By Tamar Lewin. Members of the Wellesley College faculty reacted strongly when word spread that Peking University might fire Prof. Xia Yeliang, a critic of the Chinese government. Professor Xia, an economist, had visited Wellesley over the summer after the college signed a partnership agreement with Peking University. Read more...15 décembre 2013
Digital Public Library of America: Young but Well Connected
By Jennifer Howard. This past spring, after years of hopeful talk, the idea of a U.S. national digital library took the leap into reality. The early signs are promising. After only seven months, the Digital Public Library of America, or DPLA, serves as the central link in an expanding network of cultural institutions that want to make their holdings more visible to the public. It has attracted financial support from foundations and government agencies, among them the National Endowment for the Humanities, the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, and, mostly recently, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. And it's begun to attract not only users in search of far-flung information but also developers who want to build new tools and applications on its open-source platform. More...
College costs pose a challenge
New numbers about college costs and student debt provide a sobering reminder of the importance of planning for college and informing students about the realities of those costs.
The numbers also provide a caution for college leaders to redouble efforts to hold down costs.
The average student debt of a graduating college senior in 2008 was $23,450, the Institute for College Access & Success says in a new report that looks at public and private nonprofit four-year institutions.
By 2012 the average debt load for new grads had climbed to $29,400. More...
Recession Graduates Have Greater Job Satisfaction, Study
. College students who graduated during recessions were extremely satisfied with their jobs compared to those who found employment during economic booms, according to an Emory University study. Emily Bianchi, assistant professor of organization and management at Goizueta Business School, said that when people start their jobs in good financial times, they tend to question their career choices and advancements. On the other hand, recession graduates are more than happy to have found a job and are less likely to ponder over alternate paths. More...
U.S. Colleges Finding Ideals Tested Abroad
By Tamar Lewin. Members of the Wellesley College faculty reacted strongly when word spread that Peking University might fire Prof. Xia Yeliang, a critic of the Chinese government. Professor Xia, an economist, had visited Wellesley over the summer after the college signed a partnership agreement with Peking University. Read more...Politicians: Ignore the Millennial Student Loan Crisis at Your Own Risk
By Adam Levin. Though politicians fall all over themselves when it comes to voters in my age bracket and even older (that's almost impossible to comprehend), a new survey by Harvard's Institute of Politics shows a growing class of discontented, registered voters who agree that there is one major issue among them regardless of party affiliation: that class is millennials, and that issue is student loan debt. More...
Online courses cut costs, expand options
By Ron Trowbridge. The University of Michigan's 2013 Alumni Newsletter features a piece, "MOOCs, Me, and Michigan," by English professor Eric Rabkin. The evidence in it for MOOC (massive, open, online course) instruction is powerful in terms of reducing college costs while at the same time improving the quality of education. It is a godsend for low-income students. Rabkin writes, "Course co-founder Daphne Koller reported that ... when an issue is raised on a (MOOC) forum, the mean time to someone else on the forum contributing a useful response is 22 minutes. That's 22 minutes around the clock, because the course community is global. No professor could ever be that responsive." More...
A model to help bring discoveries to the marketplace
By Jonathan Thon. In a previous post I made the argument that one way of recovering federally funded-research costs and bringing discoveries and innovations to the marketplace is by having governments included in intellectual property agreements. My guess is that getting universities to give up their patent rights and ability to claim indirect costs from incoming grants are going to be the major hurdles in academic reform. To justify this income, research institutions should be tasked with turning basic research programs covered by government grants into profitable (and therefore sustainable) ventures. Indeed, this was a conclusion shared by a report released by the Science, Technology and Innovation Council, State of the Nation 2010, showing that while Canada has talent and resources in spades, it is not leveraging them effectively to take a global leading role in innovation. More...
Contesting a metaphor
By Melonie Fullick. Last week with the release of the OECD’s PISA results, there was a flurry of media coverage of Canada’s (and other nations’) performance in this assessment, which I think was best summed up by Audrey Watters with the headline, “PISA Scores Confirm that [Fill in the Blank with Education Narrative of Your Choice]”. I didn’t have time to read most of this coverage, but one article I did catch was on the Globe and Mail website and was emblazoned with the headline “If you’re on an education ‘journey’, you’ve lost the race”. Read more...Taking stock and measuring well-being
By Jennifer Polk. Let me tell you about an exercise that coaches do with clients. The most used coaching text recommends that we use the Wheel of Life, and many coaches use this tool with clients to help them sort out how they’re doing in different areas of their lives. To do it for yourself, draw a big circle, and divide it into 8 or so segments. Name each segment after a different part of your life. For example, you may have physical environment, career, money, health, friends and family, intimacy, personal growth, and recreation. Then shade in as much of each segment of the circle as you rate your life in that area. A bumpy ride, as it were, signifies an unbalanced life, and taking stock can help suggest an agenda for coaching. My own training program offers up the Pillars of a Balanced Life exercise, which is a similar tool that breaks down a life into ten parts, from finances to family to fun. More...
New study says policies to promote work of women academics aren’t wholly successful
By Marie Lambert-Chan. Researchers compare research output of women academics with men in many disciplines and countries.
A new study published in the journal Nature has found that in the majority of disciplines, women produce fewer scientific articles than do their male counterparts. This is the case in most countries, with the exception of Lithuania, Ukraine, Macedonia and Turkmenistan. Moreover, fewer female academics are involved in international research projects, and their articles are cited less often, even when they are the lead author. More...
