By Matt Reed. Have you ever been trained in how to write a letter of recommendation? On the blogs, when we talk about letters of recommendation, we usually refer to letters for grad students trying to get faculty (or postdoc) jobs. Here I’m thinking more specifically of letters for undergraduate students, whether in support of transfer, scholarship applications, or whatever. Read more...
By Scott McLemee. I've never had the occasion to begin a piece of writing with a trigger warning, and am decidedly ambivalent about the whole phenomenon -- especially since learning from Tressie McMillan Cottom's excellent blog that some universities "are issuing guidelines to help professors consider adding 'trigger warnings' to syllabi for 'racism, classism, sexism, heterosexism, cissexism, ableism, and other issues of privilege and oppression,' and to remove triggering material when it doesn’t 'directly' contribute to learning goals.” Read more...By Scott Jaschik. Montana Tech is a science-oriented unit of the University of Montana, offering a range of degrees in science and technology fields. So Montana-based technology entrepreneurs might seem like logical choices for commencement speakers. This year's speakers will be Greg and Susan Gianforte, engineers who started several technology companies and have been donors to computer science programs at several Montana colleges. Read more...
By . As a new lawsuit seeks to radically transform teaching conditions, an expert warns of our nation's education shift. Final briefs are due next week in Vergara v. California, an under-the-radar billionaire-backed lawsuit that could transform teaching conditions in the largest state. Citing the constitutional rights of its public school student plaintiffs, the suit seeks to overturn state laws that schedule tenure consideration after two years of teaching, dictate the use of seniority when budget cuts force layoffs, and impose due process rules on teachers’ terminations. It very well may succeed; the president of one of the statewide unions fighting the suit warned L.A. Weekly that Judge Rolf Treu’s more aggressive questioning of his side “unfortunately … may be quite telling about where he’s going.” And it could inspire copycat efforts across the United States. More...
Par Philippe Menkoué. Comment apprendrons-nous dans 10, 20 ou 30 ans ? Y aura t-il encore des écoles, des universités, des enseignants ? Comment nous mettrons-nous à jour ? Et d'ailleurs, comment saurons-nous qu'il est temps de nous mettre à jour ?
Impossible de répondre avec certitude à toutes ces questions. Tout au plus pouvons-nous nous appuyer sur les faits objectivement vérifiables et notre connaissance des mouvements sociohistoriques passés pour tenter de préparer l'avenir. Voir l'article...
Sur le blog "Histoires d'universités" de Pierre Dubois. Nouvelle de la Sudversion en Franche-Comté, Journal du Syndicat Sud Éducation – Solidaires, Unitaires, Démocratiques – (n°27, mars 2014). Chroniques antérieures du blog sur l’Université franc-comtoise. Un article de ce numéro mérite une attention particulière car il montre la contribution des enseignants eux-mêmes à la réduction de l’offre de formation : Suicide institutionnel. Suppression du Master Analyse et gestion des politiques sociales (AGEPOS). Un cas d’école ! Voir l'article complet...
By Brian Mathews. Last week we hosted data artist Jer Thorp for several days. As part of our Distinguished Innovator in Residence Program (a partnership between University Libraries and TLOS with others contributing as well) we bring in creative thinkers to meet with students, brainstorm with faculty, give a public lecture, and essentially spark new conversations across campus. I highly recommend his Ted Talk. More...
By Robert Cowan. “So, do the characters in Flaubert’s novel act in accordance with Kant’s categorical imperative?” I looked around the classroom of my freshman composition students and was greeted with blank stares.
“Who actually read up to page 306?” Two hands went up, one only halfway. Others confessed that they had read only to page 147, or page 20, 72, 3. Some hadn’t even opened Sentimental Education. Why hadn’t they done the assigned reading? More...
By Paul Voosen. Last year, when Sir David Attenborough, the British naturalist and broadcaster, speculated that human beings had ended natural selection through cultural and technological innovations, he got a deserved amount of blowback. The criticism started with his toy-model view of evolution, and went from there. But beneath it all, there was one lingering question: Was he getting at, in any way, a kernel of truth? Read more...
By Jonathan Rees. When I was in graduate school, I was both a member and a board member of the oldest graduate student union in the country, the good old TAA. The vast majority of TAA leaders came from three departments: History, English and Sociology. Some of that was an artifact of the size of those departments. My first-year graduate school cohort at Wisconsin had ninety people in it. [Thanks again for that, Bill Bowen.] Yet the flip side of that situation was in some ways more telling: You couldn’t find a scientist in our union if you had put one on the Most Wanted List and offered a $100,000 reward. We always figured it had to do with the quality of their aid packages. Well-paid workers seldom join unions. More...
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