In the July, 2015 issue of The Baffler, Siva Vaidhyanathan, one of today’s most insightful public intellectuals and a professor of Media Studies and Law at the University of Virginia, sparked by Thorstein Veblen’s 1918 book The Higher Learning In America: A Memorandum On the Conduct of Universities By Business Men, examines the current state of American higher education…
Burrows, Sister Joanne [President Clarke University]. “College More Valuable than Simple, Straight Path.” Telegraph Herald [Dubuque, IA] 20 Sep. 2015: A, 17. Current debates about what a college education should be, and be for, bring to mind the theorem: “The shortest distance between two points is a straight line.” That works until you leave…
Bowie, Liz. “The Towson U. Community Honors Maravene Loeschke; Memorial Pays Tribute to Former President Who Died of Cancer in June.” Baltimore Sun 19 Sep. 2015: A, 2. They sang, danced and told stories about Maravene Loeschke at Towson University on Friday, as hundreds celebrated the life of the late university president described as…
I did not become a college professor because I am particularly brave. I started a Masters’ program in American Studies at the University of Minnesota twenty-five years ago, thinking that it would enable me to teach community college, to piece together what the writer Jackie Regales calls “A Patchwork Life” of writing and teaching. I…
Earlier this month, Adam Davidson wrote a fascinating yet deeply troubling piece in the New York Times titled: “Is College Tuition Really Too High?” Davidson explores the relationship between the student and the aid offered to the student by the college or university in which the student enrolls. He concludes, “Our system gives three times…
“Editorial: Measuring the Payoff of College.” Tampa Bay Times 18 Sep. 2015: A, 10. President Barack Obama wisely abandoned his plan for the federal government to rank all 7,000 American institutions of higher learning, from Harvard to hairdressing schools. But the U.S. Education Department has done something smarter. It has created a vast database…
This item has nothing to do with higher education. But indulge me. Murder Suspect, Trial Witness Mistakenly Put in Same Cell Friday, September 18, 2015 LIMA, Ohio (AP) — A jailed murder suspect and another inmate who was about to testify against him got into a fight in a holding cell after a guard…
On September, 17, an investigative article by Lance Lambert and Josh Sweigart was published in the Dayton Daily News. Its title is “’Bloat’ Driving Rise in Tuition; Administrative Pay Rising Faster than Cost for Instruction.” For too long, administrators have been, at best, acquiescing to and, at worst, reinforcing to state legislators and to the public…
Addo, Koran. “Degrees Earned by UMSL’s Minority Students Jump 18 Percent in a Year.” St Louis Post-Dispatch 17 Sep. 2015: A, 13. Of all the things University of Missouri-St. Louis Chancellor Thomas George said during his annual State of the University address on Wednesday, the most eye-popping was his revelation that the number of…
Condon, Richard. Prizzi’s Honor. New York: Coward, McCann, and Geogehan, 1982. Prizzi’s Honor brought Richard Condon to more attention than any of his books, with the possible exception of The Manchurian Candidate (1959). With Janet Roach, Condon co-wrote the screenplay for the film adaptation of the novel, directed by John Huston and starring Jack…