College Ratings and Rankings: The Debate Continues

BY BRIAN C. MITCHELL Last month’s Huffington Post College article (also published on Academe), “Grading Higher Education: When Worlds Collide,” sparked a lively offline discussion and is worthy of additional exploration. In that post, we examined how various magazines, journals, and other outlets grade American higher education in their version of what some call the…

A Playlist for the Trump Presidency

BY HANK REICHMAN Music can be an indispensable solace, inspiration, and fortification.  Over the past several weeks I’ve needed all three, and I suspect others have as well.  So I’ve put together this playlist to help us through the next four years.  Thirty songs out of many. (Sadly, for a good number of them you’ll…

California Higher Ed Leaders Urge Trump to Continue DACA Program

BY HANK REICHMAN Leaders of California’s three systems of public higher education sent a joint letter to President-elect Donald Trump today urging him to allow students who are in the country illegally to continue their educations without fear of deportation.  The letter, signed by University of California President Janet Napolitano, California State University Chancellor Timothy P. White and Eloy…

AAUP Joins Call to Speak Out Against Hate

BY HANK REICHMAN On November 18, the American Association of University Professors joined the American Federation of Teachers, the Southern Poverty Law Center, and more than 100 other organizations in a letter calling on president-elect Donald Trump to denounce acts of hate on college campuses and elsewhere. That morning I spoke at a press conference…

Higher Education and "Identity Politics"

BY CHRISTOPHER NEWFIELD (WITH INTRODUCTION BY HENRY REICHMAN) Since it first appeared in the New York Times a week ago, I’ve been meaning to write something in response to Princeton professor Mark Lilla’s op-ed, “The End of Identity Liberalism.”  But I’ve been traveling and had to put off the task, hoping along the way to write something…

Irony of the Day

BY HENRY REICHMAN There are more people at the Michigan-Ohio State football game than the entire Trump margin of victory in Michigan, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania combined.

On This Day of Thanks

BY MARTIN KICH I am thankful for all of those who have worked and who continue to work to promote workers’ rights and to insure that workers have some meaningful voice in their workplaces. I am thankful to those who have worked and who continue to work to insure that workers receive fair treatment, a…

The "Professor Watchlist" of the 1930s

BY JOERG TIEDE In 1934, conservative political activist Elizabeth Dilling published The Red Network—A Who’s Who and Handbook of Radicalism for Patriots. The book enumerated over 460 “radical” organizations and some 1,300 individuals who were members or sympathizers. Among the organizations listed were the American Federation of Teachers (AFT) and the American Civil Liberties Union. The latter…