Blog Archives

What’s wrong with secret donor agreements like the ones George Mason University inked with the Kochs

What’s wrong with secret donor agreements like the ones George Mason University inked with the Kochs

George Mason University President Ángel Cabrera acknowledged this month that his school gave the Charles Koch Foundation “some influence” over hiring and evaluating faculty as it accepted millions of dollars for its free-market research center, the Mercatus Center. This news rankled the academic world, but it perhaps didn’t come as a surprise. Many scholars saw this as just the […] … learn more→

College students slutting it up

College students slutting it up

A century ago, our culture respected “college boys,” kids who not only graduated high school, but managed to get accepted into college. Yes, “college boys” tended to be wealthy, so there was certainly some elitism here, but the fact remained that going to college was considered an honorable, respectable, achievement, and a sign of future […] … learn more→

Debate: Should we close the management schools?

Debate: Should we close the management schools?

For more than a century, critics have been blowing on business schools. Whenever a crisis takes its toll, censors make a sentence of pillory schools accused of all the ills: the bankruptcy of such an enterprise, the oppression of women, the increase in global inequalities through the global ecological devastation. Why, on the contrary, should […] … learn more→

Choosing the unicorns – An ECR’s perspective on grant reviews

Choosing the unicorns – An ECR’s perspective on grant reviews

The other day, I read the guest blog on Research Whisperer by Adam Micolich about capturing unicorns, a.k.a landing your first successful grant application. I found it really helpful for early career researchers such as myself, and wanted to offer another perspective on the funding process: that of a grants reviewer. I recently had the pleasure […] … learn more→

The ghost of the ideal scholar

The ghost of the ideal scholar

Are we seeing a new moral panic brew around reading? When I was growing up, in the 70s and 80s, TV had been around for more than a generation, but the early 80s saw the glorious invention of the videotape machine. No longer at the mercy of the TV Networks and their schedules, my generation […] … learn more→

Publishing from the phd – make a publication plan

Publishing from the phd – make a publication plan

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→

Education schools: The source of campus anti-white racism

Education schools: The source of campus anti-white racism

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→

Linking impact factor to 'open access' charges creates more inequality in academic publishing

Linking impact factor to ‘open access’ charges creates more inequality in academic publishing

The prospectus SpringerNature released on April 25 in preparation of its intended stock market listing provides a unique view into what the publisher thinks are the strengths of its business model and where it sees opportunities to exploit them, including its strategy on open access publishing. Whether the ultimate withdrawal of the IPO reflected investors’ doubt […] … learn more→