Formation Continue du Supérieur

20 mai 2013

Student-Loan Report Prompts Calls for Refinancing Options

By Allie Bidwell. Frustrated borrowers with private student loans have often said they feel trapped in their debt, struggling with high monthly payments and few options to ease the burden. Their concerns received backing from a report released on Wednesday by a federal consumer-protection agency. The report, issued by the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, calls for more flexible repayment options and a refinancing market for private student loans. In the report, the agency analyzes the more than 28,000 comments it received about the difficulties faced by many borrowers with private student loans. Read more...

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20 mai 2013

Cultivating Partnerships in the Digital Humanities

By William Pannapacker. What teaching colleges and research universities have to gain from collaboration. As academics we can be too snug in our institutional silos. We sometimes think of one another as competitors for students, and as a result we duplicate scarce resources in mutually damaging ways. Without more coordinated programs, will we go on teaching the way we have since the Industrial Revolution? Will our students, knowing it doesn't have to be that way and worried about their future, lose patience with us?
The digital humanities (or, preferably, the more inclusive digital liberal arts) provides a context for facing those questions head-on. I have written several essays extolling the value of digital approaches as a means of transforming undergraduate education. Read more...

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20 mai 2013

Treating Candidates Like Supplicants, and 9 Other Recruiting Mistakes

By Dennis M. Barden. Top 10 missteps that backfire on administrative search committees.
As search consultants, my colleagues and I regularly observe candidates doing counterproductive things during a preliminary (yes, I mean "airport") interview, in the mistaken belief that they are scoring points with the hiring committee. But search committee have their own set of gaffes.
Last week's column focused on the 10 most common missteps made by would-be presidents, provosts, and deans. In the spirit of turnabout being fair play—and with continuing props to David Letterman as master of the form—I offer here the top 10 things that search-committee members do (or don't do) in interviews that backfire.
10. Don't understand the job. Ironically, this happens all the time. Read more...

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20 mai 2013

As MOOC Debate Simmers at San Jose State, American U. Calls a Halt

By Steve Kolowich. In the latest salvo in a debate over MOOCs that has drawn national attention, the San Jose State University chapter of the California Faculty Association has thrown its weight behind recent criticisms of the university's partnerships with outside providers of massive open online courses—specifically, edX and Udacity.
Meantime, on the opposite side of the country, American University has announced a "moratorium on MOOCs."
The California faculty union, which represents more than 2,000 professors on the San Jose State campus, has written a memorandum sharply criticizing the university's president, Mohammad H. Qayoumi, for what the union sees as a preference for "private rather than public solutions" when it comes to online tools and content. Read more...

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20 mai 2013

Partnership Gives Students Access to a High-Price Text on a MOOC Budget

By Jake New. Later this month, Michael Schatz, a physics professor at the Georgia Institute of Technology, will begin teaching a massive open online physics course through Coursera. Because of the complexity of physics and because the course uses computer modeling, students taking the MOOC will need access to something that doesn't often come with a free online course: an expensive textbook.
"This is an intro course," Mr. Schatz said. "The idea is this is a person's first course in physics. Textbook usage is a common feature of such courses. They play a central role. Without the book, this course is kind of a nonstarter."
But that textbook, which is called Matter and Interactions and is published by John Wiley & Sons, can cost more than $150. With many participants enrolling in MOOCs as a way to learn while saving money, how to bring high-quality, mainstream textbooks into a service that is meant to be free, or at least inexpensive, remains a puzzle. Read more...

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20 mai 2013

How Much Do You Pay for College?

By Richard Kahlenberg. A once-taboo topic emerges from the shadows. Over the past decade and a half, I've given talks on dozens of college campuses about the need to increase socioeconomic diversity, but never before had I witnessed what I observed during a recent speech at Middlebury College.
Before introducing me, students from the sponsoring organization, Money at Midd, began the forum by publicly announcing their names and how much they and their families paid each year in tuition and fees. The first student, Samuel Koplinka-Loehr, said that his family paid about $18,000, and that he added $3,000 from his job. He passed the microphone to the next student, who said his family paid the full $56,000 comprehensive fee. A young woman said that her family could not afford to pay anything, but that she worked to pay $1,200 toward college costs. Read more...

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20 mai 2013

Self-Sabotage in the Academic Career

By Robert J. Sternberg. 15 ways in which faculty members harm their own futures, often without knowing it. Pogo recognized long ago that we often are our own worst enemies. Sure, he was a cartoon character, but he had a point—especially in higher education, where self-sabotage seems to be a standard characteristic of academic careers. In my 30 years as a professor, five years as a dean, and three years as a provost, I have observed many academics harm their own careers, often without realizing it. Here are 15 ways in which you can be most self-destructive.
1. You don't seek out multiple mentors. Too many faculty members sit back and wait for guidance and advice from their department heads or promotion committees. Successful academics, early in their careers, look for several mentors, including from departments other than their own. No one person or committee can be relied on to give you definitive career advice. In the end, you need to seek out multiple sources of advice, sort the good from the bad, and take responsibility for your own career development. Read more...

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20 mai 2013

Students Might Not Be 'Academically Adrift' After All, Study Finds

By Dan Berrett. Students show substantial gains in learning during college, as measured by a standardized test of critical thinking, according to two studies conducted by the creator of the test. While perhaps not a direct rebuke to Academically Adrift: Limited Learning on College Campuses, the blockbuster 2011 book that documented what its authors argued was meager learning on campuses, the studies, by the Council for Aid to Education, do offer a sunnier counternarrative.
"It's probably a more nuanced story," said Roger Benjamin, the council's president, in an interview on Friday. The results described in reports on the studies, "Does College Matter? Measuring Critical-Thinking Outcomes Using the CLA" and "Three Principle Questions About Critical-Thinking Tests," were presented in an off-the-record session here at the American Enterprise Institute. Read more...

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20 mai 2013

Uni-Tests in Griechenland: Ptychiomania heißt Abschlusswahn

Aus Thessaloniki berichtet Georgios Christidis. Ihr Land liegt am Boden, das treibt sie an: Griechenlands Schüler kämpfen wie die Löwen um Studienplätze an den besten Unis. Die harten Auswahltests dauern zwei Wochen und sind ein nationales Faszinosum, TV-Sender berichten zur Primetime. Die Kandidaten leiden - die Eltern auch. Krise hin oder her, die Griechen sind nach wie vor vernarrt in universitäre Bildung. Am Freitag begannen landesweit die zwei Wochen dauernden universitären Aufnahmeprüfungen - für Tausende Oberschüler und ihre Eltern der Höhepunkt eines dramatischen, anstrengenden Jahres. Doch die Tests sind in Griechenland noch mehr als eine Feuerprobe für Schulabgänger und Familien - sie sind ein Faszinosum für das ganze Land und ein Ereignis für das Hauptabendprogramm im Fernsehen. Psychologen sind im Mai gefragte Zeitungskolumnisten und verteilen großzügig Tipps fürs Stressmanagement an die Leserschaft. Mehr...

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20 mai 2013

Korruption in Russland: Warum studieren, ich kann doch schmieren

Von Charlotte Haunhorst.Professoren bekommen in Russland nicht besonders viel Geld, deswegen verdienen viele durch Studenten dazu: Wer nicht lernen kann oder will, schiebt dem Dozenten einige tausend Rubel rüber. Erlaubt ist das nicht, trotzdem soll mindestens jeder dritte Student schon bestochen haben... Einer ernsthaften Überprüfung halten die wenigsten Promotions- oder Habilitationsschriften stand. Für Aufsehen sorgte kürzlich die Revision von 25 Dissertationen einer Moskauer Elite-Uni. 24 davon wurden als wissenschaftlich ungenügend enttarnt, darunter auch die Arbeit von Andrej Andrijanow, dem Direktor der Kaderschmiede für mathematisch begabte Studenten an der Universität Moskau, einem Vertrauten von Wladimir Putin. Andrijanow, so konnte nachgewiesen werden, hatte die Arbeit bei einem Doktormacher gekauft. Das erklärte auch, warum er als Diplomchemiker einen Doktor in Geschichte besaß, ausgestellt von einer Hochschule für Pädagogik... Denn jeder Student zahlt durchschnittlich 1000 Euro Studiengebühren im Jahr. Wer scheitert, fällt als Einnahmequelle weg. Bei der abnehmenden Zahl junger Menschen müssen die Unis um jeden Studenten kämpfen. Mehr...

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