For decades, U.S. courts have ruled that public school students “do not shed their constitutional rights to freedom of speech and expression at the schoolhouse gate,” as the Supreme Court said in 1968. In that case, Tinker v. Des Moines Independent School District, the justices held that high school students who were suspended for protesting […] … learn more→
Blog Archives
Schools must act carefully on students’ off-campus speech, Supreme Court rules
Has Wikipedia gone from being a curse to the great miracle of knowledge?
Some of the things we reasonably thought turned out to be the other way around. Perhaps tolerance is the passion of the inquisitors and ignorance is strength. The point is that every time the media asks about Wikipedia they tend to ask the wrong questions. Is Wikipedia reliable? How good are Wikipedia articles? And here we could, in a […] … learn more→
Campus free speech: Does it extend to what students say online?
Professors fiercely champion free speech. Many believe that unfiltered, even offensive, expression is fundamental to post-secondary academic life. But what about their students? Should student social media posts be punishable, even if they are made off-campus? This emerging issue in the perpetual battle over free expression speaks to the perils of ever-present devices, ubiquitous wifi and instantaneous […] … learn more→
Critical race theory sparks activism in students
Critical race theory – an academic framework that holds that racism is embedded in society – has become the subject of an intense debate about how issues of race should or shouldn’t be taught in schools. Largely missing in the debate is evidence of how exposure to critical race theory actually affects students. As a researcher who specializes […] … learn more→
Academic tenure: What it is and why it matters
How would you like a job that was guaranteed and allowed you to do your work as you see fit and speak your mind with no repercussions? Most people would, and that’s the idea behind academic tenure. In the following Q&A, George Justice, an English professor and author of “How to Be a Dean,” explains […] … learn more→
Why universities must act on the rise of a new kind of bullying: incivility
Incivility is on the rise in university culture. If you are an academic you’ve likely seen or experienced instances of bullying, incivility or mobbing in department meetings, in hallways and in seminars. For our research on the emotional labour of leadership in higher education we interviewed 20 faculty deans from eight universities in four Australian states. What they called “smart bullies” routinely […] … learn more→
Let’s talk about what each uni does, but don’t make it a choice between teaching or research
Federal Education Minister Alan Tudge has called on Australian universities to “start a conversation about how we can support greater differentiation and specialisation in the university sector. We have 39 comprehensive universities, which may not be an optimal model for the quality of teaching or research in this country.” This is a worthy aspiration, depending on what […] … learn more→
Some benchmarks on Chinese universities
Skepticism has long reigned about Chinese universities and the publications of their researchers. But, over the past twenty years, the situation has changed dramatically. The Chinese state has invested in universities, reformed them to make them world leaders. What is the current state of affairs? Chinese universities are part of a system that may have been inspired by that of the […] … learn more→
From 13 unis to 1: why Australia needs to reverse the loss of South Asian studies
South Asia is crucial to the future of Australia. But Australia has just one (small) program focused on South Asian studies across its many universities. This has not always been the case. In the mid-1970s, 13 of Australia’s universities offered undergraduate subjects on South Asia (India, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, Nepal, Bhutan, and the […] … learn more→
Make a poster – it may also help you write a paper
Academic posters. They are a thing. You can find academic posters at a lot of conferences. Ah, conferences. Remember when we had face to face conferences? Oh, that seems like a long time ago now – but when we had them, academic posters were often displayed in a separate conference room. Separate poster sessions may […] … learn more→
