Defending your doctoral thesis should never be an overly comfortable affair for candidates. After all, those seeking academia’s highest award should expect their research to be thoroughly tested by experts in their discipline. But too often, UK PhD vivas are recalled as frightening and upsetting encounters that many spend their careers trying to forget. I […] … learn more→

As leaders of an executive MBA at McMaster University’s DeGroote School of Business, we felt the burden of expectations as we discarded our established game plans in March and started again with a virtual delivery model. This is, after all, an EMBA in digital transformation, designed to develop leaders for an age of technological disruption. […] … learn more→

It was possible when I was a graduate student in the mid 1980s to have read every article in my field of study, bacterial chemotaxis. I did so, and I was known among my colleagues at the University of California, Berkeley for having achieved a feat that would be impossible now. At a Gordon conference […] … learn more→

The coronavirus pandemic has brought many unexpected changes – including a sudden prime-time role for government scientific advisers. What has until recently been rather a niche area within both government policymaking and university activity has now found itself centre stage – with not a few pitfalls along the way. As well as exposing some of […] … learn more→

In a column recently published by the Washington Post , a mother explained why she would continue to publish blog posts about her daughter, despite protests from her daughter. She said that, although the situation made her uncomfortable, she had not finished “exploring motherhood” in her writings. One commenter lambasted parents who, like this author, “use their family’s daily dramas to make […] … learn more→

When the University of California decided in early 2020 to stop using the ACT and SAT in admissions by 2025, the decision sparked discussions anew about how fair and useful college entrance exams are in the first place. Studies have shown, for instance, that some SAT questions systematically favor white students over Black students of equal ability. Some scholars say […] … learn more→

Earlier this year, French physician and microbiologist Didier Raoult generated a media uproar over his controversial promotion of hydroxychloroquine to treat COVID-19. The researcher has long pointed to his growing list of publications and high number of citations as an indication of his contribution to science, all summarized in his “h-index.” The controversy over his recent […] … learn more→

U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, or ICE, made a decision on July 6 regarding international students in the U.S. that will affect far more than just the roughly 870,000 international students themselves. Based on what I know about the power and influence of higher education in the U.S., this decision could increase the tuition American students pay, cost thousands of jobs […] … learn more→

I’m popping a content warning at the top of this one: I’m going to talk about mental health and quitting the PhD. If that’s not good for you to read right now, feel free click away. As lockdown closed on Australia in March, I posed a question: should you quit (go part time or pause) your […] … learn more→

In Alberta, the once-radical idea of charter schools, placed largely on the back burner for the past two decades, has been brought back to the fore under Premier Jason Kenney’s United Conservative Party (UCP). The party’s Choice in Education Act will come into force Sept. 1, after the government passed it June 24. Under the new act, individuals […] … learn more→