study

An Extra Credit Assignment Inspires Reflection on Study Habits

An essay I wrote entitled, “Incoming college STEM freshmen, take note: You need to take your classes seriously,” was published as a special to the USA TODAY Network and in two other South Florida newspapers. I offered ten suggestions for success to incoming college freshmen planning to major in a STEM discipline. Among the suggestions […]

Does Online Education Actually Work?

Conventional wisdom states that the future of higher education lies online. However, few studies tell us whether this is necessarily a good thing. Indeed, both the detractors and supporters of online education tend to rely on anecdotes rather than data. So a recent report by William Bowen, Matthew Chingos, Kelly Lack, and Thomas Nygren of […]

Regnerus and the ‘Liberal War on Science’

The ongoing controversy over University of Texas sociologist Mark Regnerus is a textbook example of how a legitimate scholarly dispute can turn into a political witch-hunt. Regnerus, an associate professor of sociology at Texas’s flagship campus in Austin, published a peer-reviewed paper in June in the journal Social Science Research concluding that the adult children […]

Male Market Share and the Distortions of Women’s Studies

Has something finally changed in the sexual politics of academia? For more than a generation the verities of feminist theory and female interests have dominated administration policy, including who gets accepted to college and who graduates. Anyone who has taken part in academic life for the last thirty years is well aware of the organizational […]

Student Apathy – Public Enemy Number One

“Back-When-I-Was-in-School” Remembrance.

I started UCLA in 1977, having won admission with only a 3.1 GPA (but with decent SAT scores). When I got there my brother and I moved into Sproul Hall dormitory just above the track stadium. I came to campus thinking, “Yeah! Party time.” There was certainly a fair number of loud ones every Friday […]

Having Fun, Not Working Hard

Kara Miller, who teaches rhetoric and history at Babson College, is the latest professor to decry the laziness of American college students. You can read her Boston Globe op-ed here. Miller is careful to say that some native-born students work hard, but the gap she sees between American and international students is large. She says […]

“Study, Study, Study” – A Bad Career Move

About five years ago, shortly before my term ended as a Regent of the University of California (UC), I was having a casual conversation with a very high-ranking UC administrator about a proposal that he was developing to increase “diversity” at UC in a manner that would comply with the dictates of California’s Constitution and […]