Teaching Freshman English: It’s a Battlefield
So you think you might like teaching college English. You love the language and its great works. Lots of people are like that, including me. Good, but beware. Teaching college…
Law Schools Guard Entry to the Profession and Should Teach Virtue
Law school faculties hold a sacred trust. We guard the outermost portals into the legal profession, a group that wields powers to shape society in profound and lasting ways. Several…
Study Only What You Want? Not If You Want to Be Successful
Recently, a general education course at UNC-Chapel Hill, “Big-Time College Sports,” was canceled. This sparked controversy after the course’s professor, Jay Smith, argued that the class, which he had taught…
Student Free Speech Suffers a Defeat
Since launching its Stand Up for Free Speech project in 2014, the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education (FIRE) has had a great deal of success in defeating college officials…
My University Treated Me Like a Criminal Over a Joke
For the past six years, I have taught an undergraduate course on international economics at Johns Hopkins University. Most of my students thought it was a very good course. So…
Student Governments Can Help to Restore Faith in Higher Education
Higher education has a public relations problem on its hands. The results of a new Pew Research survey show that almost 60 percent of Republicans believe higher education has a…
Professors Should Write Books That Seek Truth, Not Inflame Passions
The academic enterprise is supposed to be about truth. Those who are entrusted to teach are expected to convey knowledge to their students, not their opinions. And when academics write…
Purdue Shakes Up Academe (Not All Presidents Are as Innovative as Mitch Daniels)
Five years ago, higher education was abuzz over distance learning, a “disruptive technology.” The big question was whether traditional colleges and universities could incorporate the new technology or if they…
An Inside Perspective on Radicals’ Treatment of Wake Forest’s Eudaimonia Institute
Last fall Wake Forest University announced a $4.2 million donation to fund “the study of human flourishing” at the university’s newest institute—the Eudaimonia Institute (EI). Although it took people a…
Meet the Professor Who Has Been Punished for Denouncing Tenure
For most professors, the quest for tenure is an all-consuming obsession. It confers security against job loss and cements your position at the college or university. With tenure, you’ve “made…