Around the world, 1.1 billion people have no electricity and 2.9 billion can’t cook with “clean” energy. The international community has big aspirations to tackle this challenge, and its focus is on sustainable energy. This involves providing poor women and men with affordable access to electricity for modern energy services like lighting and communications. The […] … learn more→

I have a friend doing his PhD, let’s call him Ronald. Ronald is clever, bright and diligent. He’s spent many, many hours in the lab building prototypes and producing copious amounts of data. He’s clearly on the verge of a breakthrough that would change his field (but has yet to publish anything for fear of […] … learn more→

It’s no secret that something’s gone horribly wrong in education. Despite over a century of careful study of how to teach human beings, it’s clear we’re not learning as much as we used to. A simple glance at a college entrance exam from over 100 years ago shows that today’s high school graduates aren’t even […] … learn more→

Think back to when you first started learning a foreign language. For many readers it was probably French, German or Spanish at school. I was one of those considered lucky enough to be “good at languages” and I studied all three. Like me though, I imagine you can remember friends who froze at the thought […] … learn more→

About this time every year I post something about the reading habits of thesis examiners. At the risk of repeating myself – again – it is worth knowing what they/we examiners do when they/we receive that big fat tome the results of your hard work. It’s helpful to know that examiners don’t often sit down […] … learn more→

Applicants to the Public Service Loan Forgiveness program have had the rug pulled out from under them, brayed lawyers for the American Bar Association (ABA) in the New York Times last week. But they may never have had a rug to stand on. The Public Service Loan Forgiveness (PSLF) program, established by Congress in 2007, […] … learn more→

  Anyone who teaches at a community college, an urban state university or almost anywhere outside of the top research institutions has run across it: We are not the equals of the scholars at Harvard, the University of Chicago and others of their ilk. Nor are we quite the teachers they are; our students, of […] … learn more→

One of the many strange decays in higher education today concerns language skills. In times past, every college graduate had to take at least a year’s worth of some foreign language. Now, I grant that Latin (a common option, decades ago) wasn’t particularly useful all by itself, but studying another language is incredibly helpful for […] … learn more→