Don’t Yank the Sage From His Stage
“In most college classrooms,” wrote Alison King in a seminal 1993 article, “the professor lectures and the students listen and take notes. The professor is the central figure, the ‘sage…
Posts tagged with
“professors”
The Florida “Brain-Drain” Study Is Flawed
A new study by two University of Southern California economists claims that Florida’s 2022 post-tenure-review law caused a significant exodus of professors from the state’s public universities. According to researchers…
Universities’ Stalinesque Procedures Are Silencing Unpopular Professors
At one time, most Americans (and virtually all academics) would have agreed with the famous saying, often attributed to Voltaire, “While I disagree with what you say, I will defend…
Should Professors Be Career Mentors?
The original purpose of the university was simple: the academic formation of its students. Over the past several decades, however, society’s perception of higher-education institutions has grown to encompass numerous…
How Humanities Professors Got Marginalized
In any discussion of the state of the humanities, the first fact is a numerical one. In School Year 2021-22, while a little more than two million people earned bachelors’…
A Medical Professor Learns That Dissent About Diversity Won’t Be Tolerated
In the good old days of American education, professors could speak their minds freely. Disagreements would often result, with others disputing the case that the speaker had made. The solid…
Try Humble, Positive Modeling, Not Neutrality
The kerfuffle over the relative merit of forcing “viewpoint neutrality” in history classrooms puzzles me. No wonder: Although an historian by Ph.D., I have taught mostly economics for almost three…
The College Classroom Can Be a Judgment-Free Zone
Step inside any gym and you’ll likely see a familiar sight: regular gym buffs, for whom the gym is a second home, using the workout machines with ease. You will…
Does Tenure Matter?
In many red-leaning states around the country, lawmakers have proposed modifying or ending tenure. In my home state of North Carolina, House Bill 715 was under consideration but appears to…
Are English Departments Really Dying?
In an earlier millennium, yours truly undertook graduate studies in history and persisted a couple of years before getting cold feet. Some new PhDs could not find academic positions; some…