Our annual Thanksgiving tradition here at The Way of Improvement Leads Home. I wroteĀ thisĀ Inside Higher EdĀ pieceĀ on gratitude in November 2008.Ā I have had to remind myself of this piece a lot in the last couple of years.āJF It was a...
Here is historian Carolyn Eastman, the book review editor at the William and Mary Quarterly, at The Chronicle of Higher Education: Reviews can contain perfunctory writing, boring chapter-by-chapter summaries, and criticism so mild itās almost imperceptible. But having just stepped...
Reading McWhorter’s piece today at The New York Times reminds me of the first time I read Richard Rodriguez’s Hunger of Memory twenty years ago. The only difference is that McWhorter took the Ivy League job and Rodriguez turned it...
Princeton historian David A. Bell thinks such official pronouncements are a mistake. Here is a taste of his piece at The Chronicle of Higher Education: Where does your English department stand on abortion rights? What does the School of Public...
Here is a taste of Molly Worthen’s piece at The New York Times: Colleges should offer a radically low-tech first-year program for students who want to apply: a secular monastery within the modern university, with a curated set of courses...
Florida governor Ron DeSantis just signed a bill banning diversity, equity, and inclusion programs at public universities. Here are two pieces I read today about the state of DEI on campuses and in the corporate world. Here is a taste...
Readers of Current will know Nadya Williams as our book review editor and lead blogger at The Arena. But she also spent the last fifteen years (following her Ph.D at Princeton) teaching ancient history at the University of West Georgia....
Last month I wrote a post about Cornell University’s decision to reject a student resolution requiring faculty to issue trigger warnings for “traumatic conflict in the classroom.” Yesterday The Washington Post editorial board praised the Cornell decision and others like...
I’ve read a lot of Russell Jacoby over the years. I imagine his recent piece at Tablet is going to anger a lot of people. I also don’t think he cares. Whatever the case, his ideas are worth considering. Here...
Here is the University of Houston historian at his Insider Higher Ed blog: No longer does the āsimple advice to high schoolers to āgo to collegeāā suffice. What one studies and where one studies matter greatly in terms of return...
Earlier today we called your attention to a Canadian Broadcasting Company story on Doug Mastriano’s Ph.D dissertation at the University of New Brunswick. In that post I noted that current University of New Brunswick students were concerned about the reputation...
Here is a small taste of the New York University psychology professor’s piece at The Chronicle of Higher Education: I have been thinking a lot about fiduciary duty because my main professional association ā theĀ Society for Personality and Social Psychology,...
I have three recurring dreams about school and academic life. In the first dream, I am a college student taking a literature class. After the first few days of lectures I stop attending the class and do not return until...
Here is community college dean Matt Reed at Insider Higher Education: Love of reading isnāt all puppies and unicorns, of course. We have a frightening number of books in the house, both on display and in boxes in the basement....
Not familiar with this controversy? Get up to speed here. Here is a taste of Will’s Washington Post column: “In the sandbox also known as academic, it’s the golden age of the grovel“: Today, many academic historians, writing history āthat...
The author of Excellent Sheep: The Miseducation of the American Elite could not find another job after Yale denied him tenure. In this piece at Quillette he talks about intellectual corruption, careerism, and academic theory. A taste: For me, graduate...
Steven Mintz, a historian at the University of Houston, thinks so. Here is a taste of his recent blog post at Inside Higher Ed: Editors, Iāve discovered, are desperate to find scholars willing to review articles, prospectuses and book manuscripts....
Joseph Keegin, the editor of The Point, gives us a lot to think about in this piece at The Chronicle of Higher Education. Here is a taste: As academic humanities departments shed undergraduates and lose both prestige and funding, professors...
Here is a taste of Wendy Fischman and Howard Gardner‘s piece at The Chronicle of Higher Education: In our 1,000 hour-long conversations with students, we found that nearly half of them miss the point of college. They donāt see value...
Princeton University just fired a tenured classic professor. Read about it here. And now read Katz’s view of his firing at The Wall Street Journal: Nearly two years ago, I wrote in these pages, āI survived cancellation at Princeton.ā I was...
