Blogs

Much has been said about the (potential) impact of recent higher education policies of the English government, particularly regarding the effects of the increased fees on student access and participation and on the higher education institutions’ budgets. Now closer to the date—from September 2012—it is worthwhile to take stock.

These days, you can use a search engine like Google to find pretty much anything - from a local spa to information about Vienna. Noodle is attempting to allow users to find a wide range of learning opportunities.

Where will the next generation of deans come from? It’s an increasingly urgent question, since the current crop is largely aging out of the profession. And in many settings, there’s no heir apparent at the ready.

My friend Joe Storch, who works as an attorney at the SUNY System Office, calls an idea that has been...

If we begin to ask students to write in different forms using electronic mediums and digital tools, do we also need to teach them about design?

Recently, there’s been considerable interest in how academics can evaluate the impact of social media outputs. A recent article, titled “Who Gives A Tweet? Evaluating Microblog Content Value” [PDF] and signed by Paul André, Michael S. Bernstein and Kurt Luther, shares the results of a study which involved the creation of an online tool, titled “Who Gives ATweet?” (WGAT).

When I started graduate school, I lived with a girl who owned a sweet-natured and protective black lab who bonded well with me. When my first roommate graduated, I happily accepted a new roommate who owned a miniature pomeranian and a Persian cat. Unfortunately, this did not work out quite as well as the previous living situation, as the pom took to relieving himself in my bedroom while I was at class, and the Persian exhibited a depression so severe that she sat unmoving on a chair for days at a time. These situations underscored some of the advantages and disadvantages to owning pets in graduate school.

The worries began as soon as the economic news was released. After three months of strong economic growth, the March figures just recently announced were a major disappointment. The gain in March was a modest 120,000 jobs, half of what the gains were from December through February. And of course as soon as the statistics were announced, both the economic doubters as well as the political opponents of the Obama administration began to question the strength of the recovery. For me, one month of bad news doesn’t represent the start of a new recession just as one month of good news doesn’t represent a vibrant recovery.