Yesterday we posted on Inside Higher Ed‘s men’s bracket. Today we have the women: Here at Inside Higher Ed, though, we celebrate the start of March Madness a little differently from the 1.44 million people who tuned in earlier this month to this […]
colleges and universities
What if the NCAA tournament was based on academics? Congratulations, Clemson Tigers!
Inside Higher Ed does this every year and it’s great. Here is Johanna Alonso: To determine the winners, we used the NCAA’s key academic performance metric, known as the academic progress rate, for the 2022–23 academic year, the most recent data […]
Alumni magazines are on the rise
We receive eight different alumni magazines in our household. I read all of them. I am always looking for good stories and great writing. According to a recent piece at Inside Higher Ed, colleges and universities throughout the country are […]
Reviving intellectual life in the university is “more than simply promoting the humanities or encouraging interdisciplinary study”
Earlier today I posted on Steven Mintz’s categorization of university professors. Read it here and figure out where you fall in Mintz’s taxonomy. Mintz’s categorized professors as part of his larger thoughts on how to make universities less anti-intellectual. Here […]
The Author’s Corner with Amanda E. Hayes
Amanda E. Hayes is Associate Professor of English at Kent State University Tuscarawas. This interview is based on her new book, The Madison Women: Gender, Higher Education, and Literacy in Nineteenth-Century Appalachia (West Virginia University Press, 2024). JF: What led […]
Where are the conservatives and pluralists in higher education?
Steve Teles, a political scientist at The Johns Hopkins University, writes: “The university’s ideological narrowing has advanced so far that even liberal institutionalists–faculty who believe universities should be places of intellectual pluralism and adhere to the traditional academic norms of […]
The Author’s Corner with Elizabeth Kalbfleisch
Elizabeth Kalbfleisch is Associate Professor of English at Southern Connecticut State University. This interview is based on her new book, Making the Radical University: Identity and Politics on the American College Campus, 1966–1991 (University of Massachusetts Press, 2024). JF: What led […]
“And what is the best argument of the other side?”
Writing at The Atlantic, Caitlin Flanagan thinks colleges are lying to students. Colleges are saying professors want to teach students how to think, but professors are actually telling students what to think. Here is a taste of Flanagan’s piece: My […]
The Author’s Corner with Adam R. Nelson
Adam R. Nelson is Vilas Distinguished Achievement Professor of Educational Policy Studies and History at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. This interview is based on his new book, Capital of Mind: The Idea of a Modern American University (University of Chicago Press, […]
The Author’s Corner with Adam R. Nelson
Adam R. Nelson is Vilas Distinguished Achievement Professor of Educational Policy Studies and History at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. This interview is based on his new book, Exchange of Ideas: The Economy of Higher Education in Early America (University of Chicago […]
The Author’s Corner with Travis D. Boyce
Travis D. Boyce is Associate Professor and Chair of the Department of African American Studies at San JosĂ© State University. This interview is based on his new book, Steady and Measured: Benner C. Turner, A Black College President in the […]
The “most radical thing” universities “have accomplished in the 21st century is hiking their tuition rates and plunging millions…further into debt”
Here is Bates College environmental studies professor Tyler Austin Harper at The Atlantic: The most popular major at Harvard, Yale, and many other supposedly leftist universities is economics—not exactly the subject of choice for aspiring anti-capitalists. At the University of […]
UPenn administrator: “Students spouting ideological catchphrases have revealed their moral obliviousness and the deficiency of their educations”
Dr. Ezekiel Emanuel is a physician and vice provost for global initiatives and a professor of medical ethics and health policy at the University of Pennsylvania. Here is a taste of his New York Times piece: “The Moral Deficiences of […]
The Author’s Corner with Lauren Lassabe Shepherd
Lauren Lassabe Shepherd is an instructor at the University of New Orleans and an IUPUI-SUSIH Community Scholar. This interview is based on her new book, Resistance from the Right: Conservatives and the Campus Wars in Modern America (University of North […]
Should universities be more like monasteries?
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 […]
Is Wellesley College still a women’s college?
In his 2017 book Confident Pluralism: Surviving and Thriving Through Deep Difference, Washington University Law Professor John Inazu writes: Wellesley College, an all-women’s school, now confronts internal challenges around its growing transgender student population. Even though Wellesley admits only women, […]
What is going at Valparaiso University?
The president of the Lutheran university in Indiana wants to sell a Georgia O’Keefe painting to pay for the renovation of two dormitories. The story caught the attention of New York Times reporter Kalia Richardson. Here is a taste of […]
The University of Austin is taking shape
Roughly one year ago a group of intellectuals concerned with academic freedom founded the University of Austin. We covered its launch here and here and here. Much of the criticism that the University of Austin faced when it launched was […]
William & Mary’s monument to the enslaved
More and more colleges and universities are coming to grips with their connections to slavery. Here is historian Jody Lynn Allen at Perspectives on History: In the 1930s, William & Mary (W&M) constructed a four-foot brick wall around the oldest […]
The point of college is “transforming one’s mind.” Most college students never get this message.
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 don’t see value […]