POSTED BY MARTIN KICH The title of this post is the title of a book by E. L. Kersten. Here is the jacket summary: Motivation has become a multi-billion dollar industry, courtesy of the patronage of corporations and the noble intentions of Executives who lead them. At the heart of this colossal confederation of inspirational…
BY CHELSEA FOWLER When Frances McDormand delivered her 2018 Oscars acceptance speech, she left the audience with two final words, “inclusion rider,” which sparked a flurry of Google searches across the US. Inclusion rider is a relatively new term coined by Dr. Stacy L. Smith at the University of Southern California’s Annenberg Inclusion Initiative. These…
POSTED BY MARTIN KICH Yesterday’s daily newsletter from TheTeaParty.org featured this headline: “We’re Not Joking: Kerry’s School Lacrosse Captain Was Robert Mueller.” The news item to which the headline provided a link featured this photo: Yes, Robert Mueller and John Kerry both attended St. Paul high school and played on the same lacrosse team. This…
POSTED BY MARTIN KICH Getty, Matt Cardy This explanatory caption was provided by Atlantic’s Photos of the Week for May 11, 2018, compiled by Alan Taylor: Artist Michael Pendry adds a white origami dove to his art installation “Les Colombes,” which is being installed at Salisbury Cathedral on May 10, 2018, in Wiltshire, England. The…
POSTED BY MARTIN KICH Rebecca Bodenheimer has contributed a freelance opinion piece to CNN that is very lucid, very galvanizing, and very much worth reading and sharing. In it, she connects to the frustrations being expressed by K-12 teachers in an ever-expanding number of states to the endemic frustrations of contingent faculty at the post-secondary…
POSTED BY MARTIN KICH Here is a photo of city boys getting rooftop swimming instruction in the 1920s. This is a more recent photo identified as showing a man swimming in a river near New Delhi in India. (I am not sure what the white stuff is, but I am fairly certain that it’s not…
BY JOHN K. WILSON The corruption at George Mason University has prompted some conservatives to jump to the defense of giving wealthy donors more influence. Jim Geraghty at National Review argues that “A Washington Post Scoop about the Koch Brothers Falls Apart.” But actually it’s Geraghty’s argument that quickly falls apart. According to Geraghty, “The headline in the…
BY JOERG TIEDE An investigative report is out today in a case that crystallizes the current right-wing assault on higher education. It involves issues that the AAUP has been working on intensively this year: faculty harassment and exaggerated controversies over free speech on campus. The case concerns Courtney Lawton, a graduate student and part-time lecturer…
BY AARON BARLOW In “From Austerity to Attacks on Scholars,” an article for Inside Higher Ed, Syracuse University professor Dana Cloud writes, “I discovered how the people attacking me were organized and trained through right-wing radio programs and websites in the language to use against intellectuals; they were set off like arrows from a bow”…
POSTED BY THE AAUP In an amicus brief filed on Friday, the AAUP emphasized the importance of faculty being able to use controversial language and ideas to challenge students in the classroom, and argued that Professor Teresa Buchanan’s academic freedom was violated when Louisiana State University dismissed her for making statements in the classroom that…