The Chronicle News Blog: Crusader Against ‘Ladies’ Nights’ Is Blocked at Door in Legal Challenge to Women’s Studies
Roy Den Hollander, a men’s-rights advocate who first made a name for himself by challenging the “ladies’ nights” promotions of New York bars, has bumped up against a velvet rope in his effort to get the courts to block federal and state money from going to colleges that offer programs in women’s studies.
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Posted in Academics
Tagged Academics, activism, Women's studies
The New York Time: End the University as We Know It
By MARK C. TAYLOR
GRADUATE education is the Detroit of higher learning. Most graduate programs in American universities produce a product for which there is no market (candidates for teaching positions that do not exist) and develop skills for which there is diminishing demand (research in subfields within subfields and publication in journals read by no one other than a few like-minded colleagues), all at a rapidly rising cost (sometimes well over $100,000 in student loans).
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Posted in Commentary
Tagged Academics, Commentary, Contingent labor, Graduate student labor, Research
The Chronicle: Oh. Canada.
On the old MTV game show Remote Control, contestants were often challenged to determine whether an erstwhile celebrity was “dead, or Canadian?” For Simon Fraser University’s Canadian-studies program, the answer is “both.”
Facing budget problems and declining interest from students, the British Columbia institution decided to nix the program, effective April 1. But south of the border, the University of North Dakota — in balmy Grand Forks — has asked the State Board of Higher Education for permission to add a Canadian-studies minor to its curriculum. The university already offers a handful of courses that could be reclassified as Canadian studies, and three professors have volunteered to co-teach a survey course.
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Posted in Academics
Tagged Academics, Canada, Simon Fraser U, University of North Dakota
Inside Higher Ed: ‘Tuning’ College Degrees
In a major new effort to assure rigor and relevance for college degrees at various levels, three states are today formally launching a project aimed at “tuning” academic programs in six fields of study.
“Tuning,” borrowed from Europe’s Bologna Process, involves research and surveys of faculty members, students and employers, and consultation with business and government leaders, to determine exactly what a degree in a given field stands for in terms of students’ learning and competencies. Europe embarked on tuning as part of an effort to make degrees across the continent interchangeable, so that a bachelor’s degree in chemistry in Italy would mean roughly the same as one in the Netherlands, and that graduate programs and employers could thus know what a given degree would represent.
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Posted in Academics
Tagged Academics, Bolonga Process, Degrees
The Herald: Hundreds of courses dropped in Scottish schools
Hundreds of courses have been scrapped at schools around the country in recent years, new figures have revealed.
Data obtained by the Conservatives show that 289 Higher and Advanced Higher courses have been cut since 2006.
The Chronicle: After the Crash, Scholars Say, Higher Education Must Refocus on Its Public Mission
The economic crisis weighed on the minds of the 200 scholars who gathered here last week for a national conference of the Network for Academic Renewal, a project of the Association of American Colleges and Universities. But even as the federal government announced that 660,000 more jobs had been lost in March, several of the speakers here saw—or perhaps grasped for—reasons for hope.
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Posted in Academics
Tagged Academics, Economy, Job market
The New York Times: New Political Study Center? Turn Right at Berkeley
If you’re interested in studying left-wing social movements like organized labor, civil rights or feminism, there are dozens of universities and colleges that have created special programs and research centers devoted to the subject. But hardly any similar institutions exist in academia for those looking for a place to study the right wing in America and abroad.
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Posted in Academics
Tagged Academics, Politics, University of California
Los Angeles Times: USC marketing class helps CIA recruitment
Looking to hire recent graduates, Central Intelligence Agency turns to university students nationwide for help developing ad campaigns. The economic downturn increases the jobs’ appeal.
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Posted in Academics
Tagged Academics, CIA, Government, marketing
Times of India: UGC stresses on assessment of students’ abilities
ALLAHABAD: With the aim of revamping the examination systems in various universities and educational institutions, the University Grants Commission (UGC) has urged the universities to take steps to assess the performance of students through internal and external evaluation.
The suggestions have been sent by UGC chairman Sukhdeo Thorat to all vice-chancellors of the Central, state and deemed universities, including Allahabad University (AU), asking them to try and go beyond `marks’ and `divisions’ and give cumulative grade point score (CGPS).
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Posted in Academics
Tagged Academics, Indian, student assessment
Inside Higher Ed: Master’s Degree in Twitter Studies
Birmingham City University, in Britain, is attracting attention and some skepticism with its announcement that it is starting a new master’s degree program in social media, with an emphasis on training people to work in marketing or consulting for those who want to better understand Twitter, Facebook and other popular online services. One student told The Telegraph: “Virtually all of the content of this course is so basic it can be self taught. In fact most people know all this stuff already. I think it’s a complete waste of university resources.” One faculty member responded (on Twitter, of course) that the student was “uninformed.”
Master’s Degree in Twitter Studies
Birmingham City University, in Britain, is attracting attention and some skepticism with its announcement that it is starting a new master’s degree program in social media, with an emphasis on training people to work in marketing or consulting for those who want to better understand Twitter, Facebook and other popular online services. One student told The Telegraph: “Virtually all of the content of this course is so basic it can be self taught. In fact most people know all this stuff already. I think it’s a complete waste of university resources.” One faculty member responded (on Twitter, of course) that the student was “uninformed.”
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Posted in Academics
Tagged Academics, Online, social media, UK
Inside Higher Ed: Revolt Against Outsourced Courses
Here’s the pitch: “Can you really GO TO COLLEGE for LESS THAN the cost of your monthly CELL PHONE BILL? We can’t say that this is true in ALL cases — hey, you might have a GREAT cell phone plan. But maybe it’s your cable bill, electric bill, or your GAS bill. … The point we’re trying to make is that taking general education, required college courses just became A LOT more affordable.”
How affordable? $99 for a course. And if you take the courses offered by StraighterLine — in composition, economics, algebra, pre-calculus, and accounting — you don’t need to worry that the company isn’t itself a college. StraighterLine has partnerships with five colleges that will award credit for the courses. Three are for-profit institutions and one is a nontraditional state university for adult students. But one college among the five is more typical of the kinds of colleges most students attend. It is Fort Hays State University, an institution of 10,000 students in Kansas.
There, even as professors are still pushing to get information about StraighterLine so they can evaluate it, students have taken a look and decided that they don’t like what they see. In articles in the student newspaper and in Facebook groups (attracting debates with the university’s provost and the company’s CEO), the students argue that StraighterLine is devaluing their university and higher education in general.
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Posted in Corporate University
Tagged Academics, Corporate Univeristy, Online, outsourcing
The Gainesville Sun: A worst-case budget for UF cuts 140 jobs
More than 140 employees of the University of Florida would lose their jobs under worst-case budget plans being prepared by various UF colleges.
Some layoffs would come through colleges eliminating academic programs, such as athletic training, documentary film and educational psychology. A variety of other programs and facilities also would be cut if the proposals are enacted.
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Posted in Budgets & Funding
Tagged Academics, Job cuts, Program eliminations
Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel: Drug firms’ cash skews doctor classes
Company-funded UW courses often favor medicine, leave out side effects
Do your legs feel tingly? Do you suffer from mood swings before your period? Would you take a mind-altering drug to quit smoking?
If so, the pharmaceutical industry and the University of Wisconsin-Madison want to teach your doctor a lesson.
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Posted in Corporate University
Tagged Academics, Conflict-of-interests, Drug companies, medicine, Wisconsin
World University News: FRANCE: Strikes continue despite teacher-training concession
Striking lecturers and researchers are continuing their eight-week stoppage, despite a further concession by Education Minister Xavier Darcos over teacher-training reform. The biggest higher education union also rejected an amended decree modifying academics’ job status at a meeting with Higher Education and Research Minister Valérie Pécresse.
Up to 30,000 protesting lecturers, researchers and students – joined by two university presidents – demonstrated on Tuesday in Paris and other major towns, while during the week individual institutions continued organising protest actions such as holding lectures in public places, local demonstrations and boycotting administrative duties.
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Posted in Strikes & Labor Disputes
Tagged Academics, France, Strikes & Labor Disputes, teacher education
Hurriyet: 200 years after Darwin, 83 years after Scopes
ANKARA – A last-minute decision to pull Charles Darwin, the father of evolution, off the cover of a top Turkish scientific journal and the chief editor off the job has fueled criticism that Turkey’s national research council is too politicized.
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Posted in Academic freedom
Tagged Academic freedom, Academics, Darwin, evolution, Journals, Termination, Turkey
The Telegraph: University departments ‘facing closure’
University departments are facing closure over a lack of funding. Liverpool University is considering shutting its politics and communications studies, philosophy, and statistics departments.
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Posted in Budgets & Funding
Tagged Academics, Department closures, Job cuts
Washington Post: UDC Chief Wants to Cut Undergrad Major in Education
Low Graduation Rates Prompt Change as Sessoms Proceeds With an Institutional Overhaul
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The University of the District of Columbia plans to shut down its struggling undergraduate education department, which, officials say, is out of touch with current thinking on how to train teachers and fails to graduate the vast majority of its students.
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Posted in Academics
Tagged Academics, DC, Degrees, Standardized tests
Inside Higher Ed: Academic Accountability in Athletics
March 9, 2009
A new study of 77 Division III institutions of the National Collegiate Athletic Association reveals a consistent and widening academic performance gap between athletes and non-athletes.
Monday, the College Sports Project – an initiative of the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation – released its second annual report as part of a five-year longitudinal study comparing the academic performance of athletes to that of non-athletes at participating Division III institutions. The research project has gained much attention because Division III, unlike Divisions I and II, does not track the academic performance of athletes separately from that of the rest of an institution’s student body.
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Posted in Academics
Tagged Academics, Accountability, Athletics
Inside Higher Ed: Fraud and Friction at Florida St.
NCAA finds that tutors helped 61 athletes cheat in online courses, but university balks at punishment — including giving up wins in football that could cost coach shot at record.
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More Drivel From the New York Times
howtheuniversityworks.com: More Drivel From the New York Times
Today the Grey Lady lent the op-ed page to yet another Columbia prof with the same old faux “analysis” of graduate education.
Why golly, the problem with the university is that there aren’t enough teaching positions out there to employ all of our excess doctorates Mark C. Taylor says: “Most graduate programs in American universities produce a product for which there is no market (candidates for teaching positions that do not exist).” Because there are just too many folks with Ph.D.’s out there, “there will always be too many candidates for too few openings.”
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Posted in Commentary
Tagged Academics, adjuncts, Contingent labor, Job market, Working conditions