On February 14, in Parkland, Florida, 17 teachers and students were shot dead at their school by an estranged student armed with a high-powered, military-style rifle. Mass shootings at places of learning in the US are, sadly, not uncommon. On this occasion, however, the backlash against the political establishment has been more fearsome than usual. Significantly, the […] … learn more→

During his unsuccessful campaign for the Republican presidential nomination, Marco Rubio made the dubious (and grammatically unsound) assertion that “we need more welders and less philosophers.” Bill Miller clearly disagrees with the Florida senator. Miller, a prominent investor who spent three years studying philosophy at Johns Hopkins University as a graduate student, recently gave that school US$75 million to […] … learn more→

It is commonly known that writing an academic paper in higher educational institutions consists of many different stages besides the actual writing: researching, planning, outlining, proofreading, and formatting. The last one can’t be called the most favorite part of students because even trying their best to follow the citation style guidelines, they often make mistakes. […] … learn more→

As the price tag of a college education continues to rise along with questions about academic quality, skepticism about the value of a four-year college degree has grown among the American public. This has led both the federal government and many state governments to propose new accountability measures that seek to spur colleges to improve […] … learn more→

Demands for improving online safety continue to capture headlines, often for the worst reasons.. While this outcry has signalled renewed interest in “stamping out” cyberbullying and reinvigorated health and wellbeing protocols for young people, interventions continue to fall behind the fast-paced development of communication devices and the take-up of new social media by teenagers. The […] … learn more→

As head of professional development at a research-intensive university in Hong Kong, it is part of my job to prepare professors as well as possible to, in turn, prepare their students for the future. One widely discussed problem is that, in the midst of the so-called Fourth Industrial Revolution – the age of robots and […] … learn more→

At the beginning of each school year, before the students arrived, teachers from every school in the Atlanta Public Schools district were placed on school buses and taken to the old Georgia Dome. We were not organized by alphabetical order, or even by elementary, middle or high school. Instead, all schools were organized by their […] … learn more→

In the last month alone, major players within the fossil fuel industry – “big oil” – have made some big announcements regarding climate change. BP revealed plans to reduce its greenhouse gas emissions by acquiring additional renewable energy companies. Royal Dutch Shell defended its US$1-US$2 billion green energy annual budget. Even ExxonMobil, until recently relatively dismissive of the basic science […] … learn more→

Is your latest career success testimony to your no doubt commendable talents? Connecting career achievements to ability seems obvious – and crucial in today’s competitive academic environment. Yet we would argue that we are often blind to the connections between ourselves and our work, and seriously underestimate the influence that our mindset has over career […] … learn more→

The hopes and dreams of the technological movement known as “transhumanism” have been brought into the media spotlight thanks to Netflix’s new science fiction series, Altered Carbon (based on Richard Morgan’s 2001 novel). Transhumanists believe that our species will soon undergo a technological evolution into a new and superior form. While there is no single template for transhumanism’s imagined future, […] … learn more→