Two great failings of the American professoriate are timidity and self-righteousness. Casting about to orient myself in my new calling a decade or so ago, I found David Horowitz defining one extreme view of it and Michael Bérubé standing out on the other. Horowitz was pushing professors further into timidity and inaction (something that also […] … learn more→
Blog Archives
Embracing the “New Civics”
Helen Kara – book ninja
In my final year of doctoral study, I realised I wanted to write a book about research methods. There are already so many books on the topic that I knew I would need to think of a good angle, which wasn’t easy; plus I was busy earning my living as an independent researcher. Then in […] … learn more→
Brought to you by the letter ‘S’
S is for SPECULATE The word speculate has bad press. It is usually equated with guessing, making things up. Not good. However, to speculate can also mean to theorise, hypothesise, surmise, make a supposition. Speculation needs a bit of a helping hand IMHO. This is my attempt at recuperating it. Speculation in research doesn’t mean guessing […] … learn more→
I am the scholar caught in Trump inauguration crowd controversy
For the past 28 years, I have been involved in crowd safety and risk analysis, and I have been fortunate enough to have been consulted on some of the world’s biggest events, from the annual pilgrimage to Mecca in Saudi Arabia to the royal wedding in 2011. In many of these instances, the media are […] … learn more→
Learning to be offended by microaggression
The recent riots at Berkeley are no accident; we’re training our college students to get upset at the silliest little things…it’s no surprise they violently nuts when significant things are being discussed. But today I want to talk about tiny little things, aka microaggressions. A few years ago, the entire concept of microaggression was just […] … learn more→
Trump travel ban is ‘dimming the lamp of liberty’
Forty-eight prominent US university presidents have written to Donald Trump urging him to rescind his controversial executive order, introduced on 27 January, which bars immigrants and non-immigrant visitors from seven Muslim-majority countries from entering the US. Since the order was signed, US universities and universities around the world have condemned Mr Trump, describing the travel ban as […] … learn more→
Voice and thinkingwriting
You have probably heard, or read, that writing is thinking. But what does writing is thinking really mean? Anything? Nothing? Well, it doesn’t mean that you have to write in order to think, because of course you can think without writing. We think without writing all the time. So if it’s not that, what is it? […] … learn more→
Kansas U gets the finger
The first year of college, the freshman year, is the worst. I’ve seen many a good student (including the valedictorian in my high school class) come to campus, and, given no direction by rapacious admin, get sucked into the party atmosphere…drinking (or worse) away their chance at an education. They throw away their first semester, […] … learn more→
Six ways to stop boys being left behind in the classroom
In UK school exams – GSCEs and A-levels – girls outperform boys in nearly all subjects. The STEM subjects – science, technology, engineering and mathematics – are the only subjects in which boys can often still score the same as girls in GCSEs. And this trend continues well after school, with more girls taking A-levels […] … learn more→
US universities ‘dangerously isolated from society’
A fine tradition in the United States is the annual visit of the current American Nobel laureates to meet the US president in the Oval Office – an event that takes place between the announcements in October and the ceremonies in Stockholm in December. In 2015, I was one of four Americans to be so […] … learn more→
