BY JOHN K. WILSON The University of Chicago’s Committee on University Discipline for Disruptive Conduct has issued a new report. Peter Wood of the NAS praises the Chicago Report: “It is a welcome step for all of American higher education. Mostly it restores to the campus authorities charged with maintaining order the tools they need…
BY MARTIN KICH In an article published by Smithsonian Magazine, Megan Gambino interviews data journalist Ben Blatt on his recent efforts to apply data analysis to literary works. Here are the opening paragraphs of Gambino’s article, which frame the interview: In most college-level literature courses, you find students dissecting small portions of literary classics: Shakespeare’s…
POSTED BY MARTIN KICH In an article published by AlterNet, Alex Kotch reports on the material released by UnKoch My Campus showing how the intensifying calls to protect free speech on campus are being used as a cover for suppressing progressive dissent and protest on campus—covering some of the same points that I highlighted in…
BY BILL BERGMAN Guest blogger Bill Bergman is Instructor of Marketing at the University of Richmond’s Robins School of Business. Students in the college classroom are growing much quieter these days. Technology is robbing them of self-assured verbal skills displayed by previous generations. They also live in dread of giving the wrong answer in class that could tarnish…
BY THE NORTH CAROLINA AAUP CONFERENCE The following is, first, a press release from the North Carolina AAUP followed by the vision statement itself: Boone, NC/Chapel Hill, NC March 9, 2017 The state conference of the leading professional organization of American college professors has released a vision statement entitled “Reclaiming Higher Education for All North Carolinians”…
BY BRIAN C. MITCHELL Many of us in higher education have long been proponents of “laboratory” initiatives in the humanities, social sciences, professional and graduate programs that translate academic learning into real world experience. These initiatives serve a variety of purposes. They make critical inquiry more pragmatic. Most colleges and universities build their academic program…
BY ROBIN MEADE I can’t title this article “I Won” because I already used that title. But now I have won a $125,000 settlement and reinstatement after being fired for criticizing the administration of Moraine Valley Community College. The fact that I keep winning in court should provide everyone with hope and embolden those in…
BY MARTIN KICH In a recent Curbed newsletter, I came across an item titled “Three Gilded Age Berkshire Retreats for Sale Right Now.” The author of the article, Robert Khederian, notes that as a summer destination for the very affluent of the “Gilded Age,” the Berkshires never quite had the cache of Newport, Rhode Island,…
BY MARTIN KICH The Wall Street Journal, of all places, has posted a video showing how little the Department of Defense can purchase if all of the federal funding for arts programs is eliminated, as President Trump has proposed. The video is illuminating and suggests a great deal not only about our national priorities but…
BY APRIL FORD I’ve been on the job market since January. That’s no time at all in academe time, and already two-thirds of the applications I’ve sent out, at an average of ten per week, have met form-letter deaths. My favorite rejection so far addresses me as “Sir Ford,” and closes with “good luck out…