By Matt Reed. I try not to subject the kids to too many of my pet obsessions. Last weekend, though, I just couldn’t resist.
How often do you get to see the Magna Carta?
We took the kids to the Clark Art Institute, in Williamstown, to see the “Radical Words” exhibit. It’s there for a few more weeks, and I really can’t recommend it highly enough. Read more...
5 Questions About Unizin for Instructure
By Joshua Kim. Many of us are very curious about the new Unizin Consortium, and what the emergence of Unizin means to schools that use the Canvas LMS but that are not members of the group.
Jared Stein, Instructure’s VP of Research and Education, graciously agreed to tackle my questions. Read more...
4 Reasons Why I Almost Never Use the Family iPad Mini
By Joshua Kim. Apple just released the new thinner, lighter and faster iPad Air 2. I am not enthused. You?
The strange thing is that I continue to think that higher ed one-to-one iPad programs are a good idea. I like the iPad Mini and the iTunes U Courses app. I think that it makes sense to put all of the curriculum of a program, all the articles and book chapters and videos, into an iTunes U course. Read more...
The Crew You Need to “Break-In” to Grad School Success
By Shira Lurie. Katy Meyers Emery has ingeniously compared graduate school to a zombie apocalypse. She is certainly correct that “the rise of the undead serves as a great metaphor for grad school.” As my doctoral career gets underway, I have personally likened success in grad school to a high-security bank vault. You need a good plan, a special set of skills, and a lot of hard work to break in, but the treasure inside will pay off big. If you have ever seen a heist movie, you know that the first thing every good heist leader must do is assemble a crack team. Read more...
Take a Hike: Walking for Creative Thinking
By Hanna Peacock. Much of what we do as STEM grad students is creative. Troubleshooting experiments, planning a talk, or designing a poster all require imaginative thinking in some form. Oftentimes, our best ideas aren’t produced when sitting behind our laptops. They come to us while washing dishes, daydreaming, or in the shower. That is, some of our best ideas happen when we are not in the lab or the office. Read more...
An Honest Question
By Barbara Fister. This stream of consciousness was provoked by a job ad that a Twitter friend linked to seeking a librarian whose role would be assessment and marketing. At first I thought perhaps they want to hire someone who lead assessment of student learning and also do some promotional work for the library - help publicize new electronic resources, populate an interesting Twitter feed or Tumblr, take charge of those television screens that seem to be sprouting all over campuses and need to be fed advertisements for events and such. Librarians often have multiple responsibilities. Read more...
Math Geek Mom: Do Something Dangerous

Coming Along Nicely, Thank You

The Great Mismatch
By Paula Krebs. Most folks at doctoral institutions don't have a clue what goes on in community colleges. The departments don't, the individual faculty members don't, and it would be a rare graduate adviser indeed who had ever set foot on a community college campus. Read more...
Know When to Walk Away
By Brandon G. Withrow. For an Evangelical school, the statement of faith is the first job qualification. A search committee may have the perfect candidate, but ultimately, if the person cannot sign the faith statement, he or she is disqualified. This faith distinction is often what’s behind news reports of faculty at Evangelical schools losing their positions over views of LGBTQ rights and identity or creationism. Read more...