Some 10 years ago my friend Joe and I worked at the same place and would occasionally meet for lunch. At the time Joe and I were both teaching computer graphics to architecture students. We were both working casually at multiple unis and hating the financially strapped and perilous lifestyle that came with it. Those […] … learn more→

To most people interested in surveillance the latest revelations that the US government has been doing widespread monitoring of its citizens (and the rest of the world), possibly through back-doors into major company services, is merely a chance to smugly say “I told you so“. The technology and legal trends have been clear for a […] … learn more→

At a national conference recently, I attended a panel on crisis management conducted by officials of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security. The panelists were explaining to college administrators how to manage campus emergencies. Halfway through a PowerPoint presentation, one of the speakers flashed a sentence up on the screen that read, \”It\’s not what […] … learn more→

No one doubts the phenomenon of “massification” that has resulted in more access to higher education for more students worldwide. This is certainly a good thing. But as we have discussed in past blogs, massification introduces many new challenges. When higher education was an elite undertaking, entering students often came from elite primary and secondary […] … learn more→

(That sounds like a spy novel, doesn’t it?) From listening to employers, you’d think that community colleges would be hotbeds of internships. Since employers frequently want some sort of work experience, and community colleges have been tasked with a focus on workforce development, it would seem to make sense that community colleges would be epicenters […] … learn more→

On 24 April, Stellenbosch University’s Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences of announced that a research team of our Department of Sociology and Social Anthropology has embarked on an extensive research project on racism in science. This followed the discovery of three objects – a human skull, a chart for the classification of hair colour […] … learn more→

The US IRS “scandal” has generated enormous outrage from conservatives and the mainstream press alike. According to Republican politicians, it is absolutely unacceptable for the government to target nonprofit groups based on their political ideology. And they’re right, as President Obama has noted. But an example of government targeting of a “liberal” nonprofit that works […] … learn more→

I will never forget the day. I was in my third year of graduate school and had reached a point where I was comfortable discussing things with a faculty mentor. Perhaps letting down my guard too easily, I told him that I was not so sure I liked teaching. That was an understatement. My admission […] … learn more→

Imagine that you\’re a parent, teacher, or counselor who helped a promising student apply for financial aid. She\’s an underrepresented minority, so you encouraged her to apply to several scholarships for minority students. A few weeks later, she receives a wave of responses from them, all saying the same thing: She\’s not eligible to apply. […] … learn more→

Half the world’s pigs—more than 470 million of them—live in China, but even that may not be enough to satisfy the growing Chinese appetite for meat. While meat consumption in the United States has fallen more than 5 percent since peaking in 2007, Chinese meat consumption has leapt 18 percent, from 64 million to 78 […] … learn more→