Today is the publication of Steven Salaita’s new book, Uncivil Rites: Palestine and the Limits of Academic Freedom (Haymarket Books). Salaita’s book is smart, charming, funny, intense, civil, and sincere—and it’s a powerful argument for just how wrong the University of Illinois trustees were to fire him. Salaita’s book may not persuade those who supported…
This photo was originally posted on Pinterest, and it has, as they say, gone viral: And if you happen to live in or are visiting a big city such as New York, this clever bit of American ingenuity may just keep the rats from dragging off your pizza slices when you’re not looking: Oh, and,…
But, on the plus side, I am less than ten years from retirement. This is the beginning of a fairly lengthy article that appeared in yesterday’s Dayton Daily News: “Experts say Wright State University’s use of a work visa program to bring in low-cost foreign workers for jobs at area private companies typifies…
Of all the responses to Arne’s Duncan’s announced resignation from the Department of Education, Diane Ravitch’s has the most succinct and incisive: “In the car yesterday, I heard a report that Arne Dyncan was stepping down. President Obama said: He did more than anyone else to bring American education into the 21at century, sometimes kicking…
Something has happened to the way I read scholarly articles. Unless I can sense a person behind the words, I drift off. No more “objectivity” for me, thank you. Give me the same information, but let me know who is providing it, and why I should trust them. This is beginning to prove to be…
Last week, Inside Higher Education published its 2015 Survey of College and University Admission Directors. Planned to coincide with the annual meeting of the National Association for College Admission Counseling held in San Diego, IHE drew responses from 264 admission directors, taken from a mix of public and private colleges and universities. The respondents replied…
In an opinion piece published several days ago in the Wall Street Journal, Harvey J. Graff, an English professor at Ohio State University has, in essence, provided readers with “An Education in Sloganeering” in the process of delineating why the university is a case “study in institutional puffery.” Here are the first few paragraphs…
More than 70% of reporting faculty are not confident in University of Akron leadership. There are growing concerns about the recent actions and future plans of the administration at The University of Akron. The Akron-AAUP has conducted a survey of the faculty, the results of which reflect faculty sentiment across academic areas. “The Akron-AAUP…
April Kelly-Woessner argued last week at Heterodox Academy that “young people are less politically tolerant than their parents’ generation.” Titled, “How Marcuse made today’s students less tolerant than their parents,” Kelly-Woessner blames intolerance by young people on 1960s New Left theories of “repressive tolerance.” While she raises some important concerns about intolerance, Kelly-Woessner misses the…
Here at Margaret Farmer University, we’ve an academic tradition going back fifty years, to our days as an agricultural college. Founded by the Farmer family, we are named after our first president, whose brother was the college’s first Chief Fiscal Officer. The older generation of the Farmer family, known affectionately as “Ma” and “Pa,” set…