BY NICHOLAS FLEISHER (Cross-posted from Language Politics) “[F]ixed terms of members of boards shall expire on May 1.” So says Wis. stat. 15.07(1)(c), the portion of state law that governs when the terms of state board members—including members of the UW System Board of Regents—come to an end. So it was curious to see that…
BY HANK REICHMAN Two days ago I posted a piece on this blog about graduate student debt in which I cited an article in the New York Times that reported, among other things, that students in an online social work program at the University of Southern California (USC) averaged an extraordinary $109,486 in student loan…
BY HANK REICHMAN On May 21, the Department of Education released new data about levels of student debt in various academic programs. Writing in the New York Times, Kevin Carey, who directs the education policy program at New America, suggests that the move is part of the Trump administration’s deregulatory agenda. The department is already…
BY STEVEN LUBET Steven Lubet is Williams Memorial Professor at the Northwestern University Pritzker School of Law. University graduation addresses are famously bland, featuring acknowledgements and congratulations, perhaps leavened with benign humor, balanced with vague calls to public service, and rounded off with sunny assurances of a bright future. If not exactly an art form,…
BY PATRICK FESSENBECKER It is the time of year again when too many brilliant literature scholars find out that they will not be receiving a tenure-track job, and, as in Jacquelyn Ardam’s eloquent lamentation, that their possibilities for staying in the profession are over. The statistics on the situation are stark. Humanities doctorates are taking…
BY THE NEW YORK UNIVERSITY CHAPTER OF THE AAUP The AAUP is not solely a faculty organization. It exists to protect the speech of all members of the academic community, and it must speak in defense of student voices, who are among the most vulnerable, and often the most subject to censure from university administrators.…
BY BENJAMIN BALTHASER I didn’t think it could happen to a student of mine. I know the statistics: the United States incarcerates more people than any other country on the planet, both per capita and in total numbers. There are nearly two and half million people behind bars in our country; currently 65 million Americans…
BY HANK REICHMAN The following is the text of a talk delivered at the University of California at Los Angeles (UCLA) on May 20, 2019. My thanks to the UCLA Institute for Research on Labor and Employment for hosting the talk as part of its colloquia series and to the UCLA Faculty Association and Professors…
BY SIOBHAN SENIER The end of May is a time when most faculty are recharging after final grading and commencement, but it’s also a great time to take stock and plan for a change. Have you ever thought about lending your voice to defend higher education as a public good? Does it feel like you…
POSTED BY JOAN W. SCOTT In March, Rachel Ida Buff published an Academe Blog post recounting the attacks by the Canary Mission and others on faculty at Kingsborough Community College. In response to the attack, a group of faculty, staff, and graduate students decided to greet the incoming chancellor, Felix Matos (a “veteran” administrator in…