Blogs

Some thoughts on what's been going on in higher ed.

If you haven’t seen this interview with Jane Wellman, it’s well worth a read. She’s an expert on the drivers of college costs, and she was the founding director of the Delta Cost Project.

There are few higher education institutions that would report a disinterest in becoming more internationally connected, more open to international students or being able to offer more international research opportunities to their faculty.

From Thursday morning to Saturday night, I have been (and will continue to be) reporting live from the Society for American Archaeology 2012 conference in Memphis, TN. I am currently a second year PhD graduate student in Anthropology, with a focus on Archaeology. Conferences are important, regardless of your discipline. As a grad student we can easily settle into our departments, but the real world is much more diverse and is a reality we need to learn to face. Not only are the people attending your academic conference the same individuals who shape the discipline, they are also your peers.

The Supremes have agreed to hear a case that has some troubling implications for libraries. Kirtsaeng v. Wiley is not just about textbooks. It’s about whether any work that is copyrighted and produced outside the United States can be legally loaned or resold in the U.S. without the copyright owner’s permission. We’re talking about the First Sale Doctrine, which is how libraries get away with our profligate sharing.

Over the past few weeks, I’ve been avoiding the inter library loans sections of my university’s library. Guiltily, I’ve been clicking ‘delete’ on the several emails they’ve sent me to remind me to return about twenty books borrowed from other South African libraries.

When people learn that I am both a full professor of Mathematics and an Economist who studies the economics of nonprofit organizations, they are often confused. “What do you teach?” is the common question that follows, to which there is a quick answer, a short answer and a long answer.

The first in a series of stupid questions I'm asking because I don't know the answers.