A Scholar’s Lament
Professor John Ellis has served on college faculties since 1963 and is now an emeritus professor at the University of California-Santa Cruz. He has witnessed enormous changes in higher education…
Posts tagged with
“California”
College Climate Surveys Needed to Understand Free Expression on Campus
In yet another window into the country’s polarized political environment, in 2017 the Pew Research Center surveyed Americans regarding their views of major civic institutions. While there were divisions in…
Did You Know? Eight States Ban Racial Preferences in College Admissions
Earlier this month, the U.S. District Court for the District of Massachusetts released its ruling in Students For Fair Admissions v. Harvard University. That means affirmative action—its application and limitations—is…
Did You Know? An Anti-Poverty Program Sent Funds to 33 Well-Off College Towns
“Opportunity zones,” defined by a 2017 law, are poor areas targeted by the federal government for economic investment. In a study by the Brookings Institution, researchers discovered that money intended…
Without Financial Transparency, Colleges Mislabel Research Spending as Instructional
Public colleges spend public money, but college officials are reluctant to make information about their budgets easy to understand. That aversion to transparency makes it easier to pass non-instructional expenses…
The Mess of Federal Funds Is Changing the University
The modern American university has changed almost beyond recognition from the form it had even 100 years ago. It is larger, more “diverse,” more of a business, and more industrialized…
Waiting for Reform: The Plans to Fix College Sports
The public has lost faith in the NCAA and colleges to protect student-athletes. When surveying the numerous ideas for fixing college sports, it’s hard to make any other conclusion. Reform…
Repairing Academia’s Crisis of Meaning
Traditionally, higher education introduced students to life’s most fundamental questions: “What is good?”; “What is true?”; “Do our lives have meaning beyond the material?”; and so on. The focus used…
Identity Politics Versus Basic Logic: Should Colleges Offer Affirmative Action for the Female Majority?
Academic postmodernism is no stranger to the idea that classical Enlightenment values such as reason, equal treatment, and individual agency should be cast aside for the sake of racial and…
Politicized Art Schools Are Losing Students to the Atelier Movement
A series of disasters face art colleges and the art departments of American universities. Their campuses are closing, their freshmen numbers are dwindling, and their graduates are struggling. Getting more…