The importance of demanding performance before promotion
To the editor: A response to Robert Weissberg: It might have been a failure of good intentions, but it was more likely to have been living so high up in…
Articles
Articles
Compromising our values undermines our educational system
To the editor: I have read Robert Weissberg’s excellent article “How the Best of Intentions Created Today’s Academic Disasters.” This important article captures the often unspoken and infrequently discussed concerns harbored…
At Cairn University, a Program-Accreditation Nightmare
Just over one year ago, Cairn University, a small, private, Christian school in southeastern Pennsylvania, made a strategic institutional decision to eliminate its School of Social Work and all related…
Did You Know? “Some College, No Credential” Students Are a Significant Cohort
Earlier this year, the National Student Clearinghouse Research Center (NSCRC) identified 39 million adults who had some higher-education experience as of July 2020 but had not earned any credentials and…
The Pushback Against Classroom Indoctrination Begins
America is finally waking up to the fact that poisonous, divisive ideas are proliferating in public education, from pre-K to graduate school. The question is how to push back against…
UNC System Athletic Directors’ Salaries Tell Us What Universities Value
As previously mentioned in this series, college sports are a big business. Businesses need managers, and, as such, colleges and universities have athletic directors. In college sports, the athletic director…
Grading students serves the system – not learning
To the editor: I was pleasantly surprised by Douglas King’s “A Defense of the ‘Ungrading’ Movement” (July 13, 2022). This article was very good, I thought, at uncovering the intentionality inherent…
Is “ungrading” better than traditional methods of assessment?
To the editor: Prof. King chases the Ungrading Grail, believing it to be the Answer. He explains: “faced with this systemic and perennial predicament (that different teachers have different expectations…
How the Best of Intentions Created Today’s Academic Disasters
Today’s assault on intellectual excellence in the academy will eventually end. Hopefully, an investigation will then commence on its causes, and all the usual suspects will be rounded up. This…
Did You Know? Post-Roe, UNC-Chapel Hill Has Struggled to Stay Neutral
One of the most important principles for preserving a spirit of inquiry, discovery, and discussion on university campuses is institutional neutrality. This means that, while individual faculty are free to…