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By Scott McLemee. Perhaps you’ve heard of Rule 34. It expresses one of the core imperatives of 21st-century culture: “If something exists, there is porn about it. If no porn is found at the moment, it will be made. There are no exceptions.”
Consider, for example, the subculture devoted to eroticizing the My Little Pony cartoon characters. More people are into this than you might imagine. Read more...

By Pam Whitfield. His name was Bobby. He sat in the front row. He paid attention and asked smart questions; he engaged his classmates in debate. He wrote his first paper about pistol-whipping another 20-something in his trailer park over a drug deal. Bobby had so many stories. He wrote about rescuing a woman after she had been raped by a neighbor. He wrote about being homeless after he left gang life. He rode a beat-up bicycle five miles one way to the college in all types of Minnesota weather, then sat wet and shivering in the front row, his hoodie pulled over his head. In late November his girlfriend gave birth, and all we had left to remind us of Bobby was that empty front-row seat. Read more...

By Naomi Powell for Times Higher Education. The National University of Ireland is considering a leap into accredited online education with the aim of uniting universities in the republic behind a single international brand. The concept, to be examined in a feasibility study this year, would place participating universities under an NUI-branded umbrella organization with the aim of making a bigger splash in the rapidly evolving field of online education. Read more...

By Cory Weinberg. In the center of Tobacco Road, students are trying to wash away traces of racism and white supremacy on their campuses. Students at University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill want to rename an academic building that is currently named after a Reconstruction-era Ku Klux Klan leader. Ten miles away, at Duke University, students want to strip the name off a residence hall named for a state governor who was a vocal white supremacist. Read more...

By Scott Jaschik. The Kentucky Supreme Court has issued two unanimous decisions that strengthen the rights of tenured professors at religious institutions.
In one decision the court found that the "ministerial exception" -- which protects churches and some religious groups from some types of employment lawsuits -- does not bar suits over contractual matters such as tenure agreements that can be resolved based on evidence having nothing to do religious doctrine. Read more...

By Carl Straumsheim. Digital humanities scholars have recently found their work the topic of a number of snarky columns, and the arguments are now drawing support from some unexpected allies: digital humanities scholars themselves. Last month, the Slate columnist Rebecca Schuman warned readers not to "spend eight years getting a doctorate with the sole purpose of becoming digital humanist." Writing for Ozy, Sanjena Sathian argued that "English doesn’t need to be code’s sidekick." On Friday, Adam Kirsch dismissed the “breathless prophecies” about big data in education as mere hype, and blasted the language seen in digital humanities publications as inspired by “the spirit of salesmanship” seen at an Apple product unveiling. Read more...

By Carl Straumsheim. Faculty members and staffers at Northwestern and Washington State Universities, after more than a year of surveys, pilots and presentations, wanted roughly the same services and quality from their new learning management systems. Yet last month, they decisively chose different software providers. Read more...

By Colleen Flaherty. “I hope that you’ve Googled me.”
That's what James Kilgore, adjunct instructor of global studies and urban planning at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, told his program head when he applied for a teaching job there in 2011. Two years out of prison for his involvement with a 1975 bank robbery in which a woman was killed, Kilgore wasn’t legally obligated to disclose his criminal history. Read more...

By Colleen Flaherty. Yes. Probably not. It depends. If you’re looking for a definitive answer to the question “Should I go to grad school?” a new book by that name might not be for you. And if you’re considering going to grad school to eventually get rich, the book definitely isn’t for you (it says as much in the introduction). But if you are considering or ever have considered (for yourself or an advisee) attending graduate school – especially in the humanities – as a kind of a calling, then Should I Go to Grad School? 41 Answers to an Impossible Question is worth a read. Read more...

By Colleen Flaherty. Among evangelical Christian institutions, Bryan College in Dayton, Tenn., is relatively conservative. Its motto is “Christ above all,” and the college was named after William Jennings Bryan, the prosecutor in the 1925 Scopes Trial of a public school teacher accused of teaching evolution. But a recent "clarification" to the college’s statement of faith asserting the historicity of Adam and Eve has struck some as too narrow, and reportedly prompted the departures of at least two faculty members. The clarification was also the catalyst for a faculty vote of no confidence in the college president, and students have organized various means of protest around the issue. Read more...