“Because we don’t have enough offices, we’ll be putting you in temporary trailers…” –Admin announcement. It sounds reasonable enough, until you realize the school has less faculty than ever, despite having more students than ever…the offices were all being taken over by the new administrative hires. When I resigned from the place years later, they […] … learn more→
Blog Archives
Higher Ed building spree continues even as students flee campus
More colleges than ever have test-optional admissions policies — and that’s a good thing
Back in the 1980s, Bates College and Bowdoin College were nearly the only liberal arts colleges not to require applicants to submit SAT or ACT test scores. On Jan. 10, FairTest, a Boston-based organization that has been pushing back against America’s testing regime since 1985, announced that the number of colleges that are test-optional has […] … learn more→
Singapore’s powerhouses neglect local intellectual life
Singapore’s two main public universities have risen in global reputation, lifted by the state’s economic might. For most Singaporeans – as well as many of the region’s brightest students – getting a place to study at the National University of Singapore or Nanyang Technological University is a proud accomplishment. In several fields, our universities have […] … learn more→
Universities must prepare for a technology-enabled future
Automation and artificial intelligence technologies are transforming manufacturing, corporate work and the retail business, providing new opportunities for companies to explore and posing major threats to those that don’t adapt to the times. Equally daunting challenges confront colleges and universities, but they’ve been slower to acknowledge them. At present, colleges and universities are most worried […] … learn more→
Writing the thesis – work, moves and structure
Before you start to wrestle your material into a thesis structure, it’s helpful to consider the work that the thesis has to do, and the moves that ensure the work is done. Once you understand the work and the moves, you can think more strategically about the thesis structure. The thesis work The thesis, like […] … learn more→
Should we worry about Nazis on campus? No.
It’s so funny, when a conservative speaker comes to campus, cries of “He’s a NAZI and must be stopped!” spring up. Even Ben Shapiro gets called a Nazi often, despite his well-documented Jewish faith. The mainstream media constantly warns us of the “growing” Nazi threat, with Nazi broadly defined as White Supremacist, Right Wing, Alt-Right, […] … learn more→
Is a modern MBA worth it?
When interviewing candidates for our MBA programme, I often ask them: “How many MBAs does an organisation need to hire each year?” Estimates range from a modest 10 to a frankly optimistic 1,000. My answer to that question, however, is “none”. No organisation needs to hire “an MBA”. But it will need to hire an experienced […] … learn more→
Remove tenure for not being nice?
The only reason for there being even some legitimacy, at some schools, is the old tenured faculty, a few of them, anyway. Admin knows full well these guys are getting in the way of their plundering, and has been steadily pushing them off campus, either through trumped up charges, expensive buyouts, or getting out of […] … learn more→
Scholarly intimidation is being imported into Australia under official Communist Party licence in the guise of patriotism
It’s a truism that we take our freedoms for granted until they are taken away, but recent events have really driven that home to me. In November, my imminent book exposing the subversive activities of the CPC in Australia was dropped by its publisher because it feared retaliation from Beijing. I never imagined that such […] … learn more→
How can scholars tackle the rise of Chinese censorship in the West?
The extraordinary rise of Xi Jinping was, understandably, the main talking point of the 19th National Congress of the Communist Party of China (CPC) in October. Thanks to the president’s relentless consolidation of his personal power base within the party and the official encouragement of something approaching a cult of personality, comparisons with Mao were […] … learn more→
