Opinion

In the first of a two-part series on yearly reviews, Elizabeth Simmons suggests how faculty members can frame their self-evaluative essays in ways that help them and their institutions.

By Elizabeth H. Simmons

A techno-phobe professor at U of All People experiments with the iPhone's voice-activated assistant -- and the results aren't pretty. David Galef surveys the damage.

By David Galef

Valentine’s Day is fast-approaching, and for many singletons out there, just passing by the grocery store’s “seasonal” aisle can be an unpleasant reminder of one’s relationship status. Of course, being single, even during Valentine’s Day, can be a liberating experience and also a time of personal growth and discovery. But what if you’re single and you’d like to start dating? What if you also are in graduate school? As we’ve discovered, dating while you’re a graduate student poses its own challenges. Here is some advice from Amy (who is happily taken) and Katy (who is currently negotiating the dating scene).

By GradHacker

The big secret amongst many of us who work in online learning is that we are not all that wild about online courses. Sure, we think online courses can be great, and can fill an important need, but what really gets us excited is learning.

By Joshua Kim

Should first-year students be assigned shared readings about adaptation to climate change? And if they were, what would that mean for curriculum?

By G. Rendell

Privacy is a fluid construct. People created privacy. We shape it, re-write it, rail against and/or for it. The social rules that dictate privacy are inherently individualized and collectively nebulous. Privacy is not rigid. However, when it comes to conversing about privacy and social media, there seem to be severely polarized viewpoints: those who use privacy as a blockade against using social media versus those who use social media without feeling compelled to protect themselves.

By Eric Stoller

I once attended a seminar presented by the National Endowment for the Humanities on the Philosophy of Math. As an economist teaching in a math department, I was obviously the participant with the most unusual background, as most of the other participants were philosophers of math, many teaching in philosophy departments. While there, I recall one woman discussing the question of “is there a middle number?” Since there is no highest or lowest number, the question became whether there is a middle number. Her conclusion was that there is, indeed, a middle number, and that number is zero.

By Rosemarie Emanuele

Plenty of folks see the move to digital textbooks as "inevitable." After all, more and more people are buying e-books and e-readers. Yet college students in particular continue to turn up their noses to digital textbooks. What assumptions are we making that lead us to think that digital textbooks are what students want, let alone need?

By Audrey Watters