Blogs

Is it possible that I've become too enamored with Jim O'Neill's BRIC (Brazil, Russia, India, China) concept? This summer I gave O'Neil's book, The Growth Map: Economic Opportunity in the BRICs and Beyond, a glowing review. Sharma's Breakout Nations has caused me to re-think, or at least question, some of my BRIC enthusiasm.

The results are starting to come in and are proving to be quite interesting.

I’m watching our students, especially our 1st year students, walk around campus from class to class- with backpacks filled with books. And I know from looking at course outlines that textbooks in paper format continue to dominate higher education classes as they did when I went to college. There is even a feeling, still prevalent, that regardless of all the technological advances, textbooks, as we have always known them, will continue their dominance for at least another decade. I don’t think that will happen.

The reactions to this article, which has been circulating the Internet, seem to fall into three general clusters.

In my academic research, I look at the governance of universities and implementation of new policies that are described as “neoliberal”. This involves trends such as privatization of funding (including increased tuition), treatment of students as consumers or customers and of education as a “private good”, and the marketization of education.

Over the past couple of years the censoring of self-expression has been a hot topic on many campuses. Recently the media washed ashore a new wave of controversy concerning Hampton University’s business school policy that restricts MBA students from wearing their hair in locs (or what is more commonly referred to as “Dread-locs”). This comes on the heels of the brouhaha that developed following the implementation of a written dress code policy at Morehouse College.

Did you read Andrew Rice's terrific article in the NYT's this Tuesday, Anatomy of a Campus Coup, about the failed attempt to ouster president Sullivan from the University of Virginia? This well-reported article places the nasty fight between UVa's board and what ended up being UVA's academic community (in which Sullivan is well respected) within the context of the larger economic pressures facing higher ed.

Quote from program accreditation visiting team leader yesterday: “Surprisingly, the faculty seem to respect the administration.” I think that’s what they call a left-handed compliment.