The other morning I opened my email, as I do every morning, to find this lovely message: “I saw online that you are leaving UW because of working conditions. I had a look at your ‘areas of expertise’ and I have to say I am delighted you are leaving. People with your ‘areas of expertise’…
Discussion, at least via social media, is growing relating to the evolving caste system in higher education and the real meaning (that is, the actual impact) of academic freedom. Many of the basics—the shrinking tenure-track/tenured faculty, the contractual limitations to codified academic freedom—have been bandied about so much that they are now almost clichés. The…
Bill Maher responded to Scott Walker’s performance in the first Republican debate by asking, “Scott Walker! What’s wrong with your face? You look like the kid who is carrying a dead bird in his pocket!”
“Joe the Plumber” came to national attention during the 2008 presidential election because he was very willing to denounce the economic “safety net” programs from which he was then actually benefiting in order to argue for the lowest possible taxes on the wealth that he was certain that he would eventually earn. The last that…
Yesterday, I made an initial post on these issues and included the university president’s statement on them to the university community. This is a follow-up post that provides an list of the media coverage of the investigation. Since Joerg Tiede asked about an ambiguous element of the situation in response to yesterday’s post, I will…
The American Prospect, a liberal periodical, distributes a weekly e-newsletter, The Labor Prospect, highlighting the best reporting and latest developments in the labor movement. The latest missive reports, among other stories, that “more and more Americans are recognizing that unions are a crucial component in the workplace, according to a new Gallup poll. Rising five percentage points…
Chandler, Raymond. The Long Goodbye. Boston: Houghton, 1954. In creating Philip Marlowe, Raymond Chandler followed the model that Dashiell Hammett provided in Sam Spade. Both are hardboiled detectives who expect the worst of most people and are seldom proven to be overly pessimistic. Both operate on the dangerous ground between the criminal underworld and…
While attending the Summer Institute, I was asked fairly frequently to comment on a video that had just been released by Wright State that was linked to in brief articles in both the Chronicle of Higher Education and Inside Higher Ed. The video featured statements by both the university president, David Hopkins, and Michael Bridges,…
The following is from an article by Rick Armon for the Akron Beacon-Journal: “The University of Akron is rehiring UA Press workers that it let go last month and says its publishing arm will remain ‘a vibrant, active academic press.’ “’The University of Akron Press has been and will continue to be a vital part…
The federal data that will be presented in this series of posts was analyzed by the New England Center for Investigative Reporting (NCIR) in collaboration with the American Institutes for Research. The NECIR story on the data and its implications, written by Jon Marcus, who is currently an editor at the Hechinger Report, is available…