Things seemed promising when the 2023 Michigan Wolverines won their first national championship since 1997, with head coach Jim Harbaugh leading the team to victory. College football fans praised his leadership, grateful for the long-awaited success. But as soon as Harbaugh became the subject of NCAA scrutiny, it became clear that triumph would soon give […]
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Editor’s Note: This essay is a condensed version of the author’s previous piece for Minding the Sciences, titled “The Evolution of Intelligent Design Theory.” You can read the full-length version here. Headlines occasionally flash across the start page of my Microsoft browser’s newsfeed that feature articles about Darwinian evolution or the supposed chemical origin of […]
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Super/Man: The Christopher Reeve Story appears in theaters on October 11. I have a confession to make, and I’ve often thought about writing it down. This seems like the appropriate time. Here goes. I think I might have killed Christopher Reeve. There, I feel better already. I should say that I meant to kill Superman […]
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In 2005, an independent scholar and African art connoisseur and trader privately published a book called Phantom Voyagers: Evidence of Indonesian Settlement in Ancient Times. I read the book one year later after having met Mr. Dick-Read in the African Art section of the British Museum, where they keep the infamous Benin Bronzes looted by […]
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University faculty and staff face one of the oldest problems on campus: what free speech means. Our students are entering an extraordinarily polarized world that encourages them to think only in binary terms: yes, this is right, or no, this is wrong. It is our responsibility to equip them with the critical thinking skills to […]
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For some students, the thought of studying away from home can feel nerve-wracking, but for others, the chance to visit new horizons and learn somewhere new couldn’t be more exciting. Whether it’s an essential part of your course or you plan on living abroad in the future, studying overseas is more than just an academic […]
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If you’ve spent any time in higher education, you’ve probably been told that all white people are inherently racist, police forces should be defunded, and that “diversity, equity, and inclusion”—with a new side of “belonging”—should guide every aspect of modern life. Maybe you’ve even sat through a diversity training where microaggressions are sins and America’s […]
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A terrified junior who had just switched her major to science stepped into her General Chemistry I Laboratory like a rabbit in a wolf’s den. Handing the finished pre-lab to her teaching assistant, she returned to her place at the lab bench, a myriad of unpleasant grading scenarios racing through her head. Not long later, […]
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I graduated from a small state teacher’s college in 1963, majoring in physical sciences and math. While I was not privy to overall grade distributions there, I know that Cs, Ds, and failure were not uncommon. This was simply a fact of life and was understood by all. I later became interested in spatial science, […]
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There is a bit of a tempest in a teapot now taking place in academia. Well, scratch there. It is more than a molehill; it is a mountain, given how what occurs on campus—wokeism, Marxism, feminism, black studies, queer studies—all too soon percolates into the general society. What is the present controversy? Academic freedom and […]
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Imagine an American college or university president making the following public statement: “I regret that my institution, along with many others, has contributed to burdensome federal student loan debt and to rising college tuition levels, allowing our institutions to profit from the existence of student loan monies. At the same time, we have failed to […]
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Editor’s Note: This article was originally published by the College Fix on October 4, 2024 and is crossposted here with permission. Singer Beyoncé and her contribution to the “black radical tradition” and “black feminist” thought is the focus of a multidisciplinary course at Yale University. “Beyoncé Makes History: Black Radical Tradition History, Culture, Theory & Politics through Music,” […]
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Editor’s Note: This article was originally published on the author’s Substack, Science Is Not The Answer, on September 10, 2024 and is crossposted here with permission. One reason there is so much Bad Science, as I have said many times, is that there is too much science. Rather, too much activity in the name of science. […]
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Author’s Note: This excerpt is from my weekly “Top of Mind” email, sent to subscribers every Thursday. For more content like this and to receive the full newsletter each week, sign up on Minding the Campus’s homepage. Simply go to the right side of the page, look for “SIGN UP FOR OUR WEEKLY NEWSLETTER, ‘TOP OF MIND,’” and […]
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Editor’s Note: This article was originally published by the National Assocation of Scholars on October 1, 2024 and is crossposted here with permission. Shadows of Influence: Uncovering Hidden Foreign Funds to American Universities, the latest report by the National Association of Scholars (NAS), written by Neetu Arnold, unearths some staggering truths about unreported foreign gifts to American colleges […]
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In the summer of 2023, the University System of Georgia (USG), led by Chancellor Sonny Perdue, announced a new directive: all institutions must remove “diversity, equity, and inclusion” (DEI) statements from hiring documents. During an August meeting at Kennesaw State University’s (KSU) Coles College of Business, Dean Robin Cheramie relayed this change, sparking a moment […]
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Editor’s Note: This article was originally published by the College Fix on September 27, 2024 and is crossposted here with permission. Students hoping to hear from a Republican professor in the philosophy, classics, and history department are likely going to be disappointed at the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill. That is because there does not appear to […]
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First-generation students and those facing housing insecurity face unique challenges entering their first year of college beyond getting accepted. Once admitted, they must navigate the various administrative offices and processes. Additionally, there’s a critical gap in support during the summer transition period before students begin college. More programs are also needed to help students stay enrolled and […]
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With October 7 approaching, campus protests against Israel cannot be too far behind. We’ve already seen a few. For example, “Protesters return to Columbia University as the fall semester begins.” Emerson College in Boston was the starting point for a pro-Palestinian march throughout the streets of that city. Students for Justice in Palestine organized a […]
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Editor’s Note: This article was originally published by PJ Media on September 17, 2024, and is cross-posted here with permission. Canada is officially a multicultural society, thanks to Trudeau pere et fils. According to PM Justin Trudeau, Canada has no cultural core, and is a post-national society. This framing ignores the relevant evidence: Canada has two official languages, […]
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Editor’s Note: This article was originally published by the College Fix on October 1, 2024 and is crossposted here with permission. There are zero identifiable Republican professors in at least seven of the humanities majors at North Carolina State University, a College Fix analysis found. The Fix found 158 Democrats and 8 Republicans teaching in the 10 humanities majors reviewed. The […]
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Online learning has become a normal part of the undergraduate experience, with more than half of all students taking at least one online course in fall 2022. And an increasing proportion of colleges are using online program managers (OPMs)—third-party servicers—to provide their courses to students. OPMs typically put up their own money to build and […]
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Another day, another science scandal. Recently, we learned that leading Alzheimer’s disease and Parkinson’s disease researcher Eliezer Masliah is seriously suspected of research misconduct. A Science investigation has now found that scores of Masliah’s] lab studies at UCSD and NIA are riddled with apparently falsified Western blots—images used to show the presence of proteins—and micrographs of brain […]
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This past year, I have seen headlines flash across the start page of my Microsoft browser’s newsfeed that featured articles about the supposed chemical origin of life. Was it the result of aliens seeding our planet billions of years ago—a theory called Panspermia? Or an asteroid bombardment with trace amino acids and nucleic acids, the […]
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New York subway scene. Two women. The one with Swedish braids and wearing an army jacket is cradling an umbrella and two flags. One looks like the flag of Yemen, and the other is probably Palestinian. The other woman rests three printed yellow and black poster signs on the floor. One reads “Stand with Palestine. […]
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College Presidents for Civic Preparedness, an organization intended to help their schools become “beacons of free inquiry and civil discourse,” recently announced that it has expanded to 100 members, all of whom have “pledged to champion critical inquiry, free expression, and civil discourse on their campuses.” With this announcement, the organization released an “inaugural progress […]
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A prime piece of scientific research intended to ameliorate the irreproducibility crisis has itself been withdrawn for failing to adhere to proper reproducibility standards. One of the prime directives of reproducibility reformers is to preregister your research—say in advance what you intend to do and how you will do it—so we know you didn’t repurpose […]
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Many students who planned on using federal student aid like Pell Grants and student loans to attend college this year faced an unexpected obstacle: the Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA). The FAFSA had long been criticized for being too long and complicated, so in December 2020, Congress passed the FAFSA Simplification Act. The […]
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The Chronicle of Higher Education (CHE) recently published a brief, useful, and competent artificial intelligence (AI) guide for university administrators, “Adapting to AI: How to understand, prepare for, and innovate in a changing landscape.” The author is Taylor Swaak, a reporter for CHE. Swaak has done her homework for this Guide, living up to her […]
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An extraordinary scholar and polymath, Amy Wax, has been formally sanctioned by the University of Pennsylvania (Penn), although not fired, as many of her detractors attempted to do. Professor Wax has earned degrees from Harvard, Yale, Oxford, and Columbia, including an M.D. in neurology, in addition to her law degree. She has argued 15 cases […]
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