Where Were You When Kennedy Was Shot?

Over the last fifty years, this question has become a cultural cliché—and a much longer lived cliché than most.  But, as we have now celebrated the fiftieth anniversary of the assassination, it seems poignantly obvious that that cliché will continue to have currency only for a few more decades, until the last of those who…

Administrative Bloat–with Ohio’s Public Universities Providing the Illustration: 2012 Update

■ Gordon Gee, Ohio State 2011: Total Compensation, $1,992,221: Base Salary, $814,157; Bonus Pay, $296,786; Deferred Compensation, Set Aside, $881,278. Rank among Public University Presidents in the U.S.: 1. 2012: Total Compensation: $1,899,420; Base Salary, $830,439. Rank among Public University Presidents in the U.S.: 3. His compensation declined marginally, but he dropped three places in…

Tips for Navigating Corporatized Colleges and Universities

Guest blogger Jeanne Zaino is professor of political science and international studies at Iona College. In his provocative and deeply depressing The Last Professors Frank Donoghue warns that corporate logic has taken over the academy.  His findings are confirmed by Andrew DeBlanco who, in his award winning College: What it Was, Is, and Should Be not…

The New Working Class?

The dogs started in on it. I clicked off the computer screen and walked upstairs to answer the door. My wife was already on the stoop, talking to an earnest-looking couple. She had given them a dollar for a copy of The Militant, the small ‘paper associated with the Socialist Workers Party (SWP) and was trying…

Participate or Perish – New Issue of Academe available now

The new issue of Academe, which looks at the public policy landscape for higher ed, has just been posted online. The issue is guest-edited by Brian Turner, a professor of political science at Randolph-Macon College in Virginia and chair of the AAUP’s Government Relations Committee. Turner tells a story in his introduction to the issue which is…

Bonehead(s) of the Week

Lindel Toups is a member of the Parish Council of LaFourche Parish, Louisiana. Under normal circumstances, his chances of coming to national media attention would seem extremely minimal. But Lindel Toups seems to have been very determined to beat those long odds. Toups has achieved his fifteen minutes of notoriety by pushing a ballot measure…

Horror and Beauty through Adjacent Lenses

Between the typhoon that has devastated the Philippines and the outbreak of tornadoes that have devastated the Midwest, the media has presented us with pictures of terrible devastation on a scale that we have not seen since Hurricane Sandy. These first two photos are of the ruined landscape that Typhoon Haiyan left in its wake…

Far-Right Humor and Irony on Campus

With all of the attention being paid to “Leftist” professors using class time, university e-mail, or even social media to “force their ideology” on their students, it is hard (for me, at least) to pass up the opportunity to cite Far-Right abuses of political expression on campus. The Young Conservatives of Texas, a student group…

Guns, Politics, and Academic Studies

The following piece was written by my former student and friend Mike Lamm. Mike is a reporter for the Decatur Daily Democrat. _________________________ A new study of gun violence in the United States, recently published in the American Journal of Public Health and conducted by researchers at Boston University, has established a convincing statistical connection…