My course this past semester began like so many others: 14 students and I arrived every Tuesday and Thursday morning in an uninspiring space of concrete-block walls and fluorescent lighting, with few windows and fixed desks all facing forward, ill suited to the discussion-based, flipped format of the class. So, a couple of weeks into […] … learn more→

The number of American students studying abroad is on the rise, and that is a very good thing. But more than just increasing the numbers, colleges would be well advised to take a hard look at their study-abroad programs to ensure that they are providing students with a quality international-study experience at an affordable price. […] … learn more→

Late last week I had a telling conversation with Dr. Jim Douthat, a colleague and mentor and the highly respected president emeritus of Lycoming College (PA). Like me, Dr. Douthat is convinced that the present operational path taken by many private colleges and universities is financially unsustainable. As Jim argued so perceptively, the looming financial […] … learn more→

Anyone who has swum for exercise will know it can be grueling. We are talking about lap-swimming-in-a-pool for exercise here (not long, leisurely strokes in the warm Pacific Ocean for example). Both of us love to swim (well, ‘love’ might be a stretch for Michelle) and at the end of a recent #ShutupandWrite session, we […] … learn more→

It’s a fact of scholarly life that some of the reading we do is just plain difficult. Sometimes this is because scholarly writing is obtuse, dense and, well, not really very good. But that’s not always the case. Sometimes the texts that we read are simply hard to grasp. That’s because their writers are dealing […] … learn more→

With global water scarcity trending upwards, conflicts over access to the world’s supply are springing up – a trend we can expect to worsen in the not so distant future. Water wars: It may sound more like a working title for a sci-fi flick than a legitimate concern, but in today’s increasingly dry climate, they’re […] … learn more→

\”Damn, I shouldn’t have slept so long\” is my first thought when I see the size of the line, which is already the width of a boxcar and the length of an aircraft carrier. It is early in the morning and cold. Many of my line mates have blankets and a diminishing food supply. It […] … learn more→

It seems that lots of us are fascinated by writers and how they do what they do. There was for instance a memorable photographic series in the Guardian about writer’s rooms that many of us loved. And there is a ready market for books written by authors about their own writing (for example here), and […] … learn more→

1) Student loan debt is 1.2 trillion dollars, more than any other form of consumer debt. Unlike houses, cars, and other goods, higher education cannot be “liquidated” to pay back this debt if it turns out the good, “education” is worthless. 2) The Average student debt is $29,400. This sort of debt cannot be discharged […] … learn more→

The coalition government’s increase of university tuition fees in England in 2012 has led to lively debates on how the cost of higher education affects university applications, particularly for students from disadvantaged backgrounds. Labour has brought this issue back to the centre of their election campaign, by pledging that if it is elected, tuition fees […] … learn more→