Formation Continue du Supérieur

By Scott McLemee. In coining the word utopia, Thomas More was making a pun. The villain of Wolf Hall was, in real life, a learned man who wrote for people who could recognize a joke in Greek when he made one. The island republic of social perfection depicted in his most famous book was a good place (eu-topia), obviously. But it existed only in the imagination: it was also, literally, no place (ou-topia). Read more...

By John K. Wilson. Mehmet Oz, a cardiothoracic surgeon and vice chair of the Department of Surgery at Columbia University Medical Center has attracted some attention recently because he has a TV show, The Dr. Oz Show, on which he spouts some incredibly stupid ideas about phony weight-loss cures and how psychics make you feel better. Read more...

By Christine Seifert and Richard Chapman. Popular culture images of teaching would have us believe that the very best college professors speak from the front of a large lecture hall filled with eager young students listening to every word we utter. Or we sit at the head of a round table in a well-appointed seminar room peopled with rapt graduate students who wish to learn from our years of reading, thinking and writing. If cultural representations are any indication, professors are mere keepers of knowledge, the troll at the gate our students must pass. Read more...

By Matthew Reisz for Times Higher Education. Historians have pointed to the dire implications for research of the royalties claim being brought by the heirs of Joseph Goebbels, Hitler’s minister of propaganda, against the publisher Random House Germany.
The claim concerns extracts from diaries quoted in the biography Goebbels by Peter Longerich, professor of modern German history at Royal Holloway, University of London. The English edition is due to be published next month. Read more...

By Jake New. Reed College agreed with the female student’s version of the events, in which she said she was coerced into having the encounter, and kicked the male student off campus. Now he’s suing the college, alleging that Reed engaged in “a series of arbitrary, discriminatory and illegal actions” to ensure a predetermined outcome: his expulsion. Read more...

By Paul Fain. U.S. Senator Bernie Sanders made it official on Thursday by announcing his campaign for the Democratic presidential nomination. The Vermont Independent, who is 73, used part of his informal, 10-minute news conference on Capitol Hill to pitch a previously announced proposal for two free years of public college. Read more...

By Doug Lederman. The world may or may not need another college rankings system; on that question, commentators and pundits are divided...
In a report (with associated data set) published today, called "Beyond College Rankings: A Value-Added Approach to Assessing Two- and Four-Year Schools," two Brookings Institution researchers offer a complicated tool designed to help consumers and policy makers gauge how thousands of two- and four-year institutions prepare students for the workforce. Read more...

By Kaitlin Mulhere. There’s a class of budget reductions that are harmful -- even painful because of staff and program cuts -- and yet still manageable.
Then there are financial cuts so dramatic -- and perhaps unrealistic -- that it’s hard to picture what the remaining institution would look like when the dust settled. Read more...

By Colleen Flaherty. There’s been no shortage of criticism, both formal and informal, of how the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign handled the withdrawn faculty appointment of Steven Salaita last summer. (The university has a substantial number of supporters who say it was right to reject Salaita for the tone of his anti-Israel remarks on Twitter, but detractors have been numerous and vocal.) The latest disapproving report, out today from the American Association of University Professors, offers familiar complaints and also paves the way for the organization to hold a censure vote against the university later this spring. Read more...

By Colleen Flaherty. Cluster hiring -- or hiring multiple scholars into one or more departments based on shared, interdisciplinary research interests -- is growing in popularity. Increasingly it’s also seen as a way to advance faculty diversity or other aspects of the college or university mission, such as teaching or community engagement. Read more...