By Andy Thomason. Thirteen state attorneys general have asked that federal recognition not be renewed for the Accrediting Council for Independent Colleges and Schools, the much-maligned accreditor of, for one, the now-defunct Corinthian Colleges. The request was made in a letter on Friday to the heads of the U.S. Education Department and the National Advisory Committee on Institutional Quality and Integrity, known as Naciqi. More...
U. of Louisville Will Remove Monument to Confederate Soldiers
By Courtney Kueppers. A 121-year-old Confederate monument at the University of Louisville will be removed, its president, James R. Ramsey, and the Kentucky city’s mayor, Gregory E. Fischer, announced at a news conference on Friday morning, according to the Courier-Journal. More...
U. of Utah Plays Down Honorary-Degree Recipient’s Role in ‘Hate Groups’
By Courtney Kueppers. After drawing attention from online commenters, the University of Utah has removed references on its website to an honorary-degree recipient’s leadership of two anti-LGBT groups, reports The Salt Lake Tribune. More...
Facing Financial Woes, Berkeley Will Eliminate 500 Staff Jobs
By Courtney Kueppers. The University of California at Berkeley will eliminate 500 staff positions over the next two years in an attempt to balance its budget, reports the San Francisco Chronicle. More...
Faced With Unfortunate Acronym, George Mason Renames Law School, Again
By Courtney Kueppers. Shortly after George Mason University announced last week that it would rename its law school as the Antonin Scalia School of Law in honor of the late Supreme Court justice, people on social media began pointing out the new school’s unfortunate acronym. More...
Princeton Will Keep Woodrow Wilson’s Name on School and Dorm
By Courtney Kueppers. The school of public affairs at Princeton University, as well as an undergraduate residential college, will continue to bear Woodrow Wilson’s name, the university’s Board of Trustees announced in a statement on Monday. More...
More Professors Say Undergraduates Need to Hone Research Abilities, Survey Finds
By Courtney Kueppers. Report: “Ithaka S+R US Faculty Survey”
Authors: Christine Wolff, Alisa B. Rod, and Roger C. Schonfeld; Ms. Wolff and Mr. Schonfeld are at Ithaka S+R, the consulting-and-research arm of the nonprofit group Ithaka, which focuses on technology in academe; Ms. Rod is associate director of the Empirical Reasoning Center at Barnard College
Summary: This latest edition of a survey that is conducted every three years found an uptick in faculty members who believe undergraduate students are arriving at college with inadequate research skills. More...
Going Low-Tech with Paper To-Do Lists
By Anastasia Salter. While at ProfHacker we are continually watching for more efficient and helpful technological solutions to the everyday challenges of academic life, sometimes the right pad of paper is better than the most feature-rich app. Read more...
Thinking through Comics with Nick Sousanis’s Grids & Gestures
By Anastasia Salter. This week, comics artist and scholar Nick Sousanis has drawn many into a creative comics-making activity that can be great for thinking about visual communication in and out of the classroom. Nick Sousanis is known for his incredible comic dissertation-turned-book, Unflattening, recently released from Harvard University Press. Read more...
Reflecting on Grids and Gestures
By Anastasia Salter. Last week I wrote about Nick Sousanis’s call for an experimental week of comics-esque journaling, Grids & Gestures. Along with many folks on Twitter, I participated in this daily exercise of chronicling a day through a grid and a series of gestures, loosely defined, without trying to “draw” so much as interpret ideas and emotions. Read more...