If you have been watching the new HBO anthology series, True Detective, you may be very ambivalent about watching tomorrow night’s final episode in the initial story. If you haven’t been watching, it features Matthew McConaughey and Woody Harrelson as detectives investigating a series of bizarre, ritualistically sadistic killings that have stretched over two decades.…
On March 9, 1964, the unanimous US Supreme Court issued its decision in the case of New York Times v. Sullivan, revolutionizing freedom of the press by requiring “actual malice” in defamation suits involving public figures. The case began when a fundraising ad for the civil rights movement appeared in the New York Times, criticizing…
Last month, I reported on the results of an annual study conducted by the National Science Foundation that measures the interest in and knowledge of basic science among a large sample of American adults. The study showed that the professed interest in science far exceeded the demonstrated knowledge of science. In fact, in some respects…
The Ohio Conference of AAUP (OCAAUP) has joined such groups as the Ohio Education Association (OEA), Ohio Federation of Teachers (OFT), New Faculty Majority (NFM), Ohio Part-Time Faculty Association (OPTFA), and Ohio Student Association (OSA) in forming a statewide advocacy group on issues related to higher education. After taking some time to create an operating…
David Coleman, head of the College Board (of SAT fame) and sparkplug to the creation of the Common Core State Standards (CCSS), seems to believe that if we can measure it, we can know it and evaluate it. He also seems to believe that measurement results in truth absolute, not truth relative, a mindset more…
unCommon News A crowd-powered newsletter for a writing-centered community February, 2014 Dear Friends, We hope all’s well with you and your classes. This month we are delighted to announce the winner of the Aaron Swartz Award for 2013: Congratulations, Andrea Scott, Assistant Professor at Pitzer College, whose article “Formulating a Thesis” was published in April 2013. We are honored to…
The following statement was released today by the Steering Committee of AAUP’s California Conference: The California Conference of the American Association of University Professors (CA-AAUP) endorses Assembly Bill 2705. The bill changes terms used by the California Education Code to describe the hard-working professional educators who now teach the majority of our community college students.…
One of the few Wall Street insiders to have been prosecuted for fraud related to the sale of sub-prime mortgage securities has been Fabrice Tourre, also known as “Fabulous Fab.” In 2007, just ahead of the economic collapse caused in great part by the bursting of the housing bubble, Tourre made $1.7 million largely from…
In my ongoing series “Right to Work, by the Numbers,” I have been trying to build the case that the “right to work” states are hardly the workers’ paradise that the Far Right portrays them to be. Instead, there is a none-too-subtle rhetorical sleight-of-hand at work here: the pro-labor states are derided as derided as…
A very recent post on the Department of Education blog Homeroom promotes “Arts in the Schools Month.” Written by Doug Herbert, a special assistant in the Office of Innovation and Improvement, the post begins: “The arts are an important part of a well-rounded education for all students. Arts-rich schools, those with high-quality arts programs and…