set a baseline for the compensation received by other administrators—their subordinates and the subordinates of their subordinates–and reflect the continuing corporatization of our institutions as it is manifested in the broader increases…
By now it is a cliché, the math or science professor whom no one can understand. If one complains one might be accused of being culturally insensitive or racist. Or told to be open-minded and listen more carefully (I suppose the mind and ear are connected). Or worse, and commonly, “Well, we couldn’t find…
The following is the text of remarks as prepared for delivery by Attorney General Eric Holder at the Morgan State University commencement ceremony in Baltimore on Saturday, May 17, 2014. The transcript was provided by the Justice Department’s Office of Public Affairs. _________________________ Thank you, President [David] Wilson, for those kind words-–and thank you all…
On May 16-18, the Campaign for the Future of Higher Education’s 7th National Gathering drew nearly 100 faculty, student and organizational leaders to the Desmond Hotel in Albany, New York, where the organization held panel discussions and workshops surrounding a theme of “Building Alliances for Access, Equity and Quality.” The increasing problem of student debt was…