Blogs

Should colleges use on-campus advertising as a revenue source?

Just over a quarter of a century ago, David Bartholomae published an influential essay, “Inventing the University,” in which he explored the difficulty new college students have as writers, trying to grasp the social discourse conventions of a totally unfamiliar community: they have to invent the university. Project Information Literacy, a font of interesting research about colleges students and their attempts to make sense of the world of information, has just come out with a fascinating new report about how new graduates navigate information on the job. It turns out they have to invent the workplace, too, and it’s not easy.

First, I think we should take a moment to acknowledge the role that Michael Chasen has played over the past 15 years as a founder and CEO of Blackboard in changing our edtech industry. Many will disagree with me, but I believe that Blackboard has been part of accelerating a transition to active learning at scale, and the growth of the LMS industry has made possible the rapid diffusion of blended and online learning. Michael Chasen's role in bringing both capital and consolidation to an underfunded and fragmented edtech industry should not be minimized.

Some thoughts on the recent Gawker article "outing" the identity of "the biggest troll on the Web." Should we name names of the trolls in academia? To what end?

Your Statement of Purpose document can seem hugely intimidating, particularly if you are an undergraduate writing one for the first time. And frankly, it should feel important. This document is the first point of contact between you and the admissions committee, and it remains the only document within your application package where you are able to speak frankly and directly about who you are and why you want to go to graduate school. It is a navel gazing kind of document, where you think hard about who you are and what you want. It should be at least a little intimidating, and you should definitely not leave it until the last minute. A statement of purpose is your chance to stand out among the crowd, and become more than just grades and test scores.

In typical Latin American fashion, university leaders in this part of the world shoot the messenger, suspect global conspiracy, and seek refuge in an idiosyncratic parallel universe: a group met in Mexico in May, backed by UNESCO, to denounce the global rankings as invalid measurements of quality, decry the “Anglo Saxon” bias in them, and proclaim that given than universities in this part of the world are different, rankings should be designed that reflect the “social” mission of universities in Latin America, an elusive concept to name what universities supposedly do in here that is not research, or teaching, or transfer of research results, or indeed any of the functions associated with the university as an institution elsewhere in the world.

I've been trying, more or less successfully, to complain less, work smarter rather than harder, and take some time for myself, this semester. In other words, I've been trying to avoid becoming one of the miserable professoriate described in William Panapacker's recent piece in the Chronicle of Higher Ed. I really don't think it's my duty to be miserable--and, most of the time, I'm really not miserable. I have a great job with colleagues I like and respect, my time is usually pretty self-scheduled, and it would be worse than churlish to complain about committee work or excess grading when I am lucky enough to be employed, let alone tenured.

In the hubbub of graduate school program searching and applications, there’s one thing that should happen during your (early) considerations: dropping the big F-Bomb- Finances.