By Barbara Fister. On Twitter the other day, a question bubbled up that is a perennial in my field. What is the purpose and value of a library degree? (It’s a sibling to the question “why isn’t that taught in library school?” where “this” = whatever thing librarians want new hires to do but don’t want to learn themselves. Oh, how we do like to complain about library school!) Read more...
Digital Literacy, Engagement, and Digital Identity Development
Gradually, and Then All at Once
By Matt Reed. I miss a few days of blogging, and a college goes under. Honestly, I turn my back for one minute...
Sweet Briar College’s announcement that it will close this summer reminded me of Hemingway’s description of going broke: gradually, and then all at once. Although Sweet Briar still has an endowment that many small colleges would envy, and is still respected in the sector, its discount rates have reached levels that it has decided it simply can’t sustain. Read more...
ASAP for Adults
By Matt Reed. The ASAP program at CUNY has been getting good press recently. In a nutshell, it’s an attempt to take as many distractions away from students as possible, in order to improve graduation rates. Early results suggest that when you require students to attend full-time, you give them intensive personal advising, you give priority in scheduling, and you increase your per-student spending by about sixty percent, you can make meaningful gains in graduation rates. Read more...
The Hillary Email Disclosures
Don’t Expect Much When You’re Expecting
By Michelle Lavery. A few months ago I was approached by a friend with concerns about the process of taking maternity and parental leave at the University of New Brunswick in Canada, where we both study. She noted some issues with the process that, to the average Canadian, are fairly out of the ordinary. Our standards for parental leave are pretty high, and we’re used to hearing about year-long leaves that are partially, if not fully, paid with full healthcare benefits. Read more...
Venting About Students: Punching Up or Down?
By Madeleine Elfenbein. Chronicle Vitae's “Dear Student” series, featuring snarky professor and TA retorts to common student requests for leniency, has garnered some push-back recently from professors and graduate instructors alike (folks like Jesse Stommel, Dexter Thomas, Dorothy Kim, and Kevin Gannon), who argue that public venting about miscreant students is unkind and inappropriate and discouraging to students, not to mention bad for morale. Read more...
Grad School Abroad
By Hanna Peacock. Moving abroad for grad school is a great opportunity to learn a new language. For some programs, in order to be able to communicate with your colleagues, you’ll need to have a good grasp of the language when you arrive. In many other programs the working language is English, even if that is not the main spoken language in the region. I recently moved to Flanders, the northern part of Belgium, for my doctorate. While my program is in English, learning Flemish (Dutch) has still been quite useful and fun. I’m far from fluent, but people keep assuring me that if I stick with it, I’ll get better. Read more...
Rankings in the Middle East
By Alex Usher. If you follow rankings at all, you’ll likely have noticed a fair bit of recent activity going on in the Middle East these days. US News & World Report, and Quacquarelli Symonds (QS) both published “Best Arab Universities” rankings last year; the Times Higher Education (THE) produced a pilot MENA (Middle East and North Africa) ranking at a glitzy conference in Doha last week (don’t be distracted by terminology – THE’s “Middle East” includes neither Turkey nor Israel nor Iran, so it’s also an Arab ranking). Read more...