Blogs

Up to age 18, I had never been on a plane and the furthest I traveled was to a camp in Pennsylvania. My kids, who are not yet 18, have already flown hundreds of thousands of miles by plane and have flown across both the Atlantic and the Pacific. But the differences are even more profound. Staying in touch with friends when I traveled, either with my parents or to camp, consisted of a once a week phone call and more frequent postcards. I always looked carefully to find the right postcards, those that would give a friend or family member at least some sense of what I was seeing or experiencing. Now my younger daughter stays in touch with her friends by facetimeing them and if she borrows my wife’s iPAD, she is even facetimeing multiple friends at the same time.

I have been following, with sometimes horrified fascination, the initial trial of Pfc. Bradley Manning. At the same time, I have been reading Pat Barker's Regeneration, which is, among other things, a meditation on the conflict between conscience and patriotic duty among officers serving in World War I.

Like many social scientists with ties and genuine affection for Singapore, I was shocked when I heard Nanyang Technological University (NTU) recently denied tenure to Dr. Cherian George (pictured to the right). But rather than speculate as to why NTU, led by President Bertil Andersson (a Swedish national, and former Chief Executive of the European Science Foundation, 2004-2007) and Provost Freddy Boey, chose to sanction this decision, I decided to think laterally and pondered what a position description for a replacement hire in George's areas of expertise would be like.

I have a friend who is tough-minded, outspoken, and perennially skeptical. She’s not a pushover, and she’s not the least bit sentimental. But last week, with the stroke of a pen, the president reduced her to tears.

The world of educational publishing is completely fascinating. What other industry faces more pressure to change in this world of print-to-digital than textbook publishers? How will the leadership of the large education publishing companies pull off this transition? What role will publishing play in how higher ed evolves in an age of information abundance?

Spring break looms and whether we’re fretting about baring a little skin after the long winter months or preparing to hunker down to get some work done, this time of year often prompts the desire to develop better habits. For some, the longer days and (slightly) warmer weather may motivate us to kickstart our exercise routine.

One of the cool aspects of teaching college is that I get to learn things from my students that I would not otherwise learn. My need to learn from them most often occurs because I live in a very different world than they do, especially in regards to my relationship to technology.

Giving our curriculum, our co-curricular activities and our research a regional emphasis -- an explicit awareness of, and engagement with, local geography -- can do more than just improve town/gown relations. It can position our communities to survive an increasingly challenging future, and our institutions to serve an increasingly central role in that future.