Blogs

It'll take less time than it would to eat one of those artisan mini-cupcakes they had outside the bookfair entrance.

It generally starts with a statement and then ends with a question. The statement is usually framed as: "Social media is/are a 24/7 concern." The question that follows said statement has consistently been: "What do we do about that?" There's a fascinating fear of social media that is ingrained in a lot of student affairs practitioners.

Remember how the long tail was going to be the greatest thing ever? How technical innovation would let a thousand flowers bloom? How Silicon Valley’s great visionaries would lead us away from a world of few options and give us a world full of endless choices? That was then. Now it's all about me.

I was recently at the cinema and watched a new production based on the biography of political theorist Hannah Arendt. The film portrays Arendt primarily as the author of the controversial book Eichmann in Jerusalem, a book that provoked a wide debate about the nature of evil, responsibility, and nationalism, and nearly cost her her university position. In the culminating scene of the film, Arendt holds an open lecture in the university auditorium in front of a large audience of students, colleagues and (former) friends. In it, she is portrayed as an astute speaker, a convinced and convincing teacher, passionate, articulate and inspiring.

The obstacles aren’t trivial, but I drew hope from seeing Education Secretary Arne Duncan tweet approvingly a link to a story about Maryland K-12 schools adopting later start times.

So I need a new backpack. The world's best backpack for anyone that works at the intersection of learning and technology. Do you have any recommendations?

At the most recent conference of the Association for Slavic, Eastern European and Eurasian Studies (ASEEES), held last November, representatives from several academic presses and scholars who had recently published monographs based on their dissertations held a roundtable dedicated to giving current grad students tips on what they should prepare for if they intend on turning their dissertation into a book.

When I teach Principles of Macroeconomics (which I have not done for some time), I teach, among other things, the Keysian model that says that the total spending in the economy can be summarized as consisting of “C+I+G”. That is, it is made up of consumer spending (C), business investment (I) and government spending (G). I thought of this recently when I contemplated a gift that will allow Ursuline College to make a major investment in our facilities. Thanks to an anonymous donor, we are able to proceed with plans for a building which will be called the “Center for the Creative and Healing Arts.” We plan to break ground on this investment in the fall.