Opinion

UVenus Around the Web: Profiling the Academic Blogosphere : Lee Skallerup Bessette at UVenus at The Guardian (UK). What’s New...

Reading Elizabeth’s and Aeron’s columns this week made me wish more than ever that I had been able to participate in the recent Organization for Communication, Language & Gender conference. I had originally been scheduled to do so, but a series of insane technicalities got in the way, and in the end it was simpler to stay home and sulk.

Halloween seems to bring out the best in higher education web-based creativity. When Todd Sanders (#SAtech Profle #1) sent me an email with "Academic Zombies" in the subject, I knew I was in for a treat! The Office of Academic Advising at the University of Wisconsin-Green Bay (UWGB) has, according to Sanders, "taken to the social web in a big way since July. They've ditched safe and cautious, for risky and fun. This isn't a social web success story, it's a story on the reevaluation of current communication practices... daring to stand out, putting in the extra effort, not fearing failure."

Working with nonprofit groups has a special set of rewards and challenges. Jessica Quillin offers advice on collaborating with mission-driven (but often resource-impaired) organizations.

In statistics one finds the experiment of flipping a coin and observing if the coin lands with heads facing up or with tails facing up. This is the central idea behind probability distributions that can be applied to many different situations involving uncertainty. I thought of the idea of a two sided coin recently when I realized that I am somewhat ambiguous about the coming holiday of Halloween.

A student affairs administrator explains how sexual assault guidance from the Education Department's civil rights office hurts campuses and students.

Last weekend we went pumpkin-picking, and then stopped for lunch. I ordered a Blue Moon with my burger, which, to my surprise, came with a slice of orange on the glass.

What is motivation? On one hand we mean motive, or the reason for doing something; on the other we mean the energy and enthusiasm a person invests in the thing that she or he is doing. When teachers are talking about motivating students, it seems to me that the two meanings are conflated.