I feel like having an easy day, so once again I’ll discuss the demented kangaroo campus court system. Quirks in how universities are created give them surprising leeway regarding disputes on campus. Their policy documents were established decades ago, when academics ran campuses, and so the system was set up to have disputes, scholarly disputes, […] … learn more→

The recent appointment of Betsy DeVos as secretary of education has brought rural schools into the national conversation in ways never seen before. At her confirmation hearing, DeVos said that guns might have a place in schools in order to protect from “potential grizzlies” in places like Wapiti, Wyoming. While the comments about grizzly bears […] … learn more→

One of the great myths about American higher education is that all colleges are wealthy. If most Americans have an mental image of a college, it’s often a bucolic bricks-and-mortar residential facility separated by rolling green lawns, entered through an impressive if forbidding-looking gate, and populated by attractive students who drive fancy cars. What they […] … learn more→

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→