What Is TransparUNCy Up To?
Earlier this year, Inside Higher Ed ran a puff profile of “TransparUNCy,” the unpronounceable left-leaning organization that has lately become one of the University of North Carolina’s “most effective watchdogs.”…
Higher Ed’s New Human-Subjects Problem
Intellectual rot within universities has become increasingly obvious. It stems from the widespread adoption of critical, feminist, and queer theories in academic work. The result has been a constant stream…
How the College Essay Declared War on Critical Thinking
Every fall, I attempt to convince my yearly cohort of college-counseling students that writing is the single most important skill they will ever learn. Many of them stare at me…
Less Than Words Can Say
If you saw the 2004 Pixar hit The Incredibles, you might remember that Mr. Incredible, a.k.a. Bob, captures in one line the reason our schools are failing. Resisting his wife’s…
Is Sociology Salvageable?
Anyone who pays the slightest bit of attention to academic sociology these days knows there are serious problems. I have been writing about this phenomenon now for a number of…
A Rough Guide To Merit
Placed prominently within President Trump’s controversial “compact” for higher education was a call to center merit in admissions. The president’s offer to universities, which followed more than a decade of…
Social Work’s Failing Investment
“Our school is firmly committed to anti-oppressive practice, policy, and research. Therefore, we expect our … students to adhere to these values. That means recognizing our own biases, privileges, and…
The Marketplace of Ideas in the Higher Education Compact
Colleges and universities constitute a crucial thread in America’s civic fabric. Higher education institutions train young minds and produce the research and knowledge that sustain and enrich our society. That…
Texas’s Tip of the Spear
Higher-education reform has a new hero, and he hails not from the self-styled patrician environs of the Ivy League but from Texas. We all know how tough it is to…
What’s the Matter with Hillel?
Since its founding in 1923, Hillel has become the most important Jewish campus organization in America and abroad, with a presence on more than 800 campuses across the world. Its…