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Opinion
The Teaching Track? Really?
The idea that there should be two tracks in higher ed is making the rounds again. I'm not impressed.
Opinion
The Risks of Being an Independent Researcher
Initially, I wanted to write about ‘the benefits’ instead of mentioning a term with intrinsic conflicting, and not always positive, connotations. On the other hand, while trying to make a mental summary of my ideas, I discovered that, in fact, the option of being an independent researcher may present several serious challenges.
Opinion
A College Tax?
It’s “Bad Idea Week” over at the Chronicle. They’ve solicited “out of the box” ideas for changing higher education. Some of them -- hey, what if community colleges hired faculty to teach? -- are just banal. (What, exactly, do you think we’ve been doing?) But others are interesting failures.
Opinion
Applying "Why School" to Higher Ed
Why School? is part of the wonderful new TED Books series. Have you read any of these TED books? We are in the middle of a concise nonfiction renaissance, made possible by e-book readers, tablets, and new software platforms such as Atavist. The primary concern in Why School? is K-12.
Opinion
ABC’s and PhD’s: The remarkable benefits of comfortable collaboration
One of my best friends in grad school was also my best colleague. When we first met early in my first year of graduate school (her second), we were in different graduate programs, both of us attending a neurobiology class and we bonded on the bus ride to the medical school class three times a week. I bombed the class - she aced it - but it was well worth my taking, since getting to know her was probably one of the single best things for my graduate career.
Opinion
The New Liberal Arts
It's time for traditional disciplines to replace term papers with skills that will help graduates throughout their careers, writes Michael Staton.
Opinion
Project Information Literacy: Inventing the Workplace
Just over a quarter of a century ago, David Bartholomae published an influential essay, “Inventing the University,” in which he explored the difficulty new college students have as writers, trying to grasp the social discourse conventions of a totally unfamiliar community: they have to invent the university. Project Information Literacy, a font of interesting research about colleges students and their attempts to make sense of the world of information, has just come out with a fascinating new report about how new graduates navigate information on the job. It turns out they have to invent the workplace, too, and it’s not easy.