A year ago, in the wake of the protests across the Muslim world ostensibly sparked by the Internet trailer for the film Innocence of Muslims, Aya Bratrawy and Rachel Zoll, writing for the Associated Press, collaborated on the article “An Overview about the Prophet Muhammad and Why He is So Revered by Muslims.” The writers…
Part 3: Reduce the Cost of a Degree by 40% by Reducing Labor and Capital Costs. [Explanatory lead to the first post in this series: Richard Vedder is distinguished professor of economics at Ohio University, director of the Center for College Affordability and Productivity, and an adjunct scholar at the American Enterprise Institute. In an…
I teach courses in postcolonial literatures and cultures, and I like to think that I have moved largely beyond a self-referential and reductive perception of unfamiliar aspects of other cultures as exotic or bizarre. But then I come across a news item that leaves me wondering whether it is worth my time to wonder what…
Cultural Representations of Higher Ed, No. 11 College and University Administrators: Anne Packer-Brown, a dean (created by Virginia Crosby); Grace Forrester, a retired dean (created by Ruth Galbraith); Peter Haas (created by Robin Wilson); Isabel Macintosh, a dean of the faculty (created by Herbert Resnicow); Jack Troutbeck, a president of a women’s college (created by…
Part 2: Deliver Half of a Baccalaureate Degree by MOOC [Explanatory lead to the first post in this series (): Richard Vedder is distinguished professor of economics at Ohio University, director of the Center for College Affordability and Productivity, and an adjunct scholar at the American Enterprise Institute. In an earlier post, I pointed out,…
As American colleges and universities emerge weaker but wiser from the Great Recession, it is also time to think about how best to move forward with capital projects long delayed or shelved. What, then, are the preconditions determining which projects go forward? What seemed to be an essential capital expenditure five years ago may not…
Part 1: Three-Year Baccalaureate Degrees Richard Vedder is distinguished professor of economics at Ohio University, director of the Center for College Affordability and Productivity, and an adjunct scholar at the American Enterprise Institute. In an earlier post, I pointed out, as others have, that he is hardly an unbiased or objective commentator on the state…
After the long Labor Day weekend, as another academic year truly begins, here are what seem to be intimations of a coming apocalypse. If the world as we know it is not coming to an end, the creation of these objects suggests that perhaps it should be. So, with any luck, that class preparation or…
This is an open letter sent by Perez to the United Auto Workers. Brother and Sisters: From the U.S. Department of Labor, where I proudly work in a building named for my great predecessor Frances Perkins, let me wish all of my friends in the United Auto Workers and your families–wherever you are–a safe, happy…
Statement by President Lyndon Johnson, Labor Day, 1968. THE TRADEMARK of the American labor movement has long been an unyielding stand for individual dignity and economic justice. On this Labor Day, with employment hitting an all-time peak of almost 78 million and a record proportion of citizens sharing in our Nation’s vast wealth, this stand…