Opinion

Closures speak volumes about a university's priorities and about academe's priorities, writes Jeffrey R. Di Leo.

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The conclusion that remedial education has failed is based on flawed interpretations of data and unsupported assertions, write Hunter R. Boylan and Alexandros Goudas.

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Last week at this time I was about to leave for my annual conference, which is now over. As I mentioned, I brought my daughter with me, and I promised to report back on how attending a conference with her went. In a word: great.

By Libby Gruner and Ellsabeth Gruner

In the wake of the mess at UVA, in which a President was pushed out by a rogue faction of a Board that felt she lacked “strategic dynamism,” those of us who follow these things have been left to wonder just what that might mean.

By Dean Dad

We’re halfway through the academic year in South Africa, and like many of my colleagues, I’ve been catching my breath after the deluge of marking which arrived at the end of the first semester. I’ve taught since beginning my graduate studies, and have marked students’ essays and exam scripts both in South Africa and the UK. Over the past eight years, what has struck me is that the quality of students’ writing and research hasn’t varied all that greatly; I can remember a few very bad, and some brilliant, pieces of work, but I haven’t noticed a decline or marked improvement in the standard of the work submitted to me.

By Sarah Emily Duff

It's retreat season once again. Does your department, team, division, or group have any plans for an offsite retreat? Where are you going? Can you offer any advice about retreat best practices.

By Joshua Kim

When ifttt (it's lowercase, so it has to be cool, right?) first appeared on the social tech scene, I took a gander and then I moved on. Thankfully, I know enough about companies with unique names to not put them on permanent ignore. ifttt (I was going to make a bell hooks reference about capitalization…it didn't work.) is all about figuring out the connections between "if this then that." The functionality of ifttt is built around tasks, actions, and channels. For example, let's say you wanted to save your Instagram photos into your Dropbox account. With ifttt, it's simple, the community has already created that particular recipe.

By Eric Stoller

Some topics never go away. Collegiality and its evil twin, incivility, is one of them.

By Dean Dad