Employer: “Kid, everyone has a high school diploma. What else you got?” —over a century ago, a high school diploma meant something, but this is what it’s worth today. Part of what made a college degree valuable was scarcity—not everyone had one. Once government made high school “free” for everyone, our kids left high school […] … learn more→

Online learning is expanding in Canada at a rate of about 8.75 per cent every year. This shift to online environments has redefined the format of education. Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs), for example, have become wildly popular, with more than 700 universities offering 6,850 courses to 58 million students in 2016. Universities promote online […] … learn more→

Academic conferences can be full of networking opportunities and professional wisdom. For me, last month’s Society for the Study of Social Problems international conference was brimful of both. I had the privilege to attend talks given by prolific scholars and senior editors from across the country. I also had the opportunity to have one-on-one conversations […] … learn more→

In a healthy, growing economy, one group should not be gaining at the expense of others. A rising tide is said to lift all boats, but does it? Consider where things stand in the US today. The aggregate US GDP may have grown over the past 40 years, but increasing income inequality has resulted in a very large […] … learn more→

Although I got reasonable marks for my creative essays in high school, literary criticism was never my strong suit. One of the issues with my analytical writing was that I didn’t really understand how to use verbs. It wasn’t until I nearly finished my masters degree that I found out that verbs function in academic […] … learn more→

While some of my esteemed colleagues are heralding the imminent arrival of robot teachers, stating that current advances will bring “the greatest revolution in education since the printing press”, I have to disagree. This is not because I am a latent technophobe. Regent’s University London, for example, is currently investigating the very latest assistive technologies, including how […] … learn more→

Confessions of a College Dean is a surprisingly popular blog, as he never really confesses to anything. I’ve known a few Deans that were downright criminal. I’ve shown many an upper level administrator engaging in morally reprehensible acts that, even if the Dean didn’t perform the acts as well, at least looked the other way. […] … learn more→

We often think about what young people can expect to gain from university, or what universities contribute to society. But it’s not often that we talk about how higher education can change society beyond the shaping of individuals. As tuition fees rise, and universities are cast in increasingly intense competition for students and staff, their […] … learn more→

A few weeks back, another odd story from higher ed made the rounds. A professor decided on a new grading policy: Professor lets ‘stressed’ students decide their own grade Hey, grades are stressful, even assigning them isn’t fun.As a student I hated getting grades…I particularly hated bad grades, which is why I generally studied hard […] … learn more→

In a recent blog post entitled “How to Stop Flipping”,Inger Newburn outlined the dangers of flipping between tasks without progressing on any of them. Her suggestion was to write a detailed and time bound to-do list, using the example of the literature review. The second dot point advised students to “look in your diary for […] … learn more→