In response to protests calling for police reform and accountability, some U.S. police departments are partnering with colleges and universities to develop anti-bias training for their employees. In Washington D.C., for example, officers will take a critical race theory class at the University of the District of Columbia Community College. The idea of providing liberal arts […] … learn more→

For decades countries around the world have regarded knowledge diplomacy as a key element of soft power. Knowledge diplomacy – or science diplomacy – was once closely associated with governments. It was used as a vehicle for attracting and influencing countries through their research and higher education sectors. Typically it came under the egis of ministries […] … learn more→

The past several years have seen increased calls for colleges and universities to demonstrate their value to students, families and taxpayers. And the pressure has come from both sides of the political spectrum. Barack Obama, for example, didn’t mince his words when he spoke a few years ago on the University of Michigan campus: “We are putting […] … learn more→

The Drs Cleverclog are well known in academic circles. A very large extended family of know-it-alls. At least one of them makes their presence known at every conference, meeting and large academic gathering you go to. Even if you don’t recognise them by sight, you know them by their behaviour. The Cleverclogs have an opinion […] … learn more→

The student loan scam only creates the potential for evil. We would not have over 20,000,000 citizens trapped in a deadly debt spiral if our higher education system had not exploited that potential as ruthlessly as possible. Technically, this scam is an unholy alliance between our Federal government, which backs the loans and enforces collection, […] … learn more→

A few years ago, I mentioned Wisconsin was retroactively changing their tenure contracts. To summarize what I said in 2015: no more new tenured faculty, and tenure can be removed from old faculty whenever admin wants. Now, admin said these changes were necessary but…you’d have to be pretty stupid not to see what the general […] … learn more→

The lecture is dead. And, according to Carl Wieman, there should be no Lazarus-style resurrection. Wieman, a Nobel prizewinning advocate of active learning from Stanford University, argued here, just over a year ago, that belief in the value of traditional lecturing was akin to belief in bloodletting in an era of modern, evidence-based medicine. And […] … learn more→

The debate about how open the internet should be to free expression – and how much companies should be able to restrict, or charge for, communication speeds – boils down to a conflict between the internet’s collaborative beginnings and its present commercialized form. The internet originated in the late 1960s in the U.S. Department of Defense’s […] … learn more→

As part of the subject-level teaching excellence framework, the Department for Education is consulting on whether to introduce a new measure of teaching intensity. One of the six options presented for consideration as part of the current consultation is a “gross teaching quotient” weighted by qualification/seniority of teacher. This would weigh contact time by qualification/seniority of […] … learn more→

Megacities are on the rise. There are currently 47 such areas around the globe, each housing more than 10 million residents. More than half the global population now lives in urban areas, comprising about 3 percent of the Earth. The ecological footprint of this growth is vast and there’s far more that can be done to […] … learn more→