Par Anthony Maranghi. À l’inverse des choix actuels l’université doit être accessible au plus grand nombre et permettre une véritable autonomie des travailleurs tout au long de leur parcours professionnel et de formation.
Un grand malentendu fausse les débats politiques autour des réformes de l’université. L’inflation des titres et diplômes, tant décriée par les tenants d’une approche utilitariste du savoir, ne s’est pas doublée d’un accès massif aux emplois moins pénibles et plus rémunérateurs. Le fossé entre les aspirations légitimes à l’épanouissement par le travail et la morosité des marchés de l’emploi (entre chômage, précarité et déclassement) n’a fait que s’accroître. Les gouvernements et les hommes d’affaires ont distillé l’idée que ce fossé doit se réduire par deux principaux leviers : la restriction de l’accès aux études et la mise en adéquation des cursus avec les besoins à court terme des agents économiques dominants. À l’inverse, une perspective communiste implique d’encourager simultanément la démocratisation de l’accès et l’autonomie des parcours de formation face aux injonctions des employeurs. Suite...

By Melonie Fullick. There’s nothing like the perspective of distance to bring murky issues into focus. I was able to re-discover this recently when I (unexpectedly) ended up spending two weeks in New Zealand, where I travelled on short notice to attend my father’s funeral, then visited extended family afterwards. Read more...

By Mason Stokes. Trigger warnings are in the news. College students—mostly young women—are requesting pre-emptive warnings about material that might upset them, that might, in some cases, cause symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder. It’s no surprise, then, that the backlash has begun. Writers and commenters—the majority appear to be male—are decrying this latest surrender to political correctness. More...

By Ryan Cordell. When I moved to the Boston area and began commuting two years ago, I asked ProfHacker readers to recommend a good backpack for commuting. So many recommended Tom Bihn backpacks that I got one, and I loved it. So when I was preparing for a series of work-related trips this spring, I wanted to test out Tom Bihn’s travel bags for these 2- or 3-night trips. The company provided me with an Aeronaut, a Tri-Star, and a Pilot bag so I could test them all, along with a set of packing cubes and pouches to keep them organized. More...

By Jonah Newman. It’s commencement season, so it’s no surprise that the “Is college worth it?” question is making headlines (again) this week. Perhaps fueled by nervous graduates and parents wondering if they’ve just flushed four (or more) years and many thousands of dollars down the drain, a column on that question by David Leonhardt of The New York Times became the most-read and most-emailed article on the newspaper’s website. More...

By Oronte. Tim Peters was a Fulbright fellow in Argentina in 2009. His work has appeared in The Point magazine, the Chicago Reader, the Review of Contemporary Fiction, and the Los Angeles Review of Books. His work has appeared at the blog before, most recently here and here Read more...

By Rosemarie Emanuele. When the Academy Award winning song “Let it Go” sings about snowflakes as “frozen fractals”, it is calling to mind a mathematical concept closely linked to the idea of “chaos”. I found myself thinking of the idea of chaos this past week, as things seemed to get lost on an almost daily basis, and I felt that I could not seem to regain control over the minutia of my life. Read more...

By Laura Tropp. When I wanted to play as a child, I simply headed out the front door, rang the bell of a neighbor, and we would start a kickball game. Today, in order for my child to play with a friend, play dates have to be arranged. When did playing become so scheduled?  Has the drop-in play date disappeared? Is it because children’s time is over-planned? Are families too busy? Or is it that we are so used to mediated technology that showing up unannounced is simply not done anymore. Read more...

By Kelly Hanson. Summer is upon us here in Southern Indiana, and in between barbeques and long weekend bike rides, I have some epic plans for my dissertation this summer. The trouble? The lack of semesterly structure makes me feel like I am untethered. Summer, for me, is one of the most difficult times to write. My summer productivity has been hit or miss in the past. But this summer, I am ready to get this chapter done. Read more...