POSTED BY MARTIN KICH First Number This is the opening paragraph from “Suicide Squad Kills with $135 Million Debut,” an article written by Patrick Ryan for USA Today: “The critically maligned supervillain team-up scored the biggest August debut ever with $135.1 million at the weekend box office, according to tracking firm comScore. Its No. 1 opening smashes a…
POSTED BY MARTIN KICH According to an article written by Patrick Clark for Bloomberg News, companies that specialize in off-campus student housing have become one of the most profitable investments in the real-estate sector: “Shares in Education Realty Trust, a Memphis-based landlord whose earnings report met Wall Street expectations this morning, are up 54 percent in the past…
BY JOHANN N. NEEM Guest blogger Johann N. Neem is Professor of History at Western Washington University and a Visiting Faculty Fellow at the Institute of Advanced Studies in Culture at the University of Virginia. At the Democratic National Convention, Bernie Sanders argued that the Democrats came together to support debt-free higher education for all students…
POSTED BY MARTIN KICH In the last several weeks voter suppression measures in North Carolina, Wisconsin, Texas, Kansas, and Michigan have been overturned by Federal Appeals Courts. This week a case on similar measures in Ohio is being heard. Over the last six years, there have been frequent battles in the legislature and in the…
POSTED BY MARTIN KICH This is from the Progressive Review’s newsletter under the heading “Law Newz”: “Judge Curiel also found that there was a genuine issue of material fact as to whether Trump ‘knowingly participated’ in the ‘scheme to defraud’ and whether he made representations that were ‘false and misleading.’ Trump’s attorney filed a motion…
POSTED BY MARTIN KICH This from CNN: “After Hillary Clinton’s controversy over her private email use, running mate Tim Kaine told NBC’s Chuck Todd on Meet the Press that the two would be ‘real transparent’ in the White House. ‘She said it was a mistake,’ Kaine said. ‘I am not presumptuous enough to start thinking about how I’m going…
BY MICHAEL DECESARE In June, delegates to the AAUP’s 102nd annual meeting voted to add Union County College (NJ) to the Association’s list of institutions sanctioned for “substantial noncompliance with standards of academic government.” The unanimous vote was based on a scorching report by Robert A. Gorman, former AAUP president and emeritus professor of labor law at…
POSTED BY MARTIN KICH On August 3, the Editorial Board of the Chicago Tribune published an editorial titled “DePaul University’s Fear of Words.” This spring, protesters disrupted a talk by Milo Yiannopoulos, sponsored by the university’s Young Republicans. In response to that event, which might have escalated to violence, the university’s president “described the gold…
BY AARON BARLOW When I first heard the term “Digital Humanities” a decade ago, it seemed like something brewed up for use by those who want to poison the humanities—still does. It appeared to be nothing more than something developed by those with a little knowledge of C. P. Snow’s The Two Cultures and the…
BY BRIAN C. MITCHELL In an op-ed in the New York Times last month, Ford Foundation president, Darren Walker, speaks to the value of college internships. Walker noted the personal impact: “As a low-income kid from a small town who entered college without an extended network, my internships equipped me with the skills, confidence and relationships…