4 mai 2014

By William G. Durden. Americans don’t like cheaters. When it comes to how we learn and what we’re able to do with our acquired knowledge, a game has been going on. And many will find themselves systematically locked out of opportunity. Read more...

By Scott McLemee. For five years now, off and on -- as massive financial crisis and spiking unemployment have given way to healthy corporate profits and a “recovery” characterized by a surge in low-wage job creation — the word has gone around that people are rediscovering Marx’s Capital. Read more...

By Mark Salisbury. Over the past couple of decades, researchers have uncovered all sorts of ways in which certain types of students experience college differently.  Racial and ethnic minority, international, LGBTQ, first-generation, lower SES, and even politically conservative students encounter marginalizing experiences that can undercut the quality of their education. Read more...

By Matthew Gaertner. On April 22 the U.S. Supreme Court issued its ruling in Schuette v. Coalition to Defend Affirmative Action, upholding Michigan voters’ 2006 decision to ban race-based preferences in college admissions. Two immediate consequences of this decision are worth clarifying. First, and most obviously, race-based affirmative action remains prohibited at public universities in Michigan, a state whose population is over 14 percent black but whose flagship public school – the University of Michigan – serves a student body that is only 4 percent black. Read more...

By Serena Golden. While there exists a long tradition for defending the study of the humanities, in recent years the tone of such arguments has become rather more urgent. In an era of retrenchments and increased focus on immediate employment outcomes, those in disciplines whose vocational relevance may seem less than obvious have become increasingly outspoken about the value of their work (often in this very publication). Read more...

By Elizabeth Redden. Professors at the University of Chicago have renewed their opposition to the Chinese-government funded Confucius Institute on their campus, with more than 100 of them signing a petition calling on the Council of the University Senate to vote to terminate the university’s contract with Hanban, the government entity that oversees the centers of Chinese language teaching and research. Read more...

By Elizabeth Redden. The course: AMS 2270, 20th Century American Culture. The day’s lecture: the Civil Rights movement. The composition of the class: one-third American students, two-thirds international. The international students are enrolled in a pathway program here at the University of South Florida, one of a growing number of such programs that permit international students to take a mix of credit-bearing academic and English as a second language courses despite lacking the English language test scores required for direct admission. Read more...

By Bernard Lane and Julie Hare for The Australian. Students should pay higher interest on their loans and relieve the pressure on the public purse, a committee studying how to control spending by the Australian government recommends.
“The interest rate should be increased to a level which reflects all (the commonwealth’s) costs in making the loan,” says the report by the Commission of Audit, noting that the current rate falls below the government borrowing rate. Read more...

By Scott Jaschik. Visiting preachers set themselves up at many campuses and spend a day denouncing students for their fornication and criticizing professors for teaching evolution. On some campuses students have been known to engage with the visitors, or to try to offend them with same-sex kiss-ins. At the University of Connecticut last week, an anthropology professor decided to get involved. Read more...

By Scott Jaschik. English has taken off as a global language in higher education -- as a "medium of instruction," not just a foreign language in those countries where English is not the first language, says a report released Tuesday evening here. But in many countries and at many institutions, key issues related to the expanded use of English have not been defined or, in some cases, even discussed. The report was released at Going Global, the annual international education meeting of the British Council. Read more...