Departments

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higher education

  • SOURCE: Chronicle of Higher Education
    5/28/2021

    It’s Time to Break Up the Ivy League Cartel

    by Sam Haselby and Matt Stoller

    Ivy League institutions have an unfair hold on the distribution of opportunity and on the diversity of ideas in America and the world. 

  • SOURCE: Inside Higher Ed
    5/18/2021

    Dropout Professors

    by Gretchen Soderlund

    Sharing the stories of professors who, like her, dropped out of high school, one historian argues that we need open-admission and affordable public colleges and an education system that does more to keep students in. 

  • 5/9/2021

    Are Campus Bookstores Undermining Student Learning?

    by Elizabeth Stice

    Today’s undergraduates are increasingly being cornered into ongoing financial commitments for everything, while they never take possession of anything. Rejecting digital book programs run by campus bookstores outsourced to third parties could help reverse this trend.

  • SOURCE: The Guardian
    5/1/2021

    Studying History Should not be Only for the Elite, Say Academics

    Professor Kate Williams said she was angry that the Tory government is “pushing a vision that only Stem subjects [science, technology, engineering and mathematics] matter and degrees are only worthwhile if you immediately move to a job paying a very high salary”.

  • SOURCE: Academe
    5/4/2021

    Visions against Politics

    by Eileen Boris and Annelise Orleck

    Historians Eileen Boris and Annelise Orleck are the guest editors of the spring edition of the AAUP's magazine focusing on the need for a New Deal for Higher Education. This is their introductory essay. 

  • SOURCE: Chronicle of Higher Education
    4/22/2021

    The Crushing Contradictions of the American University

    by Chad Wellmon

    The proliferation of student loan debt reflects the acceptance by banks, borrowers, and the federal government of the idea that higher education is transformative and beneficial. Is this ideology bordering on magical thinking? 

  • SOURCE: Madison.com
    4/17/2021

    Two Madison Profs Make 'Collegeland' Podcast About University Life

    Historians Nan Enstad and Lisa Levenstein have produced a podcast that tells the stories of college campuses as places of learning, work, and socialization, seeking to counter both right-wing demonization of campus liberalism and the rose-colored view of university PR. 

  • SOURCE: Chronicle of Higher Education
    4/13/2021

    ‘That Man Makes Me Crazy’: Neil Matkin's Reign at Collin College Draws Scrutiny

    Neil Matkin's regime connects several trends: the politicization of higher ed administration, the diminishment of faculty's role in shared governance, and the imposition of business logic in higher ed administration. But faculty and staff say that the personal element is what makes the situation truly intolerable. 

  • SOURCE: AAUP
    4/2/2021

    Restoring the People’s Universities

    by Alejandra Marchevsky and Jeanne Theoharis

    "We see this trend across the nation: when students of color finally began to gain access to higher education, disinvestment and the shrinking of educational opportunity followed."

  • SOURCE: Salem News
    3/24/2021

    SSU Faculty Retrenchment Plan Accidentally Released

    Salem (MA) State University's General Counsel disputed that a spreadsheet accidentally relased in response to a records request and circulated by a faculty member constitutes a plan to terminate faculty positions for budgetary reasons. Faculty argue that it is consistent with pressure they face to accept furloughs and doubt administration assurances that retrenchment is off the table.

  • SOURCE: Made By History at the Washington Post
    4/1/2021

    Higher Education's Racial Reckoning Reaches Far Beyond Slavery

    by Davarian L. Baldwin

    American universities have grown in harmony with American racism throughout their history, from building on land appropriated from Native Americans to accommodating Jim Crow to promoting social science theories that justified segregation and directly encouraging gentrification through real estate purchasing. 

  • SOURCE: Chronicle of Higher Education
    3/11/2021

    Tenure’s Broken Promise

    The tenure system was established during historically flush times in higher ed, says historian John R. Thelin. Budgetary, ideological, and political changes affecting higher ed are calling into question whether academic work needs a different system. 

  • SOURCE: Chronicle of Higher Education
    3/15/2021

    A County Turns Against Its College

    by Emma Pettit

    "For years, locals have made bogeymen out of the faculty, characterizing them as radicals with leftist agendas, committed to indoctrinating students."

  • SOURCE: The American Prospect
    2/12/2021

    Are Endowments Damaging Colleges and Universities?

    Trends in university endowment management include investing in exotic, illiquid, and difficult-to-value assets. This would have been unthinkable to endowment managers decades ago. Does it accomplish anything besides funnelling fees to financial consultants?

  • SOURCE: Inside Higher Ed
    2/11/2021

    Open Season on the Faculty

    Despite evidence that liberal indoctrination in classrooms is rare, state legislatures are proceeding with bills that would restrict professors' freedom to teach some subjects and in the case of Iowa to survey the political affiliations of faculty at state institutions. 

  • SOURCE: The Atlantic
    2/9/2021

    We Were the Last of the Nice Negro Girls

    by Anna Deavere Smith

    The playwright and performance artist Anna Deavere Smith recalls her educational experiences at a small historically white college during the Civil Rights era, and the way the campus climate spurred her fellow Black students to develop a distinct identity. 

  • SOURCE: Made By History at the Washington Post
    2/8/2021

    Biden Has a Unique Opportunity to Undo Years of Education Inequality

    by Crystal R. Sanders

    Segregated state higher education systems long neglected the responsibility to support graduate and professional education for Black residents, to the point of funding scholarships to send Black students out of state rather than allow the growth of professional and graduate programs in their states.