Practicing Affection in the Academy

By Robert Elder - Chronicle Vitae. Opponents of MOOCs and the "adjunctification" of higher education ended 2013 riding high on a wave of righteous indignation and schadenfreude. First, there was the acknowledgment by Sebastian Thrun, founder of Udacity, that his company will retool itself to focus on corporate education in light of its well-known failures in the higher education sector. Next, there was the heartbreaking story of Margaret Mary Vojtko, an elderly (and, it now appears, mentally troubled) adjunct at Duquesne University who died a lonely death after the job she loved was slowly reduced to nothing. See more...