A warning about a “new” international scam targeting Chinese students in Australia was issued by the Australian Federal Police on May 14, 2018. In a typical scenario, students are contacted by someone pretending to be from the Chinese Embassy or Consulate telling them that they have been implicated in a serious crime in China or Taiwan, and […] … learn more→

There are two ways to approach publishing from your PhD. One is to write the first thing that interests you. Or the recent thing that you presented at a conference. Or write the thing that someone very important has invited you to put in an expensive edited collection. All of that is fine of course. […] … learn more→

The massive student loan scam is slamming our kids into a lifetime of debt slavery, but this fact just can’t seem to get into the news. On the other hand, scarcely a day goes by without one more “racial” scandal in higher ed, usually with another faculty or administrator coming out against the “epidemic” of […] … learn more→

It’s summer, higher education slows a bit, and I get to consider other things. So, we have another depressing headline in the news: CDC: Teen suicide rate up 70% from 2006 to 2016 This is a pretty hefty increase over a mere decade. Some news sites are trying to spin this as inadequate medical coverage, […] … learn more→

As rector of Leiden University, I am sometimes buttonholed by concerned individuals on Twitter, at alumni events and even at the local market about some recent controversial statement that one of our scholars has made in the media. These individuals are typically embarrassed by the comments, and ask me what I am going to do about […] … learn more→

The opioid crisis is taking the lives of around 115 Americans each day—and is taking over the lives of millions of others. Although the problem is more common in rural than urban areas, the fact that doctors have in recent years over-prescribed opioid painkillers means that anyone can be at risk for abusing these powerful […] … learn more→

In our new book, How to Build a College: A Practical Guide for Trustees, Faculty, Administrators and Policymakers, Dr. Joey King and I argue that the sky is not falling around higher education. By and large, colleges and universities are nimble and resourceful institutions, most of which will prosper in the 21st century. However, college and […] … learn more→

Despite all the time and effort invested desegregating the nation’s schools over the past half century, the reality is America’s schools are more segregated now than they were in 1968. Keep that statistic in mind as the nation marks the 64th anniversary of Brown v. Board of Education – the 1954 Supreme Court decision that famously mandated the […] … learn more→

It was a quiet evening in the bucolic foothills of academia. I had just finished updating my lecture for the following morning – checking that the various theories expounded hadn’t been discredited since last term, and that the embedded web links didn’t redirect to sites of a pornographic nature – and uploaded the file to my […] … learn more→

The issue of mother tongue education has been fiercely but sporadically debated in South Africa since 1994. In the past two and a half years, student protests at universities across the country have breathed new life into the discussions. Proponents of mother tongue education tend to argue that children should be taught in the language […] … learn more→