Opinion

A new correspondent writes: "I've been teaching college English as an adjunct for a few years (in addition to my full-time gig at a high school). I love teaching college and want to move into it full time. I have a BA and an MA in English right now. My question for you is, from a community college hiring perspective, is there more value in a PhD than a DA (doctor of arts)?"

This past weekend we dropped our younger daughter off at sleep-away camp. As we were helping her carry her trunk and meeting her counselors and bunk mates I had the following thoughts:

Midsummer may have been last month by the calendar, but it’s July that feels like the middle of the summer. If I’m truly honest with myself, the middle of my summer passed a few weeks ago, but with six weeks (yikes! Only six?) until the start of classes, mid-July seems close enough. For six more weeks, my time is unscheduled, my routines refigured by heat, an office renovation, and—most importantly—a respite from classes and committee meetings. I’m gloriously unscheduled, free of routine … mostly.

A NYT article, More Demands on Cell Carriers in Surveillance, resounds with the theme that technology has disrupted the Fourth Amendment jurisprudence in communications. It is also a testament of what the USA-Patriot Act has wrought not because that Act created the gap but because it exacerbated it. More than a decade later, that which has been lost in the bargain becomes more obvious.

Too many service responsibilities? Not enough research time to push for full professor? Kerry Ann Rockquemore writes that it's time to change your departmental image.

Len Niehoff worked on the legal team that saved affirmative action during the last Supreme Court review of the practice. As a law school teacher, he writes that he finds the arguments even more compelling.

In my perfect world, the “disruptive innovation” people and the “crack down on fraud” financial aid people would be locked in a room to fight it out, and nobody could pass any new rules until there was a clear winner.

Last May, Inside Higher Ed reported that Russell Berman, past president of the Modern Language Association (MLA) and Stanford University professor, has put forth a proposal together with five other Stanford colleagues to rethink the humanities PhD there. They tackled the question of whether and how to make the humanities PhD relevant today. In order to accomplish this, they posit that time to degree must be reduced and students should be trained for a diversity of career tracks, not limited to the traditional tenure track career path.