A few years back, I called attention to changes to the way how higher education in Wisconsin was being run. Namely, they were introducing new rules which potentially could eliminate tenure, annihilate academics, and reorganize higher education into a jobs training program. Naturally, the politicos making the changes said that the “potential” was just pure […] … learn more→

A senior lecturer in my department – a white, working-class woman – was telling me about her daughter who was applying to Ucas a few years ago. When she suggested Oxbridge, her daughter replied, “It’s not for the likes of us, Mum.” Her mother was sad and disheartened that even as a university academic, her child didn’t feel that her […] … learn more→

By 2026, employment in computer and information technology occupations is projected to grow 13 percent over what it was in 2016. Jobs in these fields will require skills in cloud computing, big data collection and storage, information security and more. As I argue in a forthcoming paper in the Journal of Monetary Economics with Giovanni Gallipoli, these information technology – […] … learn more→

Although there is a Ph.D. glut for much of higher education, there is one field where there’s something of a shortage: computer science. A recent article on Inside Higher Ed highlights the immense cluelessness of the “leaders” which led to this situation, although the author of the article seems to miss this detail: System Crash […] … learn more→

A young Mick Jagger couldn’t get no satisfaction, and on the cusp of his middle age he was desperate “to do some living before we die”. If the dominant mood of the young is angst, for those over 40 it is regret. That is certainly true for me. As a middle-aged university lecturer, I am less […] … learn more→

I don’t know why we call them “soft skills.” They’re certainly not easy to learn, although they are as valuable and necessary as the skills doctors use in surgery, bankers use to assess risk and physicists use to split atoms. Communication, observation, empathy and logical thinking: These precious and frequently undervalued skills have everyday names. […] … learn more→

Despite the growing tendency for variety in doctoral careers, we are not very good at tracking them. There are good reasons to suspect that surveys exaggerate the numbers remaining in the research system, because many spend up to a decade in temporary posts before settling into a more secure career. Indeed, as single-lifetime careers become rarer we […] … learn more→

You return from school one afternoon, open the mailbox in your apartment building in western Massachusetts, and pull out a thick envelope. Heart quickening and hands shaking, you tear into the envelope of your first-choice school—Merrimack College—and you read the first line, “Congratulations and welcome…” Last week, you were accepted to Pace University and your […] … learn more→

One of the delightful things about blogging is letters from readers; an endless source of delightful validation and sometimes, interesting problems to try to solve. This letter is a case in point. Dora, a reader from Croatia writes: The situation I find myself in is, I think, one that all researchers have found themselves in… […] … learn more→

It has now become customary for academics to debate the line between free speech and hate speech. Yale, for instance, recently hosted a panel discussion whose central topic was the difference between hate speech and free speech and “the point where one shifts into the other.” The distinction has already been debated throughout the academy, […] … learn more→