Irresponsible Expressions of Dissent?

Readers of this blog know that I have been reporting occasionally on the continuing conflict between faculty, staff, and students at City College of San Francisco (CCSF) and the Accrediting Commission for Community and Junior Colleges (ACCJC), which has threatened to revoke CCSF’s accreditation on what many — including San Francisco’s City Attorney and other…

College and the Growing American Divide

This was no surprise: Deluged by more applications than ever, the most selective colleges are, inevitably, rejecting a vast majority, including legions of students they once would have accepted. Admissions directors at these institutions say that most of the students they turn down are such strong candidates that many are indistinguishable from those who get…

This Is My Idea of a Nightmare—Even If the Cruise Ship Doesn’t Sink, the Toilets Remain Operable, and Some Sort of Rampaging Illness Doesn’t Leave Most of the Passengers Yearning Desperately for Dry Land and Their Own Beds

Anticipating a favorable outcome to the November elections, the National Review is already advertising its post-election cruise. For about $2,000, you can spend a week listening to and rubbing shoulders with the following line-up of “conservative stars”: Former Congressman Col. Allen West, Acclaimed historian Victor Davis Hanson, Former US Senators Jon Kyl and Fred Thompson, Former governors Tim Pawlenty (MN) and Luis…

A Message to Parents: How Families Contribute to College Costs

It’s early April and most students have received word from the colleges and universities to which they applied.  They – and their families – have reached one important marker on a road traveled that had detours, bumps, and occasional bad weather.  But, the visibility improved and the direction is clearer now. Congratulations to these applicants…

The Top Issues Facing Higher Education in 2014 and Beyond

Writing for Forbes, John Ebersole, the president of Excelsior College, has identifeid the following ten issues as the most significant issues facing higher education this year: 1. Cost. 2. Renewal of the Higher Education Act. 3. Workforce development. 4. Competency-based education. 5. Accreditation. 6. Assessment. 7. Quality assurance in non-institutional learning. 8. Recognition of the…

Fearing Libel, Cambridge University Press Rejects a Book

Cambridge University Press has decided not to publish a book about corruption in Russia by Karen Dawisha out of fears that British libel law would leave it vulnerable to litigation. In response to the letter from Cambridge University Press, Dawisha wrote the following open letter. By Karen Dawisha, Miami University Thank you for the recent letter…

The Play's Only One Thing: Renewing the Relevance of Literary Studies

Marc Bousquet writes in The Chronicle of Higher Education of “The Moral Panic in Literary Studies” today. He believes that it stems from “loyalty to a pedagogy from the 1950s.” I think he’s right—and I’ve little sympathy for the handwringers. Though I do think that the shift in English Departments toward Rhetoric and Composition and Digital Humanities…

100 Years in Bulletin and Academe Covers

With Academe magazine now in its hundredth volume, it seems an appropriate time to look back on the history of the AAUP’s periodicals. The AAUP was founded in January 1915 and published the first Bulletin of the American Association of University Professors, which included what is now called the Declaration of Principles on Academic Freedom…

Go Philosophy! More Good News about a Liberal Arts Education

Pointed out in InsideHigherEd, and The Fiscal Times among several reports, a recent study from the Association for American College and Universities (AACU) stated that “liberal arts majors enjoy comparable long-term career prospects as students who obtain degrees in more “useful” fields. Students who study the liberal arts do about as well as most college…

Why Won’t President Obama Visit North Dakota?

  In August 2013, the National Journal published an article by Amy Harder that begins: “North Dakota is like an overachieving child who attracts the attention of everyone—except Dad. “The oil boom taking over western North Dakota and transforming America’s energy landscape has prompted visits from people around the world—Germany, Turkey, Japan, Dubai, and elsewhere—to…