A group of professors at the University of Chicago—101 of them, or about 8 percent of the full-time faculty—is protesting the decision to establish an economics research institute on campus to be named after Milton Friedman. Their letter to the president of the university says the naming would “reinforce among the public a perception that […]
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A recently released report that claims to poke holes in the idea of Asian-American students as the “model minority” – excelling academically and outperforming white students in mathematics, engineering, and the sciences – looks more like the latest phase of a long-running effort by Asian-American activists to persuade college administrators to establish admissions quotas and […]
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The last two weeks have seen academic conferences on The Sopranos and Buffy The Vampire Slayer at Fordham University and Henderson State University respectively. What did they have to offer? The Fordham conference featured papers on “Carmela Soprano as Emma Bovary: European Culture, Taste, and Class in The Sopranos“, “A ‘Finook’ in the Crew: Vito […]
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Observing the sparring that has taken place between professors and conservative/libertarian critics outside the academy, many laypersons must wonder why professors grow so indignant over the criticism. They understand why professors disagree and want to defend themselves, but why so defensive? Why get mad? Other professions get chided – lawyers, doctors, politicians – and they […]
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Brandeis University is now officially committed to social justice. The university’s “Diversity Statement” says that the university considers social justice central to its mission. Is this controversial? Absolutely, says George Mason law professor David Bernstein, blogging at the Volokh Conspiracy. Universities shouldn’t be in the social justice business, according to Bernstein, a Brandeis alum who […]
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There’s good news coming out of the state of Georgia’s public universities. The University System of Georgia, which sets standards for the state’s 35 public colleges, recently jettisoned its controversial top-down plan to replace its core-curriculum requirements for undergraduates with a vaguely defined interdisciplinary program that was supposedly aimed at training students to live in […]
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Prince Al Waleed bin Talal of Saudi Arabia, the world’s 19th richest man with a net worth of $21 billion, recently gave a 16 million British pound donation to the University of Cambridge and the University of Edinburgh to launch two research centers for Islamic studies. The signing ceremony was attended by Prince Philip, the […]
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Harvard president Drew Faust spoke at the ROTC commissioning ceremony, a controversial act on a campus where hostility to all things military is entrenched orthodoxy. The question hanging in the air was: will she tarnish a celebratory moment by taking the opportunity to denounce “Don’t ask, don’t tell,” or perhaps irritate the anti-military crowd by […]
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As the twelve-year tenure of popular President Timothy Sullivan drew to a close in the Spring of 2005, the search for his successor was well underway. Under the direction of the Rector of the College’s governing Board of Visitors, Susan Magill, a political appointee whose day job was chief of staff for Virginia Senator John […]
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What are we to make of the decision by a growing number of “highly selective” colleges to scrap the Scholastic Aptitude Test (SAT) as a criterion for college admission, something brought to our attention recently when another pair of semi-elite schools (Smith and Wake Forest) joined these ranks? The New York Times story of May […]
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Here’s a field of academic endeavor that I’ll bet you’ve never heard of (and may not even want to know about): “waste studies.” And it’s not the study of sewage systems or waste-processing plants, either. It’s about, as its founder, Susan Signe Morrison, an English professor at Texas State University’s San Marcos campus, explained to […]
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In the midst of a profoundly boring commencement season, there have been only a few graduation speeches worth noticing: – Craig Newmark, Craigslist founder, delivered commencement addresses at Case Western Reserve and UC Berkeley. He doesn’t seem to have, well, written the latter speech. Descriptions of the “improvisatory” speech involved terms such as “off the […]
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“Each successive generation since the mid-60s has read less, mastered a smaller body of knowledge, and possessed a more meager vocabulary than its predecessors. What makes the members of the current generation different is that they appear unembarrassed by their ignorance. The products of a school system devised and maintained by the processed-oriented professors of […]
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The May 30th issue of The Chronicle of Higher Education ponders the state of Americans’ knowledge about science (quite low) and what to do about it. The Chronicle reports that one-third of Adults do not know that the earth revolves around the sun, and only three-fifth agreed with the statement “Astrology is not at all […]
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The overwhelming majority of American catholic colleges won’t be honoring public figures that flout church teaching at this year’s commencement exercises, according to the Cardinal Newman Society, the conservative Catholic watchdog group. Of the hundreds of men and women who will be awarded honorary degrees by the nation’s 225 Catholic universities this month, the Society […]
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Steven Aird, who taught biology, was denied tenure and dismissed by Norfolk State University in Virginia for failing too many students. Though Aird isn’t talking publicly about the case, Inside Higher Ed reports that university documents he released make clear that his pattern of giving low and failing marks was the sole reason he was […]
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This past winter, Andy Ram and Jonathan Erlich, a men’s doubles team who captured the 2008 Australian Open championship, announced plans to enter the ATP tournament in Dubai. Normally, tennis players’ schedules aren’t big news. But Ram and Erlich are citizens of Israel, and the government of the United Arab Emirates prohibits holders of Israeli […]
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The student who pied Thomas Friedman at Brown has been suspended for the fall semester. Disrupting college speakers carries consequences? Who would have thought?
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Recently The Chronicle of Higher Education (May 9, 2008) devoted four full pages to a new book by two professors at the University of Chicago, Richard Thaler and Cass Sunstein, one a professor of economics and behavioral science and the other a professor of law. The book, entitled Nudge: Improving Decisions About Health, Wealth and […]
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The only concern I have about the brouhaha at Washington University in St. Louis over its decision to award an honorary doctorate to one of its most famous alumni, Phyllis Schlafly, is: how come it took Washington so long? Schlafly has more than enough academic credentials: she graduated with honors and a Phi Beta Kappa […]
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At Wheaton college, employees who are divorcing are required to confer with the university to determine if their divorce meets biblical standards. Kent Gramm, an English professor, notified the university of his divorce, but refused to discuss it. The college found this unacceptable. Gramm is resigning. Many have criticized the college’s actions. Bill McGurn, writing […]
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The student loan crisis – or near crisis; narrowly-averted crisis ; or postponed crisis – no one is sure – comes co-incidentally at a moment when many colleges and universities are once again repackaging their basic programs. The new buzzword, as John Leo has pointed out is “sustainability.” I also recently tried my hand at […]
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Chancellor G. P. Peterson of the University of Colorado, Boulder, plans to raise $9 million to endow a visiting chair in conservative thought and policy, on grounds that intellectual diversity is a good thing. Like all radical ideas, having an unorthodox professor on campus sounds a bit risky, maybe even startling, but after some reflection, […]
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– Ilya Somin at Volokh Conspiracy wonders why some prominent universities don’t have law schools – Princeton, Brown, Johns Hopkins, Rice, and Tufts are law-school-less. As is Brandeis, ironic as he notes, “for a prominent university named after a Supreme Court justice.” He’s surprised they haven’t made the leap. Take a look. – Harvard’s new […]
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The Faculty Senate at the University of Delaware is meeting later today to discuss approving the controversial Residence Life (ResLife) proposal for educational programming in the residence halls. The faculty should approve the proposal, partly because it’s a good idea, but primarily because academic freedom is endangered whenever voluntary educational programs are banned. Conservative critics […]
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[Read John K. Wilson’s defense of Delaware ResLife here] The University of Delaware Office of Residence Life has tricked another outsider, John K. Wilson, into believing that its proposal to run a highly politicized indoctrination program for over 7,000 students in the school’s residence halls is actually just a free exploration of diverse views in […]
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Will Shortz, the famous crossword puzzle editor for the New York Times, gave the commencement address last week at his alma mater, the University of Indiana. Using his trademark cleverness and brain-taxing ambiguity, Shortz has brilliantly transformed the modern crossword. Early in the week, his Times puzzles are fairly easy (Monday, Tuesday) but each day’s […]
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Despite a great flurry of activity to expand financial aid at selective colleges over the past several years, a new study by the Chronicle of Higher Education reported this gloomy bottom line: “Top Colleges Admit Fewer Low-Income Students.” As someone who has worked for more than a decade to push colleges to enroll more economically […]
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KC Johnson continues to pay indefatigable attention to the Group of 88 at Durham-in-Wonderland. We missed a post two weeks ago, but it’s certainly worth a look: Waheena Lubiano, the famously prolific Duke professor, recently co-authored a piece in Social Text (along with fellow group member Michael Hardt, and another professor) on the trials of […]
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Confirming what college administrators have known for years, Education Sector has released a report based on U.S. Department of Education figures detailing huge gaps between the college graduation rates of white students and those of blacks. The gap (measured by failure to graduate within six years from a four-year institution) averages about 20 percent, although […]
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