Three years ago, my newly appointed dean asked if I would take on responsibility for New York City College of Technology’s Associate degree in Liberal Arts and Arts with a primary focus on overseeing advisement. What I have learned about our students since then is astonishing–astonishing, that is, in the ignorance it highlights, in the…
At this morning’s 100th meeting of the American Association of University Professors (AAUP), the AAUP membership voted unanimously to censure Northeastern Illinois University (NEIU) for denying tenure to John Boyle without adequate cause and in retaliation for his department’s involvement in criticizing the administration, violating academic freedom and due process. Illinois AAUP Committee A Chair…
Although the increases in the compensation by college and university presidents represent a negligible percentage of their institutions’ budgets, they do very clearly set a baseline for the compensation received by other administrators—their subordinates and the subordinates of their subordinates–and reflect the continuing corporatization of our institutions as it is manifested in the broader increases…
My father was an absent man and perhaps that is why his presence appears more often now, once I have opened my memory bank. When my brother and I were growing up, he was gone most of the time, traveling and making a living for his family. But before his travels grew to Gulliver proportions…
By now it is a cliché, the math or science professor whom no one can understand. If one complains one might be accused of being culturally insensitive or racist. Or told to be open-minded and listen more carefully (I suppose the mind and ear are connected). Or worse, and commonly, “Well, we couldn’t find…
The following is the text of remarks as prepared for delivery by Attorney General Eric Holder at the Morgan State University commencement ceremony in Baltimore on Saturday, May 17, 2014. The transcript was provided by the Justice Department’s Office of Public Affairs. _________________________ Thank you, President [David] Wilson, for those kind words-–and thank you all…
On May 16-18, the Campaign for the Future of Higher Education’s 7th National Gathering drew nearly 100 faculty, student and organizational leaders to the Desmond Hotel in Albany, New York, where the organization held panel discussions and workshops surrounding a theme of “Building Alliances for Access, Equity and Quality.” The increasing problem of student debt was…
Guild, Nicholas M. The Summer Soldier. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1978. Guild has taught at Clemson University and Ohio State University. He has written almost a dozen novels, many dealing with espionage. For The Summer Soldier, Guild received the Ohioana Book Award. The novel focuses on a retired C.I.A. operative who returns home one…
Rep. Alan Grayson is well known as a progressive advocate in Congress, and a strong supporter of civil liberties. That makes the bill he just proposed even more appalling. On May 30, 2014, the very same day that Grayson passed an important amendment banning funding for prosecuting journalists for refusing to reveal their sources, Grayson introduced H.R. 4776, “To prohibit…
This is not so much in response to Mary Flanagan’s essay, “The Classroom as Arcade,” recently published by Inside Higher Ed, which features a vivid observation of a student in class who “check[ed] out from a class he likes” to play a role-playing game on an electronic device while others “openly engaged with their Facebook pages,”…