Filter & Sort
On the Verge of De-Extinction
Coming soon to an ecosystem near you: cloned mammoths, dodoes, and other long-dead beasts. Or semi-cloned, anyway. Scott McLemee learns the difference.
When Sexual Harassment Is a Campus Tradition
A faculty member recounts feeling that she couldn't complain about an event that humiliated her and other female professors, but was viewed as "good fun" by many others.
Do We Know How to Judge Teaching?
Stephen L. Chew writes that current approaches -- for awards or tenure and promotion -- are based too much on passion or student enjoyment and not enough on actual learning.
Observations of Professors: Tread Lightly
Student evaluations of teaching are suspect -- but increasing classroom observation of professors as an alternative has its own set of problems, write Jonathan Golding and Philipp Kraemer.
The Key Flaw With Private University Engineering
It's great for Harvard that a $400 million gift will help it build an excellent program, but public universities are the ones change the workforce in engineering, writes Andreas Cangellaris.
Post-Post-Racial America?
Does the arc of the universe bend toward justice? Scott McLemee looks into a philosopher's book on racial profiling and police homicide.
Why Ethics Codes Fail
The American Psychological Association scandal is a useful reminder that codes of conduct come from individuals with their own biases, and scholarly associations need to accept and deal with that reality, writes Laura Stark.
Time for a New Strategy
The erosion of faculty rights in Wisconsin shows that focusing on professors or academe alone won't work, and that it's time to talk about all employees and employers, writes Christopher Newfield.