Higher Education really is strange when you start to look at the big picture. Educators have almost no influence on what goes on. Instead, ridiculously powerful, non-education, administrators have taken over our campuses. What are the results? A quick summary: 1) We all know standards have been annihilated to the point that many college courses […] … learn more→

The election of Donald Trump as the 45th President of the United States has led to a gathering cloud of questions about the direction of US government policy. Among these questions are some that concern the fate of America’s for-profit higher education sector. The for-profit sector has had an increasingly high profile in US political […] … learn more→

Jose, 19, is a college student in Puerto Princesa City, Philippines. On a regular school day, after he wakes up, he takes a shower, scrubbing his body using soap made of papaya (Carica papaya), a fruit that’s said to have skin-whitening properties. Afterwards, he applies a facial whitening lotion, and before finally going to school […] … learn more→

In the wake of the election of Donald Trump as president, faculty, students and alumni across the country are pressuring their administrations to declare “sanctuary campuses” for undocumented students, workers and their families. Trump has said he would repeal the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program (DACA). Under the program, those who came into the […] … learn more→

Despite what sceptics about university expansion might say, more need not necessarily mean worse. But if expansion amounts to just more and more of the same, then it can do. The UK is a prime example. At the turn of the 1980s, there were some 500,000 students in full-time higher education. Although this was a […] … learn more→

Admin: “When the economy is bad, people go back to school and retrain. So this is good news!” –administrator’s response to the economic crash of 2008 One thing I’ve heard many times while working in higher education is how it runs counter to the economy—the better the economy, the lower the enrollments. I certainly believed […] … learn more→

It is one of the remarkable transformations of our time: the world is going to university, and participation in higher education is increasing. On every continent, more young people are going to university than ever before, and increasing numbers are graduating. In the UK, over a third of 18-year-olds go to university – and that […] … learn more→

Japan’s fleet has left port for another season of “scientific” research whaling in the Southern Ocean. Like last year, there is little that anyone can do to legally rescind Japan’s self-issued lethal research permit – a fact that has led to calls for more pragmatism and less confrontation in efforts to conserve whales. Such avenues […] … learn more→

Teachers have a lot to put up with at the moment in terms of workload and stress. But what may come as a surprise to some is that, just like in the playground, bullying can be a big problem in the teaching world. Research shows that when a teacher is being bullied, the bully is […] … learn more→

At ANU we run a program called ‘Thesis Bootcamp’, adopted from the Melbourne University program of the same name invented by Liam Connell and Peta Freestone. Thesis bootcamp challenges PhD students to write as much as 20,000 words on a single weekend of intensive writing in a group setting. We run four Thesis Bootcamps a […] … learn more→