Finding a good college president is a little like choosing the right college. You know it when you feel it. This is not to say that the best presidents are all things to all people. College presidencies are demanding jobs with multiple constituencies. A president’s calendar is much like the college’s budget – carefully rationed,…
Writing in The New York Times today, Vicki Madden, who works for the New York City Department of Education as an instructional coach, asks, How can we help our students prepare for the tug of war in their souls? She is addressing those who work with students from the lower side of the economic divide as they try…
This article by Western Michigan University AAUP chapter president Lisa Minnick was originally posted at her website, where you can also see photos of the event. By Lisa Minnick I have written about higher education and about labor rights, mostly in the context of the abysmal state of affairs when it comes to the political climate here in Michigan.…
With the recent news that Emory University hospital would be accepting yet another patient infected with the Ebola virus [https://time.com/3306305/emory-university-hospital-will-receive-another-ebola-patient/], the lunatic fringe of the Far Right went into overdrive to generate hysteria about the potential of Ebola to decimate the U.S. population. World Net Daily, the news source for those who think that National…
It is hard to say exactly what the long-term impact of the Occupy Wall Street movement will turn out to be. Will it seem in retrospect a very impassioned but transient response to a very serious economic crisis caused largely by the unprincipled marketing of mortgage-backed securities of very dubious value? Or will it be…
It is hardly surprising that as colleges and universities have struggled to maintain their finances in response to the deep reductions in state support and the sometimes volatile fluctuations in enrollment caused by the Great Recession, those institutions have allocated far fewer resources to maintaining their existing buildings and to the construction of new buildings.…
Capps, Benjamin. The Trail to Ogallala. New York: Duell, Sloan, and Pearce, 1964. The Trail to Ogallala is Capps’s most acclaimed novel, receiving the Spur Award of Western Writers of America, for best western novel of 1964, the Levi Strauss Golden Saddleman Award, for best western writing of 1964, and a citation by National Association…
The ongoing media concentration on cases of domestic abuse perpetrated by NFL players against their spouses and children has, for the moment, pushed the issue of sexual assaults on our college campuses largely to the margins of our national attention. Our ability to solve problems seems to be diminishing in proportion to the ability—or willingness–of…
Christopher Kennedy, chair of the University of Illinois Board of Trustees has never responded to my request for him to debate me when I speak on Monday in Urbana (Sept. 22, 7pm, Allen Hall, 1005 W. Gregory), but he has spoken to the Chicago Tribune and now the Champaign-Urbana News-Gazette about his decision. His interview…
Here we go again. And there’s more. Corinthian Colleges, after having dashed any academic hopes of its students, is now also accused of predatory lending. That the wake and fiasco continue should come as no surprise, as online education continues to be the equivalent of fast food in many instances–too convenient and advertised with the…