There are many signs that the slow economic recovery may finally be picking up some steam. Economists are forecasting 4% growth for 2014. Both the official and the actual unemployment numbers have been declining, albeit very incrementally, month after month and are finally approaching levels that could be impacted meaningfully by targeted jobs programs—if, of…
Last year, Paul Broun, a congressman from Georgia, was the featured speaker at a Sportsman’s Banquet at a Baptist church. I’m not sure what the keynote speakers at those banquets usually talk about, but Broun used his time at the microphone to observe, infamously, that embryology, evolution, and the Big Bang Theory are “lies straight…
This is another item that I am re-posting from Futility Closet (www.futilitycloset.com). It is re-posted with the permission of Greg Ross, who maintains the site. You can have daily updates from the site delivered to your e-mail each morning. ______________ In 1990, Spanish philosopher Jon Perez Laraudogoitia submitted an article to Mind entitled “This Article Should Not…
Today’s graduate students are caught in the swirl of several current trends that, if unchanged, lead toward a difficult future for them and for higher education. As students, they shoulder their share of the growing $1 billion in student loan debt and the daunting problems that burden carries. As the next generation of higher ed…
Merry Christmas, You’re Fired Two days before Christmas, all 20 employees of the Snarf’s Sub Shop at 600 West Chicago, in Chicago, received e-mails saying that their positions were being eliminated. According to the owners, the restaurant has persistently done considerably less business than projected, a complete overhaul of the menu and space has been…
Jamie Dimon is the oft-embattled CEO of J. P. Morgan Chase. The Dimon family’s 2013 Christmas card is a panoramic shot that has to be viewed in sections to be appreciated. At least one commentator has suggested that it looks like a Ralph Lauren advertisement: Not to be outdone, the Kardashian family has reportedly spent…
Last year, as Christmas approached, I gathered some articles that seemed to suggest that we weren’t quite understanding concept of “holiday spirit.” Here are the headlines to those articles: “Six Toys That Could Make a Progressive’s Head Explode” “A Jolly Christmas, Retailers Count the Extra Days” “Americans Buying More Gifts for That Special Someone—Themselves” “Five…
This is another item that I am re-posting from Futility Closet (www.futilitycloset.com). It is re-posted with the permission of Greg Ross, who maintains the site. You can have daily updates from the site delivered to your e-mail each morning. ______________
Yesterday John K. Wilson wrote about the Kansas Board of Regents new policy mandating institutional oversight of the blog posts, tweets, and other public digital communications of faculty and staff at Kansas colleges and universities. Because it is not restricted to communications made with institutional resources, this policy goes well beyond violating of academic freedom,…
An “On the Issues” Post from the Campaign for the Future of Higher Education [http://futureofhighered.org] _______________ As happens too often in higher education these days, the recent push to increase college completion rates shows how laudable goals can become problematic when pursued in narrow, rigid ways. Who wouldn’t want to increase the numbers of college…