Formation Continue du Supérieur

By Matt Reed. Last week, Rebecca Schuman did a wonderful meditation on a job ad from Sewanee that touched off quite a discussion, including here. This week, Cheryl Ball offered a more global how-to on reading faculty job postings.  The trend of reading job ads as texts strikes me as positive, and someday -- when I’m feeling a little braver -- I may do the same for some administrative postings.  But in the meantime, I was struck by some of the commentary to Ball’s piece in which various readers claimed that it’s possible, by this phrase or that one, to know what a committee is reallylooking for. Read more...

By Margaret Andrews. There is a new report out, Coding Nation, by the Kapor Center for Social Impact. The report, and accompanying database, lists a variety of “coding academies” and other resources that teach people about computer science and coding.  The over 300 listed resources represent a variety of formats including (from the website). Read more...

By Joshua Kim. Ray Schroeder gave an amazing plenary talk this past weekend at the Teaching Professor Technology Conference.  
His presentation, The Vortex of Technology: Enabling and Enhancing Engagement with Students, is definitely something you want to take some time to check out.
What I find intriguing about Ray's talk is his decision to forgo PowerPoint. Ray actually worked the method into the substance of his talk, making the argument that a Web presentation is superior to a PowerPoint based presentation if your goal is to create a conversation. Read more...

By Joshua Kim. Have you been following the discussion about the absence of women in top positions at Twitter?
According to the NYTimes coverage on the Twitter IPO:
"The board? All white men. The investors? All men. The executive officers? All men but for the general counsel, Vijaya Gadde, who has had the job for five weeks."
The lack of women in leadership roles at Twitter mirrors larger trends in the tech industry. Read more...

By Joshua Kim. Did you catch Eric Stoller's (@EricStoller - 38,494 tweets, 13,039 follower) post 20 Pros to Follow [on Twitter]?
I was not on Eric's Twitter list.  (@joshmkim - 1,284 tweets, 1,693 followers).
Nor should I be on Eric's to follow Twitter list - or really anyone's Twitter list.
I'm terrible at Twitter.  
We are learning lots more about the origins of Twitter, thanks to the excerpt from Nick Bilton's forthcoming book Hatching Twitterin the NYTimes. Read more...

By Laura B. McGrath. Laura B. McGrath is a PhD student in English at Michigan State University. She tweets at @lbmcgrath and blogs at Emerging Modernisms.
Many of us regularly refer students to different university services. Without batting an eye, I’ve encouraged students to visit the University Writing Center, to set up a meeting with a subject librarian, or to see a tutor in the English Language Center. These fantastic services can offer more specialized attention than I am able to give, and I’m so grateful for their partnership. But other types of referrals are not so concrete: What do you do, for example, when a student confesses that s/he has recently suffered some sort of trauma? Or when a student writes about illegal activity in a paper? Or when you notice fresh self-injury scars as you talk with a student after class? Read more...

By Elizabeth Redden. PROVIDENCE, R.I. – Virtually every college says it puts a priority on "global" or "international" learning and, in recent years, many have added language to that effect to their mission statements. But in the haste to do so, some institutions haven't quite fleshed out what they mean by it or what strategies will best support it.
“Now I think we’re backfilling, and being more specific about it, in a context where we’re being more specific about all learning outcomes,” said Kevin Hovland, senior director of global learning and curricular change at the Association of American Colleges and Universities, which hosted its first conference on “Global Learning” last week. Read more...

By Scott Jaschik. A federal judge ruled Monday that the state of Maryland is perpetuating a segregated higher education system by permitting program duplication that discourages enrollments at historically black colleges. The judge ordered mediation on a possible solution that could include the addition of many programs at the state's four public historically black colleges and that could also result in significant changes at predominantly white institutions. "It is also likely that the transfer or merger of select high-demand programs from TWIs to HBIs will be necessary," wrote Judge Catherine C. Blake, using the acronyms for traditionally white and historically black institutions. Read more...