Students are paying a higher price tag for college, but is the quality of their education also increasing, or at least staying stable? A lot of indicators suggest “no.” During … Continue reading “Did You Know? The Ignorance of College Graduates”
Fifteen years ago, American higher education was beset with serious problems, especially rising costs, politicization of the curriculum, the mania over diversity, and falling academic standards. At that time, however, … Continue reading “Free Speech and Liberal Education–Two Endangered Pillars of Society”
“Sunlight,” Justice Louis Brandeis once wrote, “is said to be the best of disinfectants; electric light the most efficient policeman.” Few aspects of the contemporary academy more need enhanced sunlight … Continue reading “Using ‘Transparency’ to Obscure: The Daily Tar Heel and UNC’s Title IX Records”
Blueprint for Reform: Due Process on Campus is a policy guide for state legislators and university trustees. It addresses the critical need to uphold due process rights within higher education … Continue reading “Blueprint for Reform: Due Process on Campus”
When the University of Chicago English Department announced over the summer that, in response to the protests after the death of George Floyd, they would only admit graduate students willing … Continue reading “The BlackLivesMattering of Higher Ed: Some Notes from the Field”
Since the pandemic, many colleges have gone from giving letter grades to offering students a pass/fail grading option for their courses. Letter grades become a passing (P), which gives students … Continue reading “Did You Know? Grad School Can Affect Whether Students Take a Class Pass/Fail”
For ten years I served on the GRE Literature Exam committee. The exam is one of the special subject matter exams separate from the regular GRE (with math, verbal, analytical … Continue reading “They’ve Got to Get Rid of Western Civ—They Have To “
In spring 2020, when universities went online due to COVID-19, few of them expected to be online in the fall as well. After a failed reopening of schools, courses again … Continue reading “Without Lab Time or Facilities, Students Get Lower-Quality Education”
On August 3, the Executive Committee of the Conference on College Composition and Communication approved a position statement on “Black Linguistic Justice.” The statement was crafted as a set of … Continue reading “Disadvantaging Black Students with a Demand for ‘Linguistic Justice’”
The Foundation for Individual Rights in Education (FIRE) came out with the largest survey of students and campus life, showing the predictable divisions along class, political beliefs, and gender. However, … Continue reading “Did You Know? Survey Finds Trouble in Campus Support for Free Speech”