By Alexander W. Astin. In the early spring of 1989, not long before the Tiananmen Square protests, my wife and I were visiting China on behalf of the U. S. Agency for International Development to consult with Chinese higher education officials about educational reform. This was a unique time in China, when political discourse was relatively open and when many educators were emboldened to be openly critical of governmental policies. Read more...
By Scott McLemee. In one of those cases where satire cannot trump cold hard fact, the power brokers and heavy thinkers who gathered at an Alpine resort in Davos, Switzerland, for the World Economic Forum last month expressed great concern about the danger that growing inequality poses to social stability everywhere. As well they might. Strictly speaking, "widening income disparities" was only one of 10 issues flagged by the Forum's Outlook on the Global Agenda 2014 report, along with "a lack of values in leadership" and "the rapid spread of misinformation online." But a couple of concerns on the list -- "persistent structural unemployment" and "the diminishing confidence in economic policies" -- were variations on the same theme. Read more...
By Elaine Tuttle Hansen. As Inside Higher Ed has observed, few issues have risen to national attention as quickly as “undermatching,” the problem of high-achieving low-income students choosing to attend non-selective colleges. Now, in the study by Bastedo and Flaster summarized by Inside Higher Ed, we are beginning to see the first critiques of the methodology and assumptions underlying the original undermatching studies. In response, the earlier researchers argue that the quality of this new work is low. Other scholars defend the new critics and suggest that undermatching is indeed “overrated,” because it looks at only a small minority of low-income students -- the smartest and luckiest ones. Read more...
By Carolyn Foster Segal. As Inside Higher Ed reported last week, the newest round of curricular mayhem instigated by Bruce H. Leslie, the chancellor of the Alamo Colleges, is to replace his district’s second three-credit humanities course requirement with a class based on The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People. (Leslie might have suggested Machiavelli’s The Prince, which seems closer to his style of governance. The FranklinCovey Company plans to release a textbook specifically for EDUC 1300, Learning Framework, which will be required for every student taking the course. Read more...
By Colleen Flaherty for Inside Higher Ed. Lectures on “putting first things first” and “beginning with the end in mind” could soon replace those on world civilisations and logic for some students enrolled in San Antonio area community colleges. By Chris Parr. The Office of Fair Trading has told universities to review rules that stop students from graduating if they have non-tuition fee debts. By . The whistleblower Edward Snowden has been elected rector of the University of Glasgow. By . Cambridge scientists have come up with a new way of facilitating collaborations between academics at conferences – by treating them like genes. By . The new Higher Education Policy Institute director has called for reform of regulatory differences between universities and private providers. By . The British Academy is launching a major series of free public debates examining the crucial issues of our time. /https%3A%2F%2Fprofilepics.canalblog.com%2Fprofilepics%2F1%2F0%2F1076071.jpg)
