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Exit Strategy

Should it be legal for a doctor to give that one final prescription for suffering? Scott McLemee considers a book on death with dignity.

Opening Up the Tenure Process

Bill Wolff explains why he put all of his documents online for all to see, and why other faculty members should too.

Vision and Decentralization

CUNY’s New Community College, in New York City, is attracting plenty of attention in higher ed circles. It’s an attempt to apply a panoply of best practices in raising graduation rates to a population that desperately needs it. Whether it becomes an exemplar of a new model, or withers on the vine as an expensive boutique project, remains to be seen.

How to remain productive over the summer

Summer is here, and for most of us it is also spelled as v-a-c-a-t-i-o-n: sunny days, ice cream, mint juleps, children at play, and long family evenings. But this is not all there is to it…

What Does the "Twilight of the Elites" Mean to Elite Higher Ed?

My wife and I were both born in 1969. Here is a short list of debacles, missteps, and failures that we've witnessed in our time on the planet: stagflation, the energy crisis (gas lines), the tech bubble, the 2nd Iraq war, the housing bubble, and the great recession (and you can add to this list). Another way we could describe the past 40 or so years, if feeling negative, could be: rising inequality, stagnant real wages, rapid increases in health care and education costs, growth in structural unemployment/underemployment, and political polarization and ineffectiveness in the face of these challenges.

More Smaller Thoughts

I'm still recovering from my trip, so here are some shorter thoughts on current happenings.

Zen and the art of hanging laundry

During a rare stretch of warm, sunny weather in our waterlogged Vancouver region, I look for every excuse to be...

Did I Build This?

I’ve been thinking and writing about failure lately, but it seems as though this is the week to argue about where success comes from.