Clifford Adelman’s recent essay featured by Inside Higher Ed, “The Continued Coming of Second Language Students,” put both a smile and a frown on my face. I know that kind of display does not count as a formal or sufficient response in the field of education, so let me be more specific. I smiled because…
That’s how Jamienne Studley, Deputy Under Secretary at the Education Department, regards the Obama administration’s proposed system of ranking colleges. “This is not so hard to get your mind around.” Actually, it is. All blenders have a single purpose. They take certain types of organic material and combine them into products of chosen consistency. They can be judged…
One of the major sources of education funding in Missouri is the revenues produced by the state lottery and from riverboat gambling, both of which have been down this year. The state provides 36.76% of the funding for K-12 education, and 16.6% of that funding comes from the lottery and gaming. I could not find…
In the current frenzy of cost-cutting and budget slashing, many administrators are quick to blame what they determine are “less valuable” programs like the humanities and social sciences and cut funding to those programs accordingly—witness the governor of Florida recently saying that the state didn’t really need more anthropologists, anyway. Similarly, North Carolina governor Pat…
In January, British porn producer Johnny Rockard released a film that was largely shot on the Frenchay Campus of the University of the West of England in Bristol. The film focuses on Rockard’s supposed search for a new porn star, a search that ends when he finds a “psychology major,” played by established porn actress…
I doubt my college is unique in having offered over the years “events” too numerous to count where free pizza, ice cream, or doughnuts have been, if not the main course, at least one served up as part of some kind of learning experience. The publicity posters–first paper, now double-blasts of paper and email graphics–have…
Guest poster Michael McDevitt is professor in journalism and mass communication at the University of Colorado Boulder. He conducts research in political communication and is working on a book, Where Ideas Go to Die: Anti-Intellectualism in American Journalism. His e-mail address is mike.mcdevitt@colorado.edu. The killing of a school is never pleasant—especially when it’s your school—but a…
Yesterday, I was in Dayton, Ohio, meeting with several leaders of the Ohio Student Association (OSA). The Ohio Conference (OCAAUP) and our chapter at Wright State University have been supporting the group very enthusiastically. The OSA formed during the We Are Ohio campaign to repeal Senate Bill 5 as a mechanism for reaching voters 18-30.…
Guest blogger Alisa Roost is assistant professor of the humanities at Hostos Community College in the South Bronx. Her e-mail address is aroost@hostos.cuny.edu. Here, Roost writes about “Supporting Veterans in the Classroom,” an article that appeared recently in Academe. The United States has benefited from an all-volunteer military with both more professionalism in the armed…
Wow. Thank you all. Thank you so much. (Applause.) Thank you. “Dr. Obama”–I like that. (Laughter.) I think I’ll have everybody at home start calling me that. (Laughter.) Thank you. I am so honored to help you celebrate this wonderful day. And thank you, Ally; thank you, Dr. Knapp, for your generous introduction. I also…