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June 8th marked the end of the MITx free pilot course, Circuits and Electronics, which welcomed more registrants than all of MIT’s living alumni (122,000 as of January 2012). So after all the hype, what can we learn? I tracked down one person who actually made it through to the end and passed – and decided to conduct an anonymous ‘focus group of one.’

It’s an epidemic. Indeed, it’s probable that when spamming scholars, the owners of sham periodicals pay attention to whether the recipients’ academic interests are relevant to the journal’s disciplinary focus. Some scholars are even placed on editorial boards even though they have not given their consent.

I have already stated on multiple occasions that I am a musicals fan, preferably Broadway but I’m also passionate about college theater, middle and high school theater, not-for-profit theater, and off-Broadway theater.

As of this writing, Ben will graduate from high school in four days. On the one hand, this doesn't feel like a big deal — he, and most of his close friends, will stay in the city for college and continue to live at home, so it's not that different from being promoted to the next grade. On the other hand, of course, it is huge. In important ways, this ritual marks the official end of his childhood, and of his emotional dependence on his father and me.

What’s New at UVenus: ● Janni Aragon at University of Venus at The Guardian with We should be paying more...

Is the legacy approach to governance -- one reflecting a different historical era and a distinctly higher level of commitment to public higher education -- appropriate, defensible, and effective?

I know someone who explained the current student debt "crisis" to me. I figured I'd share her with the world.

Often in class or informal discussions my classmates and I would gleefully make up words, justifying the practice by saying “we’re academics – we’re just creating new vocabulary to expand the discourse.” Of course this is all just rationalizing the bastardization of the English language, but we amused ourselves with it nonetheless. In some ways, it was a kind of dreaming ahead – one day we would be “real” academics. Our made up words would subsequently be cited and we would go down in the annals of scholarship as being the source for an absolutely integral concept or phrase. It could happen right?