In my 1996 book Generation X Goes to College, I predicted that virtually anyone with a computer and a modem would have access to the storehouse of human knowledge. As a result, higher education as we know would become an anachronism, if not obsolete. The university’s status would diminish because it would lose its competitive […]
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Gallup reports today that most Americans understand the higher-ed crisis at least partially. Indeed, a new survey shows that 59% “strongly agree” that colleges and universities should “reduce tuition and fees.” While they’d be crazy not to think this, it’s reassuring that a large percentage of the population recognizes that higher-ed institutions are mostly to […]
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The Chronicle of Higher Education reports this morning that a new study by the American Council on Education discovered the “stark lack of representation” of Asian-Americans among leaders of higher education. “Despite leadership inroads made by other racial minority groups,” ACE announced, “only 1.5 percent of college and university presidents are Asian Pacific Islander Americans.” […]
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Charles and David Koch are reportedly interested in buying the Tribune Company’s eight newspapers, including The Los Angeles Times, The Chicago Tribune and The Baltimore Sun. According to The New York Times, this is less about making a profit than acquiring a platform to extol the brothers’ laissez-faire ideas. Current estimates put the price tag […]
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The New York Times recently published a fascinating piece that exposed the fraudulent research of one Diederik Stapel, a professor of social psychology at Tilburg University in The Netherlands. What we learn from the piece is applicable to America, where the incentives for producing worthless research are no different. Stapel had become an academic star […]
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Move over MOOCs, a different model is coming to town–blended learning. Deep within the New York Times’ article today on online courses, readers learned of the “striking” success of San Jose University’s pilot blended course. While MOOCs dominate conversations about the future of higher-ed, it’s the blended model, which combines face-to-face interaction with web based […]
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PETER WOOD: Samuel Goldman seeks to distinguish the small and marginal subset “conservative defenders of liberal education” from other kinds of conservatives. He places these poor folks “in a blind alley.” They are, he says, at odds both with “potential allies outside the conservative movement” and with the conservative movement itself, which finds its center of […]
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I found much to admire and little to disagree with in Sam Goldman’s defense of liberal education. Well, I was offended that he called my use of “cultural transmission” postmodern. I wasn’t offended for any good reason, of course. Putting the techno-phrase in quotes is, of course, a postmodern or cloyingly ironic “move.” It is a way […]
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What’s conservative about liberal education? On any serious consideration, the answer is: a lot. Students do pick up marketable skills when they take classes in literature, history, or philosophy. But the real purpose of studying languages, books, and arguments is to initiate them as members of a community of free men and women, the present […]
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Wednesday’s episode of “Law & Order, Special Victims Unit” dealt with fictionalized versions of recent campus rape cases. In the story, a fraternity produces a crude, misogynistic t-shirt (left). The real T-shirt it is based on (right) was far worse. It was produced and sold last year by an unauthorized frat at Amherst College. Jezebel and AVC have […]
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Time to end it, says the Economist: Universities that want to improve their selection procedures by identifying talented people (of any colour or creed) from disadvantaged backgrounds should be encouraged. But selection on the basis of race is neither a fair nor an efficient way of doing so. Affirmative action replaced old injustices with […]
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It’s clear that the return on the investment in a college education isn’t as promising as it once was. To that end, The Chronicle of Higher Education recently wondered how to “assess the real payoff of a college degree.” Answering this question necessitates defining higher education’s purpose. If one attends college simply hoping for an […]
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Here’s an instructive exercise: The next time you read an article about “diversity” (see, e.g., the interview with the University of Wisconsin’s diversity honcho in Inside Higher Ed today), mentally substitute the letters “BS” for “diversity” every time the latter appears. It’s amazing how much more accurate and understandable the article becomes! (It’s even better […]
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At some point the demands for federal investigations into our colleges’ supposed indifference to accusers in sexual assault cases will reach the point of parody. In fact, that point might already have been reached with two recent developments. First, celebrity lawyer Gloria Allred, an attorney who never met a TV camera she didn’t like, has […]
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The Association for Asian American Studies just made news by becoming the first American academic organization to support a boycott of Israeli universities. In case you were wondering, the AAAS did not also call for a boycott of any other Asian universities located in countries with less-than-stellar human rights records. They seemingly believe that Israel is […]
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Those eager to see a shredding of political correctness on campus should sample this interview between HBO’s Bill Maher and Brian Levin, a professor at California State-San Bernardino who directs the school’s Center for the Study of Hate & Extremism. Levin’s apparent goal in the interview was to suggest that all major religions are equally inclined toward politically-oriented […]
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We’ve learned this week that Chelsea Clinton and her husband, Marc Mezvinsky have spent $10 million on a 100-foot-long condo opposite Madison Square in Manhattan. This seems to be a rare example of an NYU administrator whose lavish housing is not subsidized by NYU, which has handed out so many questionable loans–$72 million to 168 people. […]
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A big divide is showing up between conservative and libertarian criticisms of higher education. Conservatives–and I am among them–argue that higher-ed has become too vocational and libertarians say it is not vocational enough. Professor Michael Hepner of the University of Dubuque, part of an influential and cutting-edge effort to think through the causes of the […]
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What more can the “diversity” movement do to our colleges and universities? How about mandatory indoctrination? According to an official faculty proposal, Northwestern University is considering a move “to enhance the educational opportunities” of students by installing a diversity course requirement for all undergrads so that the students will “recognize their own positionality in systems […]
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Last week Amherst College rejected an offer from online education company edX to develop MOOCs (Massive Open Online Courses) featuring its faculty. Though we do not know the full details of Amherst’s deliberations, it is clear that its faculty recognized several important implications of this new technology. Some faculty members expressed concern that middle-tier and […]
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