Filter & Sort
Phoenix, Ownership, and Control
Life happens when it happens, but I picked a hell of a week to take a blogging break. The University of Phoenix has been informed that it’s likely to be put on probation by the Higher Learning Commission of the North Central Association, its regional accreditor.
Re-evaluating My Relationship With Student Evaluations
Most universities use student evaluation forms as a means of measuring student satisfaction and teaching effectiveness of the instructors. What many do not know is that most instructors have a like and dislike relationship with the official student evaluations. For contingent faculty, the evaluations are crucial to keeping their jobs.
Hacking Your Way to Wellness in 15 Minutes or Less
In grad school, wellness, defined here as the deliberate choice to harmonize the physical, emotional, social, and mental aspects of ourselves, can seem like a Rubiks cube. Luckily, there are many hacks such as apps, to help grads put it together by becoming more aware of these facets of themselves.
"Against Security" and Our Locked Down Learning Content
What does public restroom design, airport screening procedures, subway safety planning, Ground Zero rebuilding, and New Orleans flood control all have in common?
Games, Games, Games
My 4-year-old son is obsessed with Star Wars Angry Birds. I mostly decide that that's a good thing.
President's Week
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.
Opposition to War
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.
Replacing A/P George at Nanyang Technological University?
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.