“The foundation of democratic and liberal societies is the critical spirit, which is nourished by knowledge of the humanities. Without exception, totalitarian states reject the teaching of the humanities , and states that reject this teaching always become totalitarian”. These were the words of Takamitsu Sawa, then president of Shiga University in Japan, in 2015 in response to a statement by […] … learn more→
Blog Archives
Arts, history, philosophy… employers increasingly value soft skills
If unis stick with online assessment after COVID, they’ll have do more to stop cheating
While face-to-face classes are back after the COVID disruptions of the past two years, our research suggests at least some Australian universities intend to continue with fully online assessment. Students say they think cheating is easier online. There is some evidence it increased with the shift online. Yet our research, covering 41 Australian universities, has found little evidence of changes in their […] … learn more→
Attitude, organizational culture and good practices: the keys to digitizing the university
In the last two years we have changed. Changes have been accelerated and entrenched in the way we buy, pay, meet, and also in the way we learn. We are discovering digital tools, and we use them in an increasingly better, more effective and practical way, in our day to day. We have changed, in some things, for […] … learn more→
Faced with the “charrette culture”, will architects succeed in reinventing their profession?
The question of the “cart culture” may come up regularly in the media, be the subject of a ministerial working group and measures in the national higher education schools of architecture, it remains a difficult subject when we discuss the architects professional model. As I finished writing this article and discussed its content with my […] … learn more→
Manipulated baccalaureate grades: an eternal controversy?
In this 2022 baccalaureate session, correctors having discovered that the marks they had awarded during the specialty tests were subsequently systematically increased , a recurring controversy has just started again, like a forest fire at the start of summer: the marks of the tray would be the subject of a “tampering” . Of course, the gigantic proofreading operation has […] … learn more→
Motivation is energy for the brain of doctoral students
The path of developing a thesis is in most cases a long and difficult path at many times, full of demands, deadlines and moments of frustration. It is fundamental in the life of a university student to be aware, if they are in that phase of preparing a doctoral thesis, of the importance of generating […] … learn more→
5 Important things to know about student loans
Student loans help students pay for their education. They are usually given by the government or a private lender, and they have to be repaid with interest. The interest rate on student loans is usually lower than the interest rate on other types of loans, and the repayment period is often longer. Student loans can […] … learn more→
Legal fights persist over policies that require teachers to refer to trans students by their chosen pronouns
In Tennessee, a proposed law would let public school teachers refuse to call transgender students by the pronouns they use for themselves. At Shawnee State University – a public university in Ohio – a professor got paid US$400,000 to settle a lawsuit that he filed against the school after being disciplined for refusing to refer to a trans woman […] … learn more→
Should you highlight the paper you’re reading?
The short answer to the question is… maybe, it depends. Not a yes or a no. That’s because should you highlight is not a simple question. Unless you are a marker addict of course, in which case the answer is an unequivocal yes. Highlighting is a form of engaging with writing. It’s a particular kind of annotation. We […] … learn more→
Gender pay gap: It’s roughly half-a-million dollars for women professors across a lifetime
There are substantial, long-term impacts from the gender pay gap for faculty at Canadian universities. Recent research from our multidisciplinary team, which includes expertise in equity policy, political science and cognitive science with mathematical modelling, shows that over the course of a career and retirement, this pay gap leads to a difference of roughly half-a-million dollars. […] … learn more→
