The list includes Dorothy Sayers’s Gaudy Night (1935); Wallace Stegner’s Crossing to Safety (1987); Ishmael Reed’s Japanese by Spring (1993); Philip Roth, The Human Stain (2000); and Tobias Wolff, Old School (2003). Here is Emily Temple at LitHub: The days...
college
“The very best thing about your life is a short stage in someone else’s story. And it is enough.”
Yesterday’s Current feature by Robert Erle Barham brought back a lot of memories for me. It is a must read for anyone sending their kids off to school this week. Here is a taste: “Please stay,” I said. “Please.” Now...
What should a college graduate know about slavery?
Historian Steven Mintz offers twenty-three things any college graduate should know about slavery. I like the idea of this post, but I would be happy if my general education (non-majors) students knew a handful of these facts. Here is a...
Turkeys are invading college campuses
Not a joke. Here is The New York Times: They are lounging next to bike racks and outside dorms. They are strutting across Harvard Yard. And, yes, they are occasionally fanning their feathers and charging at innocent students. Across the...
The history of back-to-school shopping
Here’s a relevant piece. Erin Blakemore of JSTOR Daily offers a brief history of back-to-school shopping. A taste: Saddle shoes and sweaters, milk bars and ballerina flats. In the mid-twentieth century, you could find all four at college shops: pop-up...
Class of 2021: What’s in your toolbox?
Historian David Perry offers some advice to the class of 2021: We understand more or less the science of viruses, of germ theory, of infection. We know how to quarantine and that it works, and with modern telecommunications, quarantine didn’t...
Out of the Zoo: “Operation Varsity Blues”
Annie Thorn is senior history major from Kalamazoo, Michigan and our intern here at The Way of Improvement Leads Home. As part of her internship she is writing a weekly column titled “Out of the Zoo.” It focuses on life as a...
In Australia, fees for history courses will rise by 113% to encourage students to enroll in STEM
What is going on in Australia? The government plans to increase university tuition for humanities, social sciences, and law because they apparently do not make students “job-ready.” Here is a taste of Anisa Purbarsari Horton’s piece at the BBC: Australia’s...
The president of the Association of Catholic Colleges and Universities on the “ethics of reopening”
Reverend Dennis Holtschneider, CM, is president of the Association of Catholic Colleges and Universities. Over at Inside Higher Ed he offers 13 things to think about as colleges and universities reopen in a few weeks: “Everyone holds ethical responsibility for others in...
“Students will be seated one fallen statue of a historical figure apart. As statues are the only way we learn history, this will also remove the need for students to buy books.”
McSweeney’s strikes again! Check out Bethany Keenan’s “Discipline-Specific Guidelines For Classroom Social Distancing.” Here are a few: History Students will be seated one fallen statue of a historical figure apart. As statues are the only way we learn history, this...
A Liberty University Divinity School Professor Responds to the Closing of the Philosophy Department
David Baggett taught philosophy and theology at Liberty University for fourteen years. In Fall 2020, he will join the faculty at Houston Baptist University. In a recent piece at “The Worldview Bulletin Newsletter,” Baggett responds to Liberty’s recent decision to...
College Teaching and the Planting of “Intellectual and Moral Seeds”
David Brooks offers some advice to the college class of 2020: The biggest way most colleges fail is this: They don’t plant the intellectual and moral seeds students are going to need later, when they get hit by the vicissitudes...
Why American Universities are Failing
Political scientist David Schultz of Hamline University offers a scathing critique of the American university in his recent piece at CounterPunch. This hits close to home. A taste: American universities are failing. They are private or public schools. They could...
How Will Coronavirus Redefine College?
The following piece is by University of Georgia history professor Stephen Mihm. Warning: What you are about to read is not pretty. A taste: Imagine, for a moment, if August rolls around and the pandemic has abated but colleges and...
Don’t Vilify Educated People
Have you seen memes like this?: Jonathan Couser, a history professor at Plymouth State University in Plymouth, New Hampshire, has some good thoughts about this meme. Here is what he recently wrote on his Facebook page (used with permission): Bash...
Teaching Stanley Hauerwas’s “Go With God”
Yesterday was our first day of discussion in Created and Called for Community (CCC). The students read Stanley Hauerwas‘s 2010 First Things essay “Go With God: An Open Letter to Young Christians on Their Way to College.” After some conversation about...
What Kind of Technology Do Undergraduates Want?
According to the EDUCAUSE Center for Analysis and Research, undergraduates: want mostly face-to-face learning environments. want lectures, student presentations, question and answer sessions, and class discussions to take place in a face-to-face learning environment , as opposed to homework, exams,...
Should Trump be Impeached? College Students Weigh-In
Here are a few quick takeaways from a recently released Axios poll of college students: 97% of college Democrats approve of impeachment 76% of college Independents approve of impeachment 22% of college Republicans approve of impeachment The number of college...
What Colleges and Universities Can Learn from the Silicon Valley (Ironically, its not what you might think)
Today we recorded Episode 54 of The Way of Improvement Leads Home Podcast. Our guest was Western Washington historian Johann Neem, author of What’s the Point of College: Seeking Purpose in an Age of Reform. I don’t want to give too...
Moving Into the Dorms, Circa 1785
My youngest daughter went to her first college class yesterday morning (Spanish I). She moved into the dorms last week and has managed to survive four full days of new student orientation. I think I will send her J.L. Bell’s...