Filter & Sort
“General Education,” Within and Without
What do you expect a college graduate to know? What do you expect a college graduate to be like? The questions are very different. They start from different assumptions, and are usually asked by different people with different goals. A good answer to one may not shed much light on the other.
The Future of the College Bookstore
As more and more educational content -- textbooks and course materials -- is available digitally, what's the future of the local campus bookstore? Will it adapt?
Library Borrowing: Kindle vs. OverDrive
Why is the e-book borrowing experience with OverDrive so atrocious? How is it that Amazon is able to make the "Kindle Books from Your Local Library" so easy, while OverDrive makes the process so painful?
Mothering at Mid-Career: Silence
I’ve had laryngitis since last Wednesday. Not just a little scratchy throat, a gravelly whisky voice, a sultry contralto—no, I’ve been pretty thoroughly silenced. For two days I had not even a throaty whisper—then I developed a little Kathleen Turner-esque huskiness that quickly turned back into silence when I tried to use it too much. I’ve had to cancel seven meetings, one class, and a planned trip to speak at another college. Every evening I’ve hoped I’d wake up able to speak, and every morning it’s been clear I can’t.
Riches to rags
I've been looking at the EPA's 2009 report on Municipal Solid Waste in the United States. It's not a subject that gets most people's attention until the landfill threatens to overflow or the tipping fee goes up, by which time (of course) the major opportunity is already past.
An Open Letter to Chancellor Katehi of the University of California, Davis
Dear Chancellor Katehi, I imagine you’re feeling burned right now. You trusted the wrong people, and find yourself in a...
Lest We Forget
Six months ago, we here at University of Venus wrote passionately about our reactions to the beating and blinding of Rumana Monzur by her husband and in front of their daughter. We hoped that this would shed light on the issue of violence against women and the power imbalance that still exists between men and women. But we also feared for her academic career, her and her daughter’s safety, and her future more generally. How is she?