BY NERISSA NELSON My campus, the University of Wisconsin-Stevens Point, has had a tumultuous year of dealing with a budget deficit of $8 million over the next three years. It started as an announced administrative “document/plan” to cut 13 liberal arts majors, followed by a “reduced plan” to cut six majors and tenured faculty, and…
BY FRANK D. LOMONTE Headhunters for university presidential searches make their six-figure commissions by promising trustees they’ll deliver an efficient search with high-quality candidates. What they’ve delivered to the University of Colorado is a slow-motion train wreck, as president-elect Mark Kennedy struggles to salvage his candidacy after a “ready-fire-aim” search process in which trustees admit…
BY BRIAN C. MITCHELL It’s no secret that American colleges and universities are under stress from a variety of challenges. Unfortunately, most try to tackle these challenges individually rather than strategically, a practice that rarely results in long-term solutions. The demographic crisis confronting institutions, most acutely those that are tuition-dependent, is laid out clearly in…
BY JOHN K. WILSON The University of Massachusetts at Amherst is hosting an interesting event on May 4 called “Not Backing Down: Israel, Free Speech, and the Battle for Palestinian Human Rights.” The event will feature Roger Waters, Linda Sarsour, Patrisse Cullors, Marc Lamont Hill, Dave Zirin, and Vijay Prashad, and is being organized by…
BY CAPRICE LAWLESS Teaching moment #1: One student was hit by lightning while on the job. Another one (who works at a deli) watched her boss banging on the restroom door as he yelled at the co-worker inside (whom she and others could hear was vomiting) that she needed “to finish up and get back…
BY JOHN K. WILSON DePaul ethics professor Jason Hill has sparked controversy with an essay harshly denouncing Palestinians. You might think this is the point where we start talking about protesters demanding his firing, but the reality is quite different. One radio show host denounced the “DePaul weak-minded students calling for censorship of a respected…
POSTED BY MARTIN KICH The PEN list is available at: https://pen.org/diaspora-migration-reading-list/?utm. If you click on the book image, you will be linked to a review in a major newspaper or periodical.
POSTED BY MARTIN KICH I came across the following two stories over the last several weeks: Nearly 5,000 Students Get Shots at Temple University amid Mumps Outbreak A mumps outbreak on the campus of Temple University in Philadelphia has reached the triple digits. The city health department said the number of confirmed and probable cases…
BY MATTHEW BOEDY When some conservative media outlet contacts you, with a picture of a lecture slide or assignment from your course, implying a bias against their conservative agenda, do you respond? If so, how? I am not imagining a hypothetical scenario. The headlines of conservative websites such as Campus Reform and College Fix suggest…
POSTED BY MARTIN KICH Walkouts Held at 3 Seattle Community Colleges to Protest Funding Crisis Faculty, staff and students at South Seattle College, Seattle Central College and North Seattle College participated in walkouts on their campuses from 8:30 a.m. to 3 p.m. Tuesday [April 16]. They say state funding has dropped, causing tuition to rise to…