I live in the deep South, in the Bible Belt, and to situate myself further, I would say I live on its belt buckle. When my wife and I moved here 22 years ago from Texas, a state which many think is already subject to the loud thump of the bible which rivals only that…
By Bill Ayers (reposted from billayers.org) The call for “trigger warnings”—a recent censorious trend gaining traction on American college campuses—is designed to alert students of any potentially troubling, unsettling, or upsetting course materials. The impetus is benign enough, and the context includes the important recent mobilization to deal seriously with epidemic levels of rape and…
The American conception of academic freedom arose with the Progressive Era in the 1890s primarily because of social scientists who advocated for reforms that negatively affected financial interests. The press – muckrakers and establishment papers – actively participated in the debate over academic freedom that took place during that time. The attention of the press sometimes helped professors…
Clara Wajngurt lists numerous ways that bullying can manifest itself on campus, from coworkers to students, and the possible effects, both psychological and physical. In her article for the May-June 2014 issue of Academe, she discusses not only the causes and symptoms of bullying, and ideas for how to end or prevent it. As her…
Actually, it turns out that the list depends at least somewhat on the audience whom Scott Jaschik is addressing. In an interview with E-Campus News [http://www.ecampusnews.com/top-news/ten-higher-ed-stories-020/], he listed the following ten stories: 1. College incompetence handling sexual assaults 2. Links between college sexual assaults and other issues 3. Sexual assaults and student athletes 4. Anonymous…
I receive a number of e-mailed newsletters from political blogs, and this was the headline of the daily newsletter from HuffPost Hill: How Do You Ask a Drone to Be the Last Drone to Crash for a Mistake?
The following two charts are being disseminated by Unions Work [http://www.unionswork.us]. Union Density and Income (In)Equality: Union Membership and the Middle-Class’s Percentage of the National Wealth:
John Dewey starts off Experience and Education (1938) with this: MANKIND likes to think in terms of extreme opposites. It is given to formulating its beliefs in terms of Either-Or, between which it recognizes no intermediate possibilities. When forced to recognize that the extremes cannot be acted upon, it is still inclined to hold that they are…
On first gloss this title might seem humorous, but my wife and I, who are childless by choice, have over the years been the proud people-companions and caretakers of three to four dachshunds at a time. On numerous occasions we have had to take our animals, called our children both by people who are supportive…
Was last week a bad week for the liberal arts and liberal arts majors? Not really, but it was hard to tell with headlines such as Liberal Arts Majors are Screwed, (More) bad news for liberal arts majors, and New Study: Is No Degree Better Than a Liberal Arts Degree. All three headlines were referring…